Thanksgiving - Hanukkah 2015

Our Thanksgiving vacation was full of highs and lows.  It started the day before Thanksgiving at 10am at a park, where we met Uncle Alex and Aunt Coady, who had woken up at 4am to catch their flight, and we took advantage of their early arrival with a play date.

Collin showed off his monkey bar skills - a new feat learned in kindergarten.  And Maya wore herself out to take a much-needed nap so I could cook and pick up the house!  A successful morning for our family -

Wednesday evening we had Cas' family over for dinner - a low-key gathering where I was quite proud all the guests left without food poisoning after my first baked turkey.

Collin and birthday girl Lita, who turned ninety!

Cas with nephew Nico -

The cousins on the couch - to get everyone to look and smile was too much to ask -

Birthday celebrations for Cas and Lita -

Collin got in on the candle-blowing action

 Trying some group photos -

 Maya's personality shining through -

 Grandma Libia with her adoring grandkids -

Lita joined the couch photo session -

 Lita, Libia, her two sons, and one cooperating grandkid

Thursday morning Maya had me up bright and early.  And I felt terrible.  I tried to get Cas to help but he had a stomach bug and was in fetal position.  We watched a lot of Sesame Street while I laid on the couch, and finally with some Advil, my fever receded.  Cas and I debated all morning.  Neither of us felt up to parenting, and we kept saying, "if we can just get to New Bransfels, we can unload the kids."  We strongly desired to keep our normal plans - to spend a long weekend with family, some we hadn't seen in months (including my brother and sister-in-law.)

Poor Cas wasn't in shape for a three-hour drive, so my wonderful Mom rode with me, and off to NB we went on Thanksgiving day.  Since we were in a condo with Alex and Coady, they gave me plenty of breaks to be lazy (I figured out on Saturday that I had tonsillitis).  Reading Anamalia with Uncle Alex -

Pretending with Aunt Coady -

As we gathered for the Thanksgiving meal that evening, we started by sharing something we were thankful for, and suddenly Collin interrupted - "I lost my tooth!"  He was mildly excited

Sweet Uncle Bobby had my kiddos constantly entertained.  

Collin woke up at 6:30am on Friday morning and there as a gold dollar coin under his pillow.  Since the kids and I were in the same room, I got to see the discovery unfold, which was a lot of fun!

After showing his dollar to every family member, we got ourselves together and visited Landa Park.  Still posing to draw attention to his lost tooth - 

 Our photo bomber -

Wouldn't be a trip to Landa without feeding the ducks -

Alex and I played with Collin while at one point my mom was swinging Maya.  We looked over at them, and my mom was bopping around with jazz hands and then turning in circles.  Maya had talked her into a Hokey Pokey performance.  Collin was delighted to show off and play with Uncle Alex!

Friday night we celebrated Hanukkah - lighting the candles from youngest to oldest -

We sang the songs, ate the latkas, and then it was present time.

While Maya (and I) had a stellar nap after Landa, Collin had played with family -hiking for deer, jumping on a bounce house, basically going non-stop since his 6:30am tooth fairy wake-up.  So when we started Hanukkah after 8pm, he was nearing delirium.  We survived the night, but we may need to pay for the chiropractor bills for the aunts/uncles/cousins that he hugged around the neck in his out-of-control state!

After Collin's very full day, he slept until almost 10am on Saturday.  Which is by far the latest he has ever slept.  I kept walking in to make sure he was okay.  We rounded up our crew for a trip to Natural Bridge Caverns.  

Most of my cousins hadn't been since we were kids, and we all enjoyed it much more as adults.  Maya wanted to be held most of the path, and between the 80-degree with 100-percent humidity cavern and not feeling well, I was SO thankful when she went with my cousin Jasper for the last bit of the tour.   Some of the cousins had told Collin there was a monster, Grendall, in the cave, so he stuck close but was pretty tense throughout the cavern tour!

Cas was missed in NB - my cousins kept texting him the whole trip to see when he'd be arriving.  Poor guy felt bad when we came home on Sunday, but we all recovered by the start of the week.  Collin was thrilled to go to school on Monday and share in morning news time of the deer he saw, the caverns he toured, and the tooth he lost!