Well, I'm finally getting around to posting about our Thanksgiving holiday. The boys are finally on their road to recovery (I think)! As you know the boys both had chicken pox, which was a concern since we were due to leave for our holiday weekend in Tennessee visiting my side of the family on Wednesday morning, and my sister-in-law has never had chicken pox. Luckily, the spots dwindled and their fevers disappeared just in time to make the trip. Since the day before Thanksgiving is the most traveled day of the year, or something like that, the traffic was horrid and the 11 hour trip turned into a 13 hour trip. I know it's only two more hours, but it seemed like forever! We finally made it safe and sound to Grandma and Poppy's house, and the kids were very excited. Thanksgiving day went off without a hitch, and the food was fabulous as usual. The kids got in their yearly tradition of baking pies with Grandma. Thanks, Mom!
Friday, brought more time with my parents, my sister and her fiance, my brother and his wife, as well as my niece and nephew. The day also brought presents, as we are not traveling to Tennessee this year for Christmas. So, we all did our gift swapping early. Everybody was all smiles as we opened our gifts. I was super excited to open a Tennessee Titans jersey from my parents!! Jeremy and I also got a new set of lamps that we desperately needed, and a really fun game called Buzz Word. I managed to get a picture of Luke and Crystal (my sil) together. He started warming up to everyone by the second day. The girls also got matching pj's from my parents that were so cute!
The mood of the day soon changed however, when as we were sitting on the dinning room table playing a game of Partini, my sister-in-law started vomiting. She hadn't been feeling well, but the fact that she's a diabetic made us all a little on edge. Sure enough, after she checked her sugar just to be on the safe side and discovered it was well over 600, her and my brother took off for the ER. She scared us all, and while Jeremy and Poppy kept the kids calm upstairs, my mom and I did some mother-daughter bonding scrubbing puke out of the carpet. :) After a few hours in the ER, Crystal was feeling much better and crashed at my parents house for some much needed rest.
Saturday was "dress shopping day", and all the girls set out with my little sis to shop for a wedding dress. While I would love to post the pictures and video I took, we are keeping tight lipped about the dress so as not to give her fiance a peek! :) With such a big age difference between my sister and I (she was only 9 when I got married), I sometimes feel stuck somewhere between big sister and mom when it comes to her, so seeing her in a wedding dress was just a little bit emotional!! I managed to hold it together, as did my mom which was surprising. We were all elated when Andrea found "the dress". It was so obvious on her face as soon as she walked out of the dressing room. Wow! I've always thought my sister was gorgeous, with her thick blonde hair and baby blue eyes, but she looked stunning and I can't wait to see her on her wedding day! After hitting the wedding dress jackpot, we all headed to Chili's for lunch and treated ourselves to some brownie sundaes.
The rest of the trip was filled with the usual staying up late playing games, and laughing till it hurt. We always look forward to this time with my family, and all the fun makes it hard when it's time to leave. When I was looking back over the pictures that Jeremy and I took, I realized there were so many things we missed, but when you're busy having fun you seem to forget to get the camera out. :) The trip home wasn't quite as long, but by the time we arrived back in Virginia, all we could manage to do was slip under the covers and pass out from exhaustion!
The World Famous Harlem Globetrotters just started their 84th season of fun-filled family entertainment, and their U.S. “Magical Memories” tour began on December 26th! Through my PR work on My Four Monkeys, we were invited to experience the Harlem Globetrotters as a family and attended their Richmond, VA event on December 27th! Jeremy and I haven't seen the Globetrotters since we were kids and vaguely remember them visiting our schools when we were in middle school. I remember how fun it was and the great tricks, but I was not prepared for the event that we attended on Sunday afternoon. We are so thankful that we got the chance to share the magic of the Harlem Globetrotters with our kiddos! The event lasted a little over two hours and was slam packed with fun, action and music. The show is set up like a basketball game with the Globetrotters facing their arch rivals the Washington Generals. The whole family loved Handles and his funny antics. It didn't take long for Caitlyn to figure out that it wasn't a "real" basketball game, but the younger ones were rooting for the Globetrotters the whole way! It was fast paced and kept the kids attention the whole time. There was never a dull moment with Handles and Globie (the Globetrotters mascot), the incredible ball handling and tricks, the secret weapon of the opposing team's coach that threatened to lose the game for the Globetrotters, the fan interaction (LOVED THIS!!!), and the fantastic slam dunks! Check out the short video below with some clips from our afternoon.
