Thanksgiving Weekend

We left last Tuesday to begin our journey to St. Louis for Thanksgiving! We flew into Kansas City since plane tickets were much cheaper than going directly to St. Louis. My dad and Anne met us at the gate and we drove to St. Louis arriving at 1 am!! Louis did awesome and didn't cry one time!! Wednesday morning Mike, Kate, Louis, and I met Kate's boyfriend, Jared for coffee on South Grand. It was great to finally meet Jared and yes, he is as great as Kate tells us he is : ). We got back home in time for Laura to come over with her baby Drew who is 3 months old! It is amazing to see how much babies grow in only 3 months! After Laura left my friend Elizabeth came over with her little girl, Julia, for a visit. Next we went over to Karen and Travis' house and met Jennie, Lindsey and Bryan, Emilie and John, and Katie and Jim. We ordered take out and chatted for a few hours.

Thanksgiving morning we went to church and then Louis and I went to the Orbin's and got some great pictures with Katie and Emily's babies! Around 3 pm the craziness started with my entire dad's side of the family coming over for dinner! It had been years since everyone was in the same place at the same time - Steve took all the family picture including the big one with all 31 of us! It was great to see everyone and see all of the new great grandbabies!

On Friday morning part 2 of our trip began. We drove to Kansas to visit my grandpa. Saturday morning Louis got baptized in St. Rose church in Columbus which is the same church my parents were married in! Aunt Marcia was right, as the priest forgot that he was supposed to do the baptism but my mom called him and he came right over! We had lunch afterwards and spent the afternoon hanging out with Aunt Marcia and her kids and Janet, Tyler and Crystal and their kids. Amber and Uncle Brian were at the KU football game but came by later in the evening. We were getting stir crazy in the house all day so in the afternoon we all drove to Pittsburg for some Starbucks! Sunday was very hard to say goodbye to my family - there were definitely tears involved. Kate and Anne drove us to the Kansas City Airport where we flew back to Seattle.

It was so great to have help with the baby - Louis even slept in grandma and grandpa's room on Saturday night (Mike and I complain that he makes too many noises to sleep with us and my mom didn't want him to have to sleep in the living room!) Taylor LOVED Louis and we couldn't believe her patience to hold him and sing to him - she wanted to take him home with her!! One night, I fed Louis and went right to bed. Kate and my mom then took him and gave him a bottle when he woke up and put him back to bed - I got 5 hours of sleep!!!!! Thank you family for all of your help we really appreciate it!!

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