Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving this year was more of a marathon.

Thursday began with Carrie cooking her famous sweet potato pies. We went over to my parents' house for a Turkey Day lunch bunch! It was the smallest Thanksgiving at Nana and Pop's I can recall. My family attended (Carrie, Shane and I); Megan and Billy were there; Reina came with her son, Bryce; Karin was there for the very beginning, and then there were the house's inhabitants: Patrick, Nana, Pop, and Jama.

Twelve people probably doesn't sound like a small crew to most people, but I come from a large family. Thanksgiving has always been a blur of fun, chaotic memories of lots of people and lots of food. Now that all of Nana's kids are wed (the oldest four of us to partners and the youngest to his computer) it's harder to match everyone's schedules. It's only going to get more awkward going forward when Megan and Billy go overseas. It felt more like the typical Turkey-fest when my family descended upon Bill and Dan's family get together for desert that night.

All in all, I enjoyed myself eating, watching football, and talking. I wish I got more time to catch up with all of my loved ones.

The only thing that I found stressful was my son's wrath. Shane loves Nana so much, he jealously (and zealously) clings to her. If I walked into a room they were playing in, Shane would yell and either A) try to push me out the door, or B) try to pull Nana out the door and make a hasty retreat. Nana and Pop help so much with childcare already, I wanted to play and help watch my son some (You know, be a good dad!).

Shane would not allow it! I eventually gave up trying. As I posted a long time ago, Nana is the most natural "baby person" I know. Shane squeals and throws a fit almost every time Carrie or I pick him up from 'Nana Day Care.' Pop decided that it would better for him or Nana to "be the bad guy" and stick Shane in his car seat, so it didn't seem like we (his parents) were ripping him away from where he wanted to be. I'm extremely grateful for all their help, but I hope to 'win' my son back some as he gets older. I like to think I've always been good with school-aged children. Watch out, Nana! I'll bring my A-game! (And if you're reading this, don't feel guilty! We love how much help you've been with Shane).

The weekend was spent with Carrie's parents. We drove down first thing Friday morning. The new car DVD player Carrie picked out was a huge help! It was an early Christmas gift from Nana and Pop. Shane plugged in to 'Cars' the whole way down instead of protesting.

It was great.

We all had fun at Carrie's parents' house once we got there. There was food, family, and the ladies went shopping (not once, but twice!). Grandpa and I took Shane to the Science Museum of VA on Saturday. It was awesome. That morning, Shane spent half an hour gawking over Grandpa's model trains. Grandpa knew that the museum was hosting a model train show in addition to the normal exhibits and suggested the trip. I want to go back again next year when Shane's older. There were a ton of interactive physics exhibits Shane wasn't quite old enough to understand (but more than old enough to yank and play on) and the museum closed before we got to see the real train engines.

I almost held off on writing this post for want of pictures, but I didn't want to get behind on posting again. I'll make a separate post whenever I get my hands on them. That's the memory dump for now before my old, rusty steel trap of a brain loses any more details. There will be a couple of fun posts with pictures and details from the weekend at a later date.