Strong Museum and Thanksgiving

So it seems like I'm averaging about a week behind on every post, but at least I'm holding to my commitment to be a more regular blogger right? This year for the Thanksgiving break David had the whole week off of school. We decided to take advantage of that and took a little roadtrip to Rochester with the Shaheen's to go to the Strong Museum and the temple. We stayed overnight and I made sure to find a hotel that had an indoor swimming pool because I knew the kids would love it....so we are all excited and gung-ho when we get to the hotel, only to discover that the pool isn't heated. What?! Please tell me I'm not the only one that thinks this is crazy. What is the point of having an indoor pool if it isn't heated?? Oh well, at least they had a hot tub to play in:) The Strong museum is so great, the kids could play there all day....which is what we did...I was pretty tired when we were done but everyone had a good time so that's all that matters right?
Elsie LOVED "shopping" at the Wegmans store there. Seriously, she could have just stayed there all day. It was exhausting chasing her around in there! She was so quick to throw TONS of stuff in her cart so I was constantly trying to put it back on the shelves but she was always way faster!

We got home from Rochester on Wednesday and started getting ready for hosting our annual Thanksgiving dinner. We have done this every year that we have been here and it has been one of my most favorite memories. The first year it was just us and the Shaheen's but we still made enough food to feed about 20+ people I think! We were just so excited to be trying out our favorite family recipes on our own that we had to make it all and in bulk too so we could have plenty of leftovers! Since then, we have had more people come celebrate with us and have still had TONS of yummy food and lots of leftovers, my favorite! Courtesy of Steph (again, I always have to steal pictures from her:) here is a few of us at this years Thanksgiving dinner...a few families had already left before any of us thought of taking a picture....guess we were too focused on the good food:)
Then later that night we headed down to the Evan's house for the annual "pie night" It is fun to split up the day that way and make it last just a little bit longer. Here are all the ladies with their pies....and Brad with his yummy pie as well. I love that Brad is the cook in the family!
Thanks friends for another wonderful Thanksgiving. We will miss you all so much next year!