Thanksgiving

Sometimes the unexpected happens in the strangest way and you are sure how to respond or react you merely go through the motions.  This happened to our family this year for Thanksgiving.  After months of no contact and a fathers broken heart a phone call was made a son made a step back into our lives.  For the girls they couldn't believe that their brother was here.  For me it was all to unreal and I question in my heart as to why now....
Staying home for Thanksgiving was exciting to me.  It meant that I got to make food, which I love to do.  I made sure that our home was full of hungry mouths that I could feed.  Then the craziness happened.  Eric's grandma was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer.  She had already been really sick and it wasn't looking promising.  We didn't want to change plans with our friends so we decided to make a quick trip to see her uncertain that we would have time in the future.
So the start of the day began with a turkey fun run 5k.  Savannah ran her first race with her daddy and thanks to a friend we were able to leave the girls so Eric and I could quickly run the race, get home, make dinner, and pack to leave.

Savannah had a blast running.  She is so excited to be able to run a race again. Eric and I did well.  It didn't help that my fingers were frozen and I had to tie my shoe.

Eric went to get Alex.  We were still in shock that he was coming over and he was going to drive across the country to go to Illinois with us.  Food was quickly prepared and people started to arrive.
It was a wonderful day and I managed to make enough food that everyone went home with leftovers for the day.

We were off before we new it and with the help of a book on CD we almost made it to Kansas City.  The next day we woke up to drive to Illinois.  We were able to visit with cousins, nana, papa, and most importantly grandma Maude.  People might call us crazy, but for family sometimes you have to do crazy things.  No matter what the future holds...my girls will always have a memory of their great grandma.  To me that is important.  

This is the Mississippi River...I will always be amazed when I drive over this river.  Eric thinks I am strange...this river is normal to him.  He grew up around it.  

We did manage to try a little taste of Southern Illinois...called the Horse Shoe.  On the bottom there is toast, meat of your choice, fries, cheese sauce, and on some of them there is more.  Yes you could only imagine its a heart attack waiting to happen.  The people there a crazy about it.  It tasted good, but I will be fine if I never eat it again.  

The trip was one of the best ones that we had as a family.  Alex was pleasant to be around.  You cold tell he was on his last nerve.  It was nice to have him with the family.