Thanksgiving Travels

The girls and I made some chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies before we left for Thanksgiving...

It was our Thanksgiving to travel, and travel we did. And we survived. Not to say there weren't some melt downs had by the kids and myself along the way.

We started out on Wednesday when Gracie got out of school. We were headed to my mom's house in Minnesota, and they'd been having some icy weather. The roads weren't too bad all the way to Sioux Falls, where we stopped to eat. I fed Irelynn in the van while the other two girls fought, and Mark ran into get the rest of us food from Hy-Vee.

Mark brought me meatloaf with green bean casserole and mac and cheese. Even though I haven't had dairy products for six months. Yeah.

I was not pleased, but his excuse was that he was trying to make me happy by bringing me the unhealthiest things he could find, since I love junk food and all, totally forgetting about my dairy restrictions. Thanks dear. So I ate meatloaf and the crust of Ella's pizza with the cheese pulled off.

Yum-O.

From Sioux Falls we headed to Luverne, MN to pick up my grandma and give her a ride to my mom's, since it was so icy. Irelynn screamed the whole last hour of our drive, and I made a comment about this being the worst trip ever.

And my mom wonders why we always make her come to our house to visit.

Finally, we pulled into the garage at my mom and step-dad's. Yes, they were nice enough to clear out a space in their garage, parking one of their vehicles on the street, so we could get out of the cold while unloading.

Our first night was difficult. Ella and Gracie did great camping out with my mom on the living room floor on a mattress, but Irelynn screamed all night. Not crying, but screaming. Painful screams. We assume the meatloaf had milk-soaked bread in it. Oops. Thankfully she and I got to sleep in and didn't get up until 9am.

Thanksgiving Day we ventured 30 minutes to my Aunt and Uncle's house. She was kind enough to make all the food without dairy, and I was so happy to enjoy and traditional Thanksgiving meal. It definitely beat meatloaf and pizza crust. We managed to get Ella to take a nap at their house and she slept for a good couple of hours. That was awesome!

That night Art's kids and grand kids came over for dinner and some game time. Monopoly fun was had by all. Most of all Gracie.

Here's Gracie's fierce monopoly face...

Ella would rather eat some of the yummy treats and hang out with grandpa than play monopoly...

Irelynn enjoyed being at the center of attention. She loved having someone to hold her all the time. She played and worked on her crawling skills...

Our second night away from home went much smoother. Thanks to no accidental dairy in-take, Irelynn slept all night.

Friday morning we had a relaxing morning at my mom's, then loaded up and headed to pick up Mark's mom on our way to his sister's house, where we had another Thanksgiving meal. Gracie was happy to open up some birthday gifts, and Mark got lots of rough-housing action with three little girls on the floor.

Gracie's puzzle and Monopoly Jr...

Finally it was time to drop off Mark's mom and head home, after a quick stop at B***** K*** to pick up something to eat. Where my husband made some comment about us being at the devil's playground, while I ran in to get my whopper and fries.

The ride home was only slightly better then the ride up, for me at least. I spent the three hours feeding kids in the van and trying to entertain a fussy baby. Once we fed the two older animals, they did sleep for a short while. We'll call that the silver-lining. Irelynn didn't sleep a wink. I would hand something to her, she would look at it, if she liked she would play with it for a maximum of 30 seconds, and then she would throw it across the van.

I've never been so happy to see my driveway. The rest of the night was smooth sailing. We got everyone in bed by nine, and they all slept until morning. The girls even got up and watched cartoons for a while, allowing us a little more sleep.

Today I'm doing laundry and Mark put up our garland outside, and thankfully, our house is home-base for Christmas.

And now I'm off to play junior monopoly with my little monopoly-lover. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!