since we didn’t make it to ny all summer, we decided to head up for thanksgiving this year. when we homeschooled and then in covid and then when the schools gave a whole week for thanksgiving, it was a lot easier. but with kids in activities and work and my school, it was a little bit more of a tight squeeze. but, we loaded up the van and drove north.
definitely sheetz shenanigans. i’ve replaced trying to wrangle wild toddlers in a gas station to attempting to embarrass teenagers. the circle of life.
back at home, with josh allen’s face plastered everywhere, and a tim hortons on each end of town.
of course, as usual, we kicked off our visit with the obligatory massive mountain of wings and table sized sheet pizza. also, pizza frites, for extra carb loading.
we were most excited about seeing this guy. in april, he was a 5 month old boring blob. now he’s on the go, super adorable, slightly cautious, and very unlikely to let me hold him ever at all.
we were also quite excited to see his older brother. holden and hazel are completely bffs and it’s adorable but he still loves teen anna too. and obviously i’m his fave aunt.
ok. so. here’s a new thanksgiving twist. my mom talked me into running a turkey trot that benefitted the crossroads house where she works and volunteers. so, we spent an hour or so at the crack of (gray) dawn, traipsing around the streets of batavia, in a cold wintry mix, with a bunch of fellow gluttons for punishment. i even ran for a good bit of it, a mistake i will not make again. and, as an added bonus, i ran into several old friends. and then we ate a bunch of delicious baked goods, because we earned it.
back home, it was time for thanksgiving prep. the kids put on the macy’s parade, frankie rolled in, and we had a really chill day. also, my mom had my great gramma’s recipe book out, which i had never seen, so we rifled through that for awhile. reminiscing. and for some reason i neglected to take the mandatory photo of my thanksgiving plate. i assume it was because i was about a year behind on this blog and i knew i wasn’t going to post it on instagram so what was even the point.
if you’re wondering (you’re probably not), i upgraded my planet fitness membership so i could go at other locations and made myself at home at the batavia spot for the week. ran into some old friends here too.
on friday, the entire fam began to roll in for our family christmas celebration. lots of shenanigans. jake’s fam’s new adorable puppy also amped things up. wild times.
the grandkids of deb and ter have increased in quantity and volume. quality too, even. while assembled for gift opening, we snapped a few pics of them all together, for the first time since barrett arrived on the scene. it’s a lot harder to get a good photo these days, so please mentally morph this compilation.
it was a very bills themed christmas. lots of gear. and ike was stoked to get a james cook jersey. we gave holden an actual gift but also wrapped up approximately 150 minecraft minifigs and that was the gift that won the day. erika’s friend owns a cool little bills clothing shop and erika had her make some hazel sized josh allen shirts. the josh and keon and chicken wings and table ugly sweater style shirt is her fave.
the adults did a dirty santa white elephant type of exchange. and it seemed to mostly go well. i ended up with a bluetooth speaker and derek got a fancy tea advent calendar.
we originally planned to leave on sunday morning, but the weather started to get a little iffy, so after a very chill day on saturday, we abruptly packed up to get on the road to get ahead of the lake effect snow. but not without one last stop to tim horton’s. haha.
we managed to avoid the craziness, but it was still a little sketchy in spots. we rolled into some random pennsylvania hotel for the night. and then finished up our thanksgiving travels uneventfully in the morning.