Gobble Gobble

We headed east for Thanksgiving like we've done in the past. We have family in Pittsburgh, which is about a 7-hour drive from Chicago. We love Pittsburgh. It's big enough to get a city feel, has bridges and water and rolling hills and good food. It's a fun city. Did I mention I am a city girl? Yep.

I'm always happy to leave the Midwest for something more exciting and Pittsburgh is always more exciting. It especially helps that when we're there, we're with family who loves on our kids and gives us breaks. Three cheers for that!

We had a great time. We woke up at 3 a.m. on Wednesday and drove the entire 7 hours with just one 20-minute stop for gas and a stretch. We arrived at lunchtime and had lunch with Gramie, Grandpa, Aunt Mansa & Max. The rest of the day was pool time, relaxing, skipping naptime, and Primanti Brothers (though they're rated a 5/10 this time and I'm honestly not sure we'll return).

Thanksgiving morning we woke up and ditched left the kids with the grandparents and ran the Turkey Trot Downtown. I made some pretty fun costumes that Aunt Mansa and I wore, while the guys sported some Target turkey hats.

Thursday afternoon and evening was spent at Aunt Ceil's house. I love their house and love them even more. They made this vegetarian some delicious red lentils and rice that I could seriously eat for every meal. Thanksgiving dinner is always really underwhelming for me because it usually consists of mashed potatoes, a side of veggies and bread. But not there! Delicious all around. Benjamin disagreed, but he never really eats anything, so that's no surprise. Family was great and we had a great showing. {Great} Gramie & Papa were at Thanksgiving and it was so nice to see them, as well as Aunt Jan who spends most of her time in Portland (another one of my favorite cities!).

Friday was spent at Aunt Helen's house, about 45 minutes from Downtown. She has three horses and Benjamin sat on one. Maybe next year he'll actually ride! We spent the day with everyone just relaxing. I was exhausted because Claire seemed to think waking every two hours the night before was a good idea... so we made the decision to head home that evening and just leave around dinnertime because if she was going to be waking every 2 hours anyway, we might as well leave before bedtime rather than wait until 3 a.m. again. That way we'd make it home just past midnight and get at least 7 hours of sleep (and it worked!).

I drove the first 3.5 hours back home and the husband drove the last 3.5 hours. We literally stopped for 2 minutes just to fill a 1/2 tank of gas and were off again. We arrived home around 12:30 a.m. and Claire slept the majority of the time. Benjamin was awake for the majority (even at Midnight!), but was so tired from all the family and festivities that he was calm and cool just sitting in his carseat.

It was our first road trip with two in the backseat! This was our first one over 2 hours with both of them and we deemed it successful!