Thanksgiving

This is a recap because Thanksgiving has very much come and gone! But I thought it important to catch up because it was 1. Grace's first Thanksgiving and 2. Grace's first flight and trip to Washington, D.C. It was certainly memorable!

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Virginia this year - Grace's first Thanksgiving and her first trip to Virginia/D.C.! It was an interesting adventure to say the least. Grace and I went up a couple days early to enjoy some quiet time, which as expected, her first flight went very well. She slept the entire way and we were upgraded to first class! We got the chance to meet up with some of my friends, had dinner with family, mama got a haircut! and relaxed. It was really nice, but I still wasn't feeling that great because I had been nursing a cold for a couple weeks prior.

We have arrived in Washington!

Enjoying the fire at Celine's

William and Matt came up to Virginia on Wednesday and William had been under the weather too. Matt as well, but not as bad as me and William. William felt the same, so on Thanksgiving Day we decided we would both go to urgent care to get checked out. I was also worried because William had a couple red spots along his hairline. We called his doctor and they said it was from the cold, but I wanted to double check. I thought for sure I was catching bronchitis or pneumonia at this point. Nope. We both just had prolonged colds and because I'm nursing I can't take anything and because William isn't over 2 he can't take anything either. I guess we were swapping germs back and forth. Grace never got sick at all, which I guess is a testament to nursing! Amazing. Also on top of it, I discovered William's crib sheet was polyester, which doesn't mix well with his skin and he developed a red irritated rash from it... Eesh!

After the visit to urgent care we went to the Air and Space Museum, which William was AMAZED by! We even got video of him walking in and saying "Wow. Wow. Wow… Wow. Wow." over and over. It was hysterical! Where he picks these things up I don't know! The emotion was genuine though. He was really overwhelmed by it all.

William NOT excited about a sibling picture in front of the Capitol

Wow. Wow. Wow...

Can't stop looking up

First of many trips to the museum I'm sure

Thanksgiving at my Aunt Celine's was so much fun. We had a really big group this year. Lots of cousins drove in for it and everyone in town was there too. I think we had around 18-20 people. My cousin Rosie has a 3 year old daughter, Olivia and so William and Olivia played most the time. William kept hugging her very awkwardly and Olivia wanted nothing to do with that! She was playing hard to get - thank goodness, they are 2nd cousins! Celine gave William a candy cane full of M&M's moments before we ate dinner and so that wasn't such a pretty sight. William completely forgot dinner and we wouldn't give him the M&M's. He did enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie after we all finished dinner.

Poor William with his red rash cheeks...

First Thanksgiving!

Olivia tells it like it is to William!

Alec and Godmother Marie

Rosie, Olivia and Colleen watching Grandma Doreen and Grace

Andrew, Joe, Matthew, Adam, Victor, Daniel, Alec and John (Mac the dog)

Then it gets good. Thanksgiving night we went back to our hotel and at 3 a.m. were woken up by security and told we had to evacuate the hotel immediately. No problem with two babies and luggage everywhere, right? The kids were actually GREAT. William got a little scared because he was in the adjoining room and security knocked very loudly on the door right by his crib. But the two of them were extremely flexible and made the very unpleasant move easier by being cooperative. I had to sit in the car with the two of them while Matt worked on our room at the next hotel. Keep in mind it is around 30 degree outside. We were bundled up in the car waiting to get back to sleep. There was a long line of people though and so we got into our rooms around 6:30 a.m. BUT the rooms were not adjoining and there were no cribs available. I took Grace and Matt took William. Grace was easy to let sleep in the bed, but William is a bit more tricky. He's not used to sleeping in a bed. We slept maybe 30 minutes and everyone was back up and off we went with our day. Can't just sit around and snooze with two kids used to a schedule of activity :) We went back downtown and went to the Museum of Natural History and walked to the White House, which all entrances were temporarily shut down because Biden or someone relatively important was heading into the White House. We just couldn't win this trip! William did like the elephant in the lobby of the Museum of Natural History.

Our flight back to Orlando was great. William was so good and Grace didn't sleep, but just smiled and was happy.

So because of our colds and because of the terrible hotel situation we were really exhausted and didn't get to enjoy ourselves as much as we would of liked. I was very happy to introduce the kids to a lot of my family and get to spend time with them all - several hadn't met William yet never mind Grace! So that was fantastic, but next time we travel I don't think we will be doing it unless we are all 100% feeling good!!