Thanksgiving

Forgive me, I am still playing catch-up here.  It seems like I've had to skip over blogging about things that I've had it in my mind to blog about a good bit lately, never mind not having put back all the photos that got deleted... anyway, I really want to blog about American Thanksgiving and our trip to PA, so here it goes...

Last Wednesday, after spending the morning getting the car all packed up while The Bean watched a DVD and Sprout chomped on a tambourine (her current favourite teething toy) we got on the road to visit Jen's family for Thanksgiving.  We were all really looking forward to the trip.  The Bean had been asking about it for a good month.  And since I was too pregnant to travel last year, Jen and I were looking forward to celebrating with her family after a little hiatus.

Wednesday, for those who aren't from the area, was the day of the big storms.  Except for a little stretch that is notoriously bad a few hours out from Jen's parents', we missed the worst of it.  Thanks to NO wait at the border, it didn't take us much longer to get there than it does in the summer.  That's pretty good for the busiest travel day of the year.

There were seventeen of us around the table on Thursday.  That's something I really love about the American Thanksgiving: people get together to celebrate it.  Maybe it's just that my family is really small, but we only ever have immediate family at our Canadian Thanksgiving celebrations.  Anyway, having so many people around was nice.

The Bean was over the moon because Jen's cousin's family was there, including his three girls (ages 9, 15 and 17) so he was doted on even more than he would have been otherwise.  Sprout got a good bit of attention too. ;)  It was nice for us, because we haven't see her cousin or his wife since before The Bean was born.  At one point I was talk to Jen's cousins' wife about how different our two kiddos are and speculating about whether The Bean was more like her and Sprout was more like me, and she stopped me and said, "Just look at my three girls.  The couldn't be more different. (Which is true!)  Kids are just different."  I can't fully explain why, but I really appreciated that comment.  It felt she was giving recognition to The Bean and Sprout as being fully and completely siblings, which is how I want them to be seen.  Anyway, it made me happy.

Aside from spending time with the extended family, we also managed to squeeze in a Mama/son nature walk in the "woods" out behind the house, another visit to Santa along with a train ride at the local mall, an awesome Christmas parade, and perhaps even started a new family tradition of watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer the night before we left.

My other favourite part of the weekend was when we were all doing our own things in the house and suddenly The Bean called out, "Look!  Deer!"  and there they were, six deer walking through the backyard.  It was pretty amazing.  And I love that The Bean noticed it all on his own.

Maybe they'll come visit again at Christmastime.