Thanksgiving in Illinois

One thing I'm grateful for? Eternal families! Because I love spending time with my family. I love spending time with Oliver's family as well, but for Thanksgiving I was able to be with all of my siblings for the first time in 4 years. The only sad part was that it was only for 1 day. I really like these people. The Lord must have known this could and would and should happen: family members liking each other so much that they want to spend lots of time with each other.

So Oliver and I made the strange decision to travel to Illinois by car. In case you were wondering between the Friday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after, our car recieved 3050 new miles added to the odometer. It was good because we actually took our time and didn't try to drive it in one shot which was different than times past. But it was long and tiring and unfortunately we weren't feeling so hot by the time we got home, but it was worth it to see my family whom I love.

I didn't bring out my camera on Thanksgiving itself, but here are some other photo highlights of our vacation.

On the first night of our drive, we stopped and stayed at a motel in Grand Junction, CO. And Ryan decided to show that he is growing up and can get up on his hands and knees. Throughout the week he continued to try and go forward instead of backwards.

Guess what we stopped and saw in Goodland, KS. That's right! A giant Van Gogh replica! Yay for random bits of art in the world: The Big Easel project

Ryan decided he really liked his uncle Mitchell. This is them bonding on Monday night. He really liked alot of people on this trip, and I think many people liked him too--he's very snuggly. Pop, Casey, Grammy, Aunt Kris to name a few.

A few other things that we didn't get pictures of but discovered last week: Evan getting upset when anyone attacks his mom(attacks as in tickling, which is a bonus for me! This even applies to Daddy attaching Mommy), pitch black bedrooms are awesome for Evan going to sleep which leads me to apologies for not getting any outside pictures of the house I grew up in to show off my underground house. I didn't get a group picture, but I've decided to steal the following picture from my sister Jo:

Man, I love these people. Unfortunately missing Mike who has to take care of his job responsibilites for Black Friday, but wow. And there were still around 30 other people at this massive celebration. My contribution involved cutting out leaves and providing them for individuals to write what they are thankful for and that's when I realized that Oliver and I will probably never agree on one thing: Oliver is grateful for mountains. His comment was: You never know how much something is a part of you until they aren't there anymore. This is funny because on the drive out, as we got into the eastern part of Colorado, I started to breathe easier and relaxed alot just because of the lack of mountains and the ability to see for miles. Mountains are a part of Oliver and cornfields are a part of me.

This last picture is a view of Wyoming on the drive home. It's like the world decided after Thanksgiving, that it really is winter(as we drove past Vail, Colorado BEFORE Thanksgiving, 7 were filling the mountains with fake snow) or as Oliver put it "the earth decided it was FULL."

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you are all reminded of what you are thankful for and continue to celebrate these happy feelings and share your blessings through the Christmas season.