Thanksgiving

Gillian on the dock at the Farm
View of the farm from the river

We got home a week ago from a lovely trip to Florida for Thanksgiving. We spent our time at Sean's family's river house down in Green Cove Springs, about 45 minutes south of Jacksonville. It was generally restful and a great timebeing with our family and friends. As I mentioned in my previous post, things started a bit rough with two sick little girls, but all in all the trip went about as smoothly as it possibly could have.

Our fabulous neighbor and Gillian's surrogate aunt, Darla, took us to the airport and picked us up when we got home. I want to take a second and extoll the virtues of Darla, for whom I am eternally grateful. Gillian has no family here and Gillian has decided Darla is our family. Darla takes Gillian on dates and for walks and bike rides around the block. Darla brings Gillian Peanuts holiday specials to watch and makes her dresses. Gillian loves Darla and Darla loves Gillian. So, Darla took us with about a small apartment's worth of stuff to the airport. We had:
3 duffle bags
2 car seats
2 instruments
1 purse
1 backpack
1 breast pump
1 camera bag
1 DVD player and bag
1 stroller

If you had seen us, you would wonder if we were moving an entire household or just most of one. It really is silly how much one has to bring for a 5 day trip when there are two kids involved, one of whom was 4.5 months old.

Anyway, planning for the worst, we left three hours before the flight. We ran into no traffic the day before Thanksgiving at 8am. Weird. We got there with a comfortable 2 hours before the flight and there was no one waiting in the ticketing line the day before Thanksgiving at 9 am. Weird. We mosied through the ghost town that was security, and got to our gate. Gillian ate her breakfast, and we had an uneventful flight. The connecting gate was next to the arrival gate, which was good with our 30 minute layover. We got in to Jax and so did our luggage and life was good. Addie didn't even lose it until 20 minutes before we got to the Farm.

Wednesday we spent the evening with Sean's parents, grandmother, and fabulous cousin William and his intelligent, beautiful new wife, Erin. Sean and William are both musicians and played for a long time by the fire after some of Suzi's delicious etouffe for dinner while Erin and I talked for hours. Thanksgiving day, the rest of the family arrived, including Auntie Kim and cousin Liz...about 20 in all, I think. There was lots of food and drinks and catching up, and shooting clays off the dock. It was a great day and the food was phenomenal. I don't think Suzi came out of the kitchen until Friday. Friday we relaxed in the morning and left Gillian with Nonni and Grandaddy while Sean, Addie, and I headed into town to visit my brother's daughter Amber and my sister-in-law and then we had a great dinner at William and Erin's place (William cooked us an amazing Thai dish).

Addie with Auntie Kim

Sean and William
Addie with William and Erin

Saturday we had a great, albeit short, visit with one of my oldest and closest friends and her family. Gillian would have loved to keep Laurel, but Laurel was shy. Laurel was just starting to enjoy herself and warm up when they left. Needless to say, we blew bubbles, planted an imaginary garden, and made playdough monsters before that. Unfortunately, a sick and overtired Gillian threw one monster fit before that that lasted an hour before she went down for her nap. Well, it's never perfect ;-) Suzi and Bill cooked a wonderful dinner for all of us and the girls ate at the kid tabel and watched a Christmas DVD. Suzi overhead Gillian lean over, tap Laurels plate with her fork and say "Eat Your Dinner, Laurel." (enunciating with each tap) As if. Gillian has the appetite of an inchworm. Laurel could run laps around Gillian's eating habits any day.

Gilly and I with Martha and Laurel
Beautiful Laurel

Sunday was Addie's big day and she was baptized at the church where Sean was baptized 36 years ago. We were so blessed to have both her godparents there (Kim and William), her grandparents there, and both of her great-grandmothers for whom she is named. Also, lots of other friends and family joined us to celebrate both at the church and at the restaurant where Bill and Suzi hosted a wonderful brunch. Gillian had another run in with her Licking third cousin (Cooper) who said to his mother "But, I LOVE her." Gillian runs him, and he takes it. Sounds like it's meant to be. She definitely played hard to get with him, telling him when he came to our table during lunch, "go back and sit in your chair and eat your lunch, Cooper." Bossy. But, in the end, they had a lot of fun together picking flowers and playing chase.

with grandparents and greatgrandparents
Gillian and Cooper
Adelaide with her great-grandmother Adelaide and her awesome Nonni!

Sunday afternoon when we got back to the river, we took Gillian for her first boat ride in a decrepit old boat Sean and Bill nursed back to health and enjoyed a gorgeous view of the river and a natural creek, but on the way back the engine died. Luckily, two very nice men docking their own boat gave us a tow back to our dock. Gillian told me "I like the big boat better". Well, it was clean, didn't have a leak, and didn't have any spiders, so I did too. But we were glad to have had a chance to see the river that way. It was a lot of fun, and Gillian is not the least bit afraid of jumping up and down in a boat cruising along the river. Monday we got up and left, and went to the playground Sean played at as a child, had lunch, and went home.

View of the creek from the river
G and I

Sunset

All in all, we have a fantastic trip. Addie didn't mind being passed around, Gillian soaked up the attention of her scores of admirers, and we enjoyed the company of people we love. We are truly blessed and appreciate everything Bill and Suzi did to make it such a special, stress-free vacation!

Gillian basked in the sun of Bill and Suzi's affection!