This Thanksgiving we spent in Bartlet, IL with our cousins Loren and Scott Romine. Loren had a baby in October, Owen Donald Romine (in fact, he was born on Shawna's birthday - October 23rd) and I desperately wanted to hold that sweet little boy, so we drove up to Loren's place on Wednesday morning. The drive was 8 hours long - totally manageable in the world of roadtripping with children. I immediately commenced baby-holding.
We had a great vacation. Wednesday Scott made homemade pizzas that were better than some I've ordered at restaurants and Loren and I got in some early shopping! Thursday we enjoyed a wonderful meal. Chris and his girlfriend, Harmony, came over and entertained the kids. It was great to have a big group at Thanksgiving.
This kid gets around!
Owen's 1st Turkey Day!
Gobble, Gobble
The girls made little turkey pins for their plates and wore them during dinner.
Then we got in a little evening sleep before we were out the door for some traditional Black Friday shopping. Oh yeah... we totally got up at 4am to go Christmas shopping. You know it. Following the shopping spree there was a lot of napping. When you're napping a lot, you feel like you've been in one place a lot longer than you actually have been... so instead of 5 days, I think we were actually there for a week.Friday, Loren and I got pedicures and then she and Scott babysat the girls while Neal and I drove downtown to visit my college roommate for dinner. Elissa took us to a trendy, new spot in Chicago called "Mado" and we ate things on a pig that I would never have imagined... like pig cheek and pig heart. Elissa swears she loves it, and I'll admit the pig heart wasn't bad, but it's a muscle that gets its fair share of use, so tender wasn't exactly an adjective I would have chosen... anyway, she swears she loves it, but there was some left on the plate, so I guess she doesn't love it THAT much. *wink* But I can put it on my list of bragging rights right below the raw Quail egg Michael made me drink in my beer. Dessert after the meal was at a place called Hot Chocolate and if I'd ever wanted to marry a food, it was the cup of dark hot chocolate with the homemade marshmallow that we shared.
Again, heaven!
Saturday we went to the Fox Valley mall (which I kept calling the Fox River mall by mistake for all you Prison Break fans out there) and saw Santa Claus and rode the Carousel. Since I can't post the Santa photo as I may use it for our Christmas card, I'll put Gwynnie with her head in a deer photo - HILARIOUS.
The Mall has a double-decker Carousel and the girls got to ride it. 
Gwyn and Mal rode the top and I took Shawna on the lower level - we rode a horse with a fish tail. She LOVED it.
There was a HUGE Christmas tree, also so you have to get the obligatory "photo in front of the tree" and "photographer in the ornament" photos.
The guys went to a sports bar next to the mall and Loren treated the girls to Build-A-Bear. Gwyneth picked out a dog and Mallory chose a bunny. They stuffed them and gave them sounds (the dog barks and the bunny giggles), wished on their hearts, sewed 'em up and gave them baths.
Loren also made a monkey for Owen. Too cute.
As you can see... he was thrilled.Then we went home and ordered some Chicago style pizza for Nealy. That was all he really wanted during the entire trip! It was good, too. Sunday morning we hung out for a little while and we left around lunch time... this was later than I had planned, but Neal and Scott were having such a good time that I didn't press the issue. Of course when we did leave traffic was HORRIBLE and it took us 4 hours to get from Chicago to Indianapolis... look at a map - it's WAY too long. As a result, our measly 8 hour drive became a horribly long 12 and a half hour drive. Ugh! Hence the thankfulness for Red Bull and Alex Cross novels on CD. They got us through to the end. We arrived home safe and sound, little ones asleep (big ones exhausted!)
During our trip I did as I promised and got some great pictures of Owen.
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those pictures are really, really great! - jenny
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