Thanksgiving 2017

Going to Lawrence, Kansas for Thanksgiving has become a fairly regular thing for our family.  Kristi's family is there and now we also have Grammy and Papa living just a mile from Kristi.  So there is double the reason to go to Kansas.  Our kids are also blessed to have the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school, while Kristi's kids still have school for the first two days of the week.  With us having that extra time to travel, it just makes sense that we would go to them.  In 2017 we drove out on Sunday the 19th of November.  The trip is fairly quick (500 miles straight east on I70) and the kids are turning into great travelers so it's fairly easy.  On Monday we spent time with Grammy and Papa and then on Tuesday we had some errands to run in the morning.  Reid had forgotten a tie for the trip and since he needed it for Finn's baptism that was happening later in the week I let Finn pick a tie for him.  I liked his choice.

Later on Tuesday Kristi checked the kids out of school just a little early and we headed into Topeka to go to a Children's museum.  We had a great time and it's definitely somewhere we need to go back to.

I love this picture of our girls changing the tires.  And Bree's tutu!

Not only did we happen to be in town that week, but Meagan (Reid's oldest niece--daughter of his oldest brother) was also in town with her family.  Her husband was home on R&R from a deployment and they brought their family to Kansas City to play at Great Wolf Lodge.  They took an evening off from the water park and came out to Lawrence to see Grammy, Papa, and Kristi, and by extension, they saw us as well.  It was a large family gathering with lots of little ones running around.

Grammy and Papa on the right with all of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that were there.

This picture added in the two children (Reid and Kristi), their spouses (me and Erik), and then Meagan's husband (Eric) and then all of our kids.  It was a chaotic and happy group that night.  I was particularly grateful that my boys really enjoyed playing with Meagan's oldest--Rhys.  He is their first cousin once removed.

The next day we all went to see Coco on opening day.  We really liked the movie and had a good time seeing it with the cousins.  It was during this movie that I finished up a transaction that I had started during our visit to the Children's museum the afternoon before.  An offhanded comment about a potential Christmas present for the kids turned into a serious discussion, and then a serious purchase.  The kids were clueless for a couple of days more.

Thanksgiving day 2017  Yes, it's fairly warm in Kansas even in November. Bree looks as these pictures and she says, "Me and Maci love each other."  I adore their friendship and hope they always remember their bond as they grow up.

This is what our boys like to do when they get together.  Two 10 year olds and 8 year olds in one room.

The day after Thanksgiving we held a joint baptism for Isaac and Finn.  What a blessing to be able to celebrate these two boys together.  Kristi gave the talk on baptism and she talked about Mary and Elizabeth being cousins and being close during their pregnancies and then eventually the baptism of the Savior by John.  Yes, the whole analogy turned me into a blubbering mess.  There were two additional children being baptized that day, they were convert baptisms, so I was trying to hold it together.

On Saturday we told the kids why we had extended our stay one day.  We had bought a puppy for them that was making her way from Nashville, Tennessee to us in Lawrence, Kansas.  The ward mission leader of Kristi's ward loves dogs, has no kids, and was heading to Nashville for Thanksgiving.  The situation couldn't have worked out any better than it did.  That puppy was meant to be ours.  We spent the morning on Saturday telling the kids and then going to shop for puppy items.  We were hoping to have her by bedtime that night.  Unfortunately the trip was delayed a bit and she didn't arrive at Grammy's until after 10pm.  But the kids were tired enough to go to bed and wait until the morning to meet their new puppy.  This picture is Bree and Maci saying goodbye on Saturday night.  They ended up seeing each other one more time the next morning when Kristi brought the kids over to meet the puppy.

Meeting their puppy for the first time on Sunday morning

Posing with their puppy on a bench at Grammy's house before loading in the car to drive home

The puppy, who we named Rosie on the drive home, was the perfect early Christmas present for our us.  

She's a tad spoiled!