Thanksgiving in Houston

I was up until 2am last night working on stuff for our last night of class today (seriously--can you believe it!?) so I really should be taking a nap. But I started uploading pictures and am getting carried away with this, and I'd love to post these today anyways so that Dallin can see what we did for our Thanksgiving. (We missed you, Dallin!)

We are feeling so lucky to be in Texas with aunts and uncles that live in Dallas and Houston (on my side) and Austin (on Tommy's side) and cousins that live in all those areas as well. After living in driving distance of nobody in North Carolina, that is a definite plus! We were spoiled with several invites for Thanksgiving, and we were so excited to go to Houston to visit the Colemans and Bodines (my aunt and uncle and cousin) down there. And oh my goodness, we had SUCH a great time. It was so awesome to hang out with some family and to get out of our normal routine a little bit. "Aunt Kayween" (as Dane was saying) really spoiled us and Dane could not have been happier with the little Bodine kids running around and Mango the dog there to entertain him. 

(In fact, Dane got sick by the end of the trip because he did NOT get enough sleep because we couldn't bear to put him down at his normal bedtime with so much fun and excitement everywhere. He coughed basically the whole four-hour drive home, but we got him down early and he slept from 6pm to 8am on Sunday night--STRAIGHT. And he's been feeling much better ever since.)

We drove down on Wednesday night (Tommy got off work at 2pm, so we got out of Dallas before there was any traffic, hooray!), and we had a big Thanksgiving feast on Thursday with Colemans, Bodines, Leiningers, and then my aunt's (and mom's) cousin Jackie and her family, and her sister-in-law and family. Phew! It was a PACKED house and there was so, so, so much food. The best part was the dessert--we had seventeen pies plus a pumpkin roll, a chocolate tart, and a cheesecake. Seriously--it was almost a pie per person (and most of those people were children!). We didn't even run out of rolls (which means you definitely had enough food). 

After the huge Thanksgiving feast, Kaylene organized a marshmallow gun war for all the kids, and then we all walked over to the park to blow off some energy. (Can I just say that the weather in Houston was just beautiful? So much warmer than Dallas has been!)

Dane immediately abandoned all idea of shooting marshmallows and just picked them all up off the ground to eat them. Smart boy.

Thomas Coleman and Logan and Reid Bodine--such tough guys!

Dane really liked riding Reid's bike around the park--at least, he thought he was riding it.

Little Lily was in charge of walking Mango. She was super offended if anyone tried to help her with the leash. She had no idea that she was about 1/4 the size of the dog.

Walking home and looking pregnant!

MOST of the pies--but they wouldn't even fit on this island.

Me, Kaylene, Jackie, and Brittney--all of us descended from my Great-Grandma Madsen. It is so great to see and meet extended family members and to find out how many good people there are in the world! (And so many that we're related to!)

The day after Thanksgiving we took it easy and went to a little natural science museum with the Bodines and Colemans. Dane loved the dinosaurs.

Giving Lily ("Wiwy"--so cute!) a hug.

 The best, most exciting part of the museum was hands down the ballpit they had for the little kids. It was hilarious to see them all giggling with glee and throwing themselves to the ground. 

We got some delicious tacos after the museum and all squeezed around this Texas-shaped table (ONLY IN TEXAS). 

 Dane doing peek-a-boo for Lily.

Two little mischief makers!

And on SATURDAY, we got to go to the Houston Zoo with Tommy's old friend, roommate, and mission companion, Chris Hawks, and his family. It was really fun to see Chris and Sarah and catch up and meet all of their kids (pretty sure I'd never met the youngest three!). The zoo was a perfect activity for this crowd, and Dane loved seeing--everything.

They have a little tunnel for the kids to crawl through among the piranhas.

Dane and Elise are just about three weeks apart in age. So cute to see them watching things together.

Hard to believe that there are five kids between these two former mission companions--and sure, most of them belong to Chris, but it's still pretty impressive!

And after the zoo, we went out with them and got even MORE delicious tacos. Houston sure is a great place for food!

We had a BLAST in Houston. Tommy not having many vacation days any more makes us really appreciate the time off when he does get it (yes, we're clearly still in mourning over losing the student schedule). And it was just awesome to be able to see so many people we love and do some fun things together! On Sunday, as we were driving home, Dane said two or three times, "I want to go back to Aunt Kaylene's house!" And he even started crying because we were going back to our own house. Definitely not as exciting with just us at home! So we will definitely be going back, hopefully soon.