A Happy Thanksgiving

 We have always said that the way to have a child who travels well is to do a lot of traveling with them, especially when they are young.  Now, apparently, we are trying that same tactic with Luna.  Tuesday afternoon we loaded up the big van again and took off to VA for Thanksgiving. 

A few weeks ago, Bob had come home saying he had some training to do that he could take with him over Thanksgiving, so I made all these lovely plans for us to be there for a week.  We'll see friends!  We'll spend a day down in Richmond with Nathan's girlfriend's family! 

Unfortunately, I completely neglected to realize that Caleb's community college in fact had classes last week, so alas, my wonderful plans were for naught, and we left Tuesday afternoon, after his last class. 

 This picture is of Luna on the floor of the big van, sort of behind and in between the driver's seat and passenger seat, by the feet of the passengers in the first row.  It's her favorite place, and we moved our snacks to a smaller, thinner box, so she has a little more room.  She will scoot under the bench seats and go visit people in the back rows though.  It's like her own "Clue" secret passages!  She really has been a rock star traveler on these long trips. 

 Nathan got there Tuesday afternoon, about the time we were leaving Ohio, but Luke didn't fly in until Wednesday, a little before noon.  We cleaned up the yard at the old house, and I was able to get an updated "stair steps" picture, even including Luna!  I was so sad to realize that only the last 5 are stair steps anymore.  For the older ones, the second in each "pair" has passed up their older sibling in height, even down to Grace passing up Anna!  I guess our even-numbered, narrow-jawed kids also have the superior height genes, if you can call them that, since none of us are actually what you might call "tall", lol.

 We had to supplement our folding plastic table with the card table, and our folding chairs with some camping chairs we had left for use at cross-country meets, but we were able to have a family meal at the old house with all 12 of us Wednesday night!  I made spaghetti in our "extra" smaller crockpot by bringing frozen browned ground beef, and by already cooking up 3 pounds of noodles and bringing them from Ohio. 

Thursday we went over to the L's for Thanksgiving dinner, like we've been doing for the past 14 years.  It was wonderful as usual!  I think it was the easiest Thanksgiving day for me personally, because I did pretty much everything in Ohio.  I roasted and mashed the sweet potatoes (12 cups of them!), and then mixed them into the casserole, and I brought them in 2 gallon ziploc bags, with the topping (minus melted butter) in another ziploc bag.  I also made the cran-apple-pear sauce and brought it in a bulging ziploc bag.  I did make a pan of cookie dough brownies in VA, but that was easy.  Anna had to cream the butter and sugar for the cookie dough topping by hand, since we didn't have any kind of mixed, but that was fine. 

We really enjoyed catching up with our "friends who are like family" all day long.  We were able to bring Luna and her crate over, so we didn't have to keep going home to let her out, which was really nice.  We could just keep right on visiting!  It was so relaxing, we ended up staying until after 8:00.

It was especially nice to have all the older boys home and back together with their friends.  They were able to spend a lot of time together--well, not Nathan, because he drove back to VT the next day to go to the football game, but everyone else!  When we started Rivendell, Christine and I had taken Proverbs 27:17 as our verse:  "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."  There are a few boys missing from this picture, but I know that these friendships have been the "iron sharpening iron" friendships we prayed for, and  I'm so grateful for the Lord's answer to our prayers!

Friday was another really relaxing day.  I even did a crossword puzzle!  Wednesday I had rushed out to Costco first thing (I got there at 10:20, and already all the spaces in the entire lot were filled except for a few on the side close to the road.  I do NOT miss that Costco!) and bought one of their big chicken pot pies for Friday.  Usually the Friday after Thanksgiving I cook my own turkey (since Ed L. always smokes turkeys for everyone on Thanksgiving day), and then we have that along with leftover of the stuff I usually bring to the L's--sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce most years.  But this year there was no way that was happening, so instead we had the chicken pot pie plus leftover cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes, and it was so good!  And easy!  I'm thinking that will be a new, good tradition, lol.

