Thanksgiving Travels

Baby and I are home from our vacation! We were gone for twelve days, and number which I am very precise about since certainly people whom I love and adore have a tendency toward exaggeration and claim, variously, that it was "only a week" (Mom) or "two whole weeks" (Michael.) No, it was the perfect length of exactly twelve days.

I chose to haul my teething, cold-recovering child across four time zones and back during those 12 days. The flight there was one long blurry memory of dirty diapers in enclosed areas and snot everywhere, coating all sorts of surfaces which snot has never been before. We made it to Utah, by some miracle, and spent several days basking in the glow of parental and grand-parental spoiling. Man, no one knows how to spoil like a mom. Or a grandma. MmmMmm! Long luxurious baths, sleeping in, favorite foods, and cute new clothes! I'm a spoiled brat, and so is Jed!

I have mentally prepared myself for a barrage of emails about to flood my box, shouting "WHAT!!!!??? YOU WERE IN UTAH AND YOU DIDN'T COME VISIT ME???" and all I can say is I was so busy being spoiled that very little time was left for visiting. And I'm not one to hazard the wrath of Mom for being gone with baby while she's home with spoiling activities prepared. Sorry, really, I wish we could have visited everyone. Maybe next trip, promise!

After a few days of recovery from the snot-trip, we loaded up the van for another 11 hours of cross-country travel to visit Mom's family in Sacramento for Thanksgiving. The rest of the week was one giant fete with too much food and baby and I both rolled home, having doubled our body weight with delicious treats. The highlight of the trip was probably visiting with Jed's 95-year-old Great-great-grandma Teresa. We finally got our five generation photo!



Somehow Jed escaped the family tradition and turned out male.

Baby also got his second tooth over a game of pinochle, and cousin Don came to spend the week with us anyway, thereby raising the testosterone quotient for the gathering. Dad and Jed were exceedingly grateful. We made cool birdhouses and watched the BYU/UT football game. Mom's family decided to go with that "other" team and showed up in red. Decked out in our blue regalia, we showed Don and his adopted UT fan friends up, big time. HA, TAKE THAT, SUCKERS!

Back across two time zones, one more day at home in UT, then back across two more time zones, eventually crossing back into Indiana and home again, home again, jiggidy jig. Jed and I are two very fat little pigs.

Happy holidays!