Thanksgiving in Texas 2014

We always spend Thanksgiving with my dad, step mom and sister, but sometimes they come to us, and sometimes we go down to Texas where they live.  We have always flown, but since we are saving for the adoption and now that our kids are getting to need their own seats, we drove this year so we didn't have to spend literally $2000 on plane tickets. Ouch. We weren't sure exactly how the drive would go. The maps said it was about 16 hours, but of course that's without stops and without kids.  We left about 7:00 the Saturday before Thanksgiving and we pretty much did these same things for the trip down. We actually made it 11 hours with no form of electronics or media for the kids! I was pretty proud of us for that. Not that we are opposed to it at all, we just like to save it for when they are losing their minds! We had lunch in the car on the go, and then stopped at a play place for dinner so they could run around, which was perfect. It would have gone even smoother, except it started storming pretty bad once we got through Dallas so the last 3 hours or so were pouring on and off and I was having to drive slower, plus the lightening and hard rain were keeping the girls awake at like 11 p.m. Anyway, I think we ended up getting in close to 1:00 or so and all went straight to bed. We weren't sure if we were going to break it into two days, but once we were on the road and everything was going well, we just decided to go for it. 
Ok, enough travel talk. Onto the good stuff!  My family got an endless pool installed this last year at their house. It is soooo cool! You can control the temperature and it has an attached hot tub. It also has a tread mill in it, so my husband went for a couple "runs" after we swam. You can also turn on waves and swim against them. It is pretty awesome! But all that to say that even though it was like 60 some degrees, we just heated up the pool and swam! We swam every day except for one and the girls LOVED it! My older daughter was terrified for whatever reason the first time and then my step mom sat on the edge with her and just put her feet in. She got a little braver and sat in the step. Then before the end of the first day she was swimming across the pool by herself and by the second day jumping in off the edge and going all the way under! So cool! 

The first couple days I think we just lounged around. My sister had to go to school on Monday and part of Tuesday still. Tuesday night, my sister babysat the girls and we went with my dad and step mom to the Studio Movie Grill where it's like a restaurant inside the theater. My husband had never been to one before, so it was really fun! 

Wednesday night we went to Chuy's for dinner-yum!

After dinner, we went to the Houston Zoo Lights exhibit! It was really fun, but exhausting. So much walking! Everything was gorgeous though and we got to go into a life size snowglobe and have our picture taken, which everyone thought was really cool! 

Thursday we hung around the house and then had our huge Thanksgiving dinner like usual! It was delicious! After dinner, we went swimming for a bit. 

Later that evening, my sister, step mom and I went and did our shopping early. We were home by midnight and done! 

Friday we ran a couple errands and did other random things. That evening we went out for Mexican.

We did our first Christmas sometime on Friday and the girls got lots of great and fun gifts! 

After the girls went to bed that night we had game night which was super fun and we stayed up way too late! 

Saturday we hung around the house and made easy bake cookies! 

My sister, step mom and I went to get our nails done and then met the guys and kids for a movie later! We went to see the Penguins of Madagascar movie and it was my little one's first movie! They liked it a lot! 

After the movie we went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, which is always a hit! My sister, step mom and I bailed out early to try to get to IKEA before they closed. I just needed a couple things, and my sister wanted to look at beds for her big room makeover she's doing! 

Sunday was the Texans game, and my sister was cheerleading at it! My step mom ended up getting more tickets at the last second so everyone was able to go. Originally my husband the girls were going to stay home. It was really fun! We only stayed until the half time show was over and then we had to go get my sister from where her team was at. 

We stopped for a late lunch and then went home. After dark, the kiddos, daddy and auntie went for a night time swim with the cool lights and everyone loved it! 

We had to say goodbye to Baba that night because he gets up bright and early for work in the mornings.

We played another game after the girls went to bed, then went to bed early, and that was the end of our Texas trip! That is I think the longest we've been away from home with the girls but it was so much fun and I'm so glad we got to stay for such a long time! Until next year!