Thanksgiving in Tennessee

We were so excited to be invited to Thanksgiving in Tennessee with Jeremy's sister, Tiffany, and her family.  OK, to be honest...we were super excited about visiting them...but totally dreading the 14 hours car ride.  In fact, we were pretty sure it would take us more like 16-18 hours to drive there....and, in early November when we were making plans....it was torture to me to even think about it.  So, I didn't.  I didn't think about the travel (to much) and thought about the nice time we would have visiting instead.

We pulled out of our driveway on Tuesday around 12:30 pm.  This is what the kids looked like while we waited for lunch outside of Jason's Deli.

They were excited...and I began dreading the drive....for real!  The girls were excited because our sweet friends let us borrow their dual screen portable DVD player.  Yes, my friends...each girl had her own little TV screen right in front of her face and personal headphones.  What a luxury.  Really....I think this helped the drive go so well.  NOT because they watched it all the time (because they didn't)....but because they were so excited that they would be able to watch it when we gave the OK. 

Their eyes and ears are already glued to the screen!

Nathan was very happy to finally be turned around in his car seat and able to watch what really happens on the road.  Seriously...this kid didn't stop smiling  for a long time because he loved being turned around.  Every time I looked at him, he laughed.  He's very cool!

So....the drive...was it as horrible as I had imagined?  NOOOOOO.  Here's a quick rundown....we all ate lunch and then we told the girls that they had to take a nap before they would be allowed to watch a video.  They both took a good long nap, then we let them watch Charlotte's Web.  By this time, we were close to Valdosta, GA...we stopped at Chick-fil-a for a quick dinner (on the road) and drove....and drove...and drove.  We had FULL intentions of stopping somewhere around Macon or Atlanta to sleep for the night.  But, Jeremy was awake...the kids were asleep...and we kept driving.  We pulled into the Davis driveway at 2:30am on Wednesday morning (oh...by this time we were both struggling to stay awake...but got a burst of adrenaline when three dear jumped in front of our car about a half hour from their house)  We actually made it to their house in 14 hours...which is incredible time!

Looking out across their backyard.  This was the day the cold front was moving in.

 

Most of Wednesday we just relaxed...took naps...laid around and so forth.  I'll spare you the details...but most of us were sick.  Seth and Chris were getting over a stomach bug...and our family was getting the beginnings of sore throats and a cold :(  So, we all needed the rest.The kids just had fun playing together.  Seth is 3 (he'll be 4 in January), and Susie is almost 2.  Our kids played together so well the whole time...it was great.

By Thanksgiving...we were all feeling better, for the most part.  Tiff cooked us a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner including a Turkey (which she won in a raffle...how cool is that?), a ham, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and corn bread dressing....I made the rolls and the gravy.

 I love this picture...she looks so excited, doesn't she? hehe

 I'm pretty sure Tiffy posed for this one ; )

 Our Thanksgiving Feast!

We had fun cooking together all day. 

 Nathan did NOT like his dinner.  Nope, not even a little bit...can't you tell?

After eating our delicious meal...we enjoyed the beautiful weather outside.  A very cold cold front was on it's way...so we wanted to play outside as much as we could before it actually arrived.

Playing ball in the backyard

I think this is a funny picture of Hannah...I had to share.

Little miss Suzie

And, pretty Nicki

And, this is handsome Seth.

The cold front brought in high temperatures in the low 40s and lows in the 20s I believe...maybe low 30s, I don't know.  Tiff and Chris have a wood burning oven that keeps their home warm...isn't that cool?  ...or hot??? 

One day, we went exploring in the creek behind the house.  Oh, it was so hard not to long for a place like this.  My girls LOVED playing with the rocks, on the trees and "exploring".

We basically just hung out together.  We didn't have any big agenda or To Do list.  We went out to dinner one night...they guys watched the Auburn/Alabama game (OK Greg...here it goes "War Eagle"  see....I'm not that bad, right?; ), Tiff and I did some Goodwill shopping, we went to church with them on Sunday and just had an all around nice time visiting. 

Nicole and Seth really became friends on this trip.  They had fun together.

The cousins....Nicole, Nathan, Susannah, Seth and Hannah

So...what do you think...do they look alike?  We think they do.

Oh, what's that?   You want to know about the ride home?  Was it as perfect as the ride up???  Um...No.  It took us almost 4 hours to get to Chattanooga, TN...it should have been 2 hours.  We were stuck in horrendous traffic (which we expected).  We barely made it south of Atlanta and called our sweet friend Mike and Patti and literally "dropped in" on them. We gave them an hour notice...at 9:30 at night that we wanted to come visit and spend the night.  They were so gracious.  We had big comfy warm beds...yummy food, and a great start for the long ride home the next day.  Yesterday's drive wasn't bad. Traffic was good.  The kids watch a lot more videos...we stopped a bit more often and I read an entire book out loud. 

By the way...you should read "Just Do Something" by Kevin DeYoung....really...you should.  Maybe I'll write more about that later ; )

We had a great time with Chris, Tiffany, Seth and Susannah.  We are Thankful that we could spend Thanksgiving with you!