Saturday we went over to the Mc's for dinner and stayed to watch most of the Clemson game. They had a houseful too, and we got to facetime with Isaac, so that was wonderful.  But all too soon we had to head back to the house.  After church on Sunday we packed up (always takes longer than I expect), battled the crowds at Dulles to drop Luke off, and then started the long drive back to Ohio.  We were so glad to be heading west instead of east.  The traffic on eastbound I-70 was much thicker!  We didn't get home until about 11:45, so it was a late night, and everyone is still recovering this morning, lol.  I'm not planning on getting much done except laundry!  It was a wonderful Thanksgiving time though.  I definitely don't take the times we can all 12 of us be together for granted, and they definitely don't happen very often anymore! 

End of a Season

A season of driving maybe?  Actually the cross country season.

 I know people thought we were crazy, but we decided to have Anna and Grace run cross country with their team back in VA.  Since we really weren't in Ohio until August, there was no way to make anything happen with a team here.  We've been running with this VA team for the past 7 years (through several name changes), even since Nathan and Luke started running with them.  We have so enjoyed the team members, and the coach is one of the godliest people I know!  The older girls on the team have been such good examples and role models for Anna and Grace.  I am often saying things like, "How would Tess talk to that person?"  or "Do you think that is the attitude Annie would have?"  or "How do you think Carol would act in that situation?"  It is such a blessing to have older girls in our lives that demonstrate such wonderful character qualities!  I wanted to keep that connection as long as possible.

 But it wasn't all easy.  We drove back for meets and a few practices, but mostly the girls were running the workouts of their own back here in Ohio.  Anna and Grace are not really the same pace, so Anna was definitely by herself.  It is hard to really push yourself when you are running on your own!  That led to some frustrations in the beginning of the season for Anna, but she was able to push through, and by the end of the season her times were faster than the ones for last season.  And it definitely made her and Grace appreciate all the more the times when they were able to practice with the team!

Faith was the rock star for Grace.  She ran with Grace for pretty much all of the workouts, which was a huge help and motivation for Grace, who was much less enthused about this long-distance running plan than Anna was.  Faith is going to be an amazing runner, I think!  She's got a good start anyway.  Grace really is a social runner, it turns out.  In the meets, she always chose to run with a friend of hers because "we have really good conversations, Mom, and she's just so nice to talk to."  Hey, that sounds like fun to me! 

 The last meet was last Saturday, Nov. 3, and all the little kids plus Luna came with us!  Bob, Caleb, and Jonathan were at a VT football game with Nathan and his girlfriend, so we couldn't leave anyone at home!

 It was a really great experience for Luna.  She got to meets TONS of people, as well as some other dogs.  Pretty much everyone stops to pet a cute puppy, and Luna really does like people a lot. She's scared of other dogs, so all the more reason to have her meet a lot!  She was pretty tired after all  the walking around though.

 The meet was held in a park with a lake, so there was a sandy "beach" part.  The kids had so much fun digging and building sand castles, even though it was actually a fairly chilly and windy day!  When the sun was out, it wasn't too bad, but Verity (of course) got her shoes and her jacket sleeves all wet, and then she was less than happy.

 Luna enjoyed digging in the sand, and she kept gazing out over the water like she was thinking about diving in.  I had no desire for a wet, sandy dog in the van, so I kept a firm grip on her leash, lol.  Some other time she can explore her water dog ancestry!

You can see Faith here acting like it is a warm summer day.  Do not be fooled!

The season was a good transition help for the kids, I think.  It really was so nice to go back to VA so many times to see friends, and to work on the house.  It made the move seem like a much more gradual transition process.  I will say I am glad for a bit of a break in the driving now.  In less than 3 weeks, we drove 54 hours of long-trip driving, most of with lots of kids and a dog!  Good thing Luna turned out to be such a great traveler!