Happy Thanksgiving...twice!

After spending four Thanksgivings in Germany, we were fortunate enough to spend TWO here in the states, in the same year! The day after we got back, we had Thanksgiving with Jay’s grandmother and some of that side of his family. Hayden was more interested in other people and in the dogs than in eating, but that didn’t stop us! We ate way too much and had a great time catching up.


We spent what was left of the weekend accomplishing mission number one: cell phones! There are of course about a million more options here than there were in Germany. It was easy for Jay, who fell in love with the iPhone in 2008. So we went with AT&T and I got a Blackberry, which I’m now obsessed with! It’s so strange to have internet EVERYwhere. But it’s convenient. I’m still learning how to use it but it’s a ton of fun!

We made some quick visits to see my parents and to see my brother and his family. Ryan and Zoe have gotten so big! They had a great time playing with Hayden and showing them their playground, their rooms and the guinea pig! Hayden’s never seen one of those before so he was fascinated. He played with Oz a little, Eric’s dog, but mostly he just barked.

On Tuesday we headed up to Virginia to see Jay’s dad and family up there. Hayden and Oscar were already kind of rotten from all the attention; it seemed like everywhere we went there were new kids and dogs to play with! Jay’s dad’s was no exception, with more dogs and more cousins.

We spent actual Thanksgiving over at Jay’s Aunt Marcie’s house and there was SO much food! What a great way to reintroduce ourselves to America, too much food. We ate and watched football and then we had a small birthday party for Hayden. He’s had two birthdays in Germany so it was really nice to spend another one with family. He had a blast blowing out the candle and eating icing, and he got some fun stuff to play with. His favorite was a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse marching band! He unloaded all the instruments and made everyone march with him. As we’ve learned over the past two years with Hayden, it’s pretty hard to say no to him!

This year we had so much to be thankful for. My happy, healthy family is safe and sound back in the states and ready to start our new chapter. We’ve gotten to see a lot of family and friends and have many more to go, but this time we don’t have a limited time frame to accomplish it. It’s so nice to plan trips and visits down the road without having to factor in a flight, a deployment, block leave or the farm for Oscar. We are truly lucky.