On Thanksgiving weekend, we went up to visit Brent's parents and sister in Bellingham, WA. This is our usual yearly tradition. We spend Thanksgiving with Brent's family and Christmas with my family.
We left Portland on Wednesday evening around 8 PM and arrived at Larry and Avalea's house at 1 AM. Making our journey a night adventure was an ingenious idea because we were able to avoid the insane traffic!
On Thanksgiving Day we all drove up to Tom and Wendy's (Brent's sister and brother-in-law) where we enjoyed a late afternoon dinner around 4 or 5 PM. We ate so many appetizers and snacks before dinner that all of us were commenting, "Wow, I'm full. What do we need to eat dinner for?" Miraculously, we managed to make room in our stomachs for the huge dinner feast, and somehow we were able to make a little MORE room after that for dessert. It reminds me of that joke..."How do you explain to someone from a 3rd-world country what an appetizer is? It is the food that we eat before we eat our food." Although this is a funny joke, sometimes this thought makes me feel really guilty. We are so incredibly blessed! There is absolutely no excuse for not being content with what we have or for always wanting more. Wanting more is downright wrong for people who already have so much!
After all of that eating, we rolled our plump bodies around the house taking naps and playing games. The girls had so much fun playing with their cousins. They played school, bookstore and library, dress-up, and air hockey (just to name a few). They watched their Disney channel favorites together and played games. Kaydence found Lydia's toy horse collection and played with it the entire weekend. You could not pry her away from these. I know exactly what to get her for Christmas! Kaydence also played with the girls' hamster. There were several instances where we thought we had lost the hamster. Kaydence would put the hamster in a little toy house and forget about him...oops! There was also one incident where Kaydence ran into the room and exclaimed, "Water is coming out of the hamster!" Now, if you put 2 and 2 together, I am sure you can figure out what the hamster was actually doing, right?
All of the girls had a slumber party at Wendy's house Thanksgiving night. On Friday morning, Avalea and I went back up to Wendy's house to have a "Girls Only Cookie Making and Baking Day". The 5 girls worked diligently at rolling out the cookie dough and cutting out their chosen shapes. Then they decorated the cookies with frosting and sprinkles. The girls started out strong with the assigned task, but somewhere in the middle, we lost the crew to other "more interesting" activities.Poor Wendy. She worked so hard to get her house spotless and looking beautiful before we came. By the time we left, it was trashed!
After cookie-making fun, we headed out to Brent's aunt and uncle's house for dinner. More eating! Brent spent almost the entire time in his uncle's music studio. His uncle has an entire studio with guitars, drums and percussion instruments, and recording/sound equipment. Brent, his cousins, and his uncle jammed for several hours together. I even went out there and sang backup vocals for Brent, just like the good old days! While the guys were doing their thing, the rest of us sat in the house and played games, laughed, chatted, and watched TV.Saturday was another full day. Wendy and her girls came down to Papa and Grandma's house where we all had lunch together. After lunch, all of the girls decorated Grandma's sunroom Christmas tree. Next, we went and visited Uncle Joe and Aunt Hulda, and then we went to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. We were at Chuck E. Cheese for almost 4 hours!
All of the girls left happy and with pockets full of prizes. Wendy, Avalea, and I left unhappy and with empty pockets. Anna Marie, Brittni, and I managed to sneak out for a few minutes and go shopping in the mall. We each found something we "needed" while shopping. After the crazy head-spinning, ear-shattering noise and chaos of Chuck E. Cheese, we went back to Grandma and Papa's house for a movie night. The featured film was Ratatouille...very cute. Sunday morning we went to Brent's old church for a worship service and communion, and then we went to Old Country Buffet for lunch before heading back home.
Overall, the weekend was very fast-paced and exciting, entertaining and mouth-satisfying. I loved having 4 whole days to get to know Wendy, Brent's nieces, and Avalea better. I found out during this trip that Wendy and I have many things in common that we did not know about before! I find myself tremendously missing all of them after I get home. If we lived closer to each other, I could really see us spending a lot of time together.
I love the fact that we invent new traditions every year at Thanksgiving. Every year we add something new into the mix...Our Thanksgiving recipe with a twist!
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE BELLINGHAM THANKSGIVING SLIDESHOW
Posts
