Rick had the privilege of working the day after Thanksgiving, so we drove the 100 miles back home, only to turn around 36 hours later and return to Kenosha for the weekend!

This is Rick’s brother, Kevin. He is single, available, a law student and lives in Tucson, AZ.

We play many games when we visit! (Since there isn’t much snow on the ground, yet!)

I love Christmas Bingo!!!

From Kenosha, we traveled long and far to visit our friends in Cincy.

A much-needed pit stop after hours of driving.

(I am ga-ga over this pic of baby B…she has such an admiration for her papa!)

This little B did great the entire trip!  She really is a good baby. She has a pretty calm personality.

I would say she is very mellow, observant, easy going, and generally warms up to strangers after a few warm smiles from them.

We arrived after 5 hours of driving.  Ben and Annie were our neighbors in Vermont and we’ve missed them so much!

They were such perfect hosts because we felt right at home.  It is such a great feeling to be a guest in someone’s home, yet feel like you can open the fridge and drink from the milk carton. (Just kidding Annie, we never did that!)

Rick studied ALL DAY, EVERY DAY we were there, while Annie and I spent time doing this:

and this:

and spending 90% of our indoor time in the kitchen cooking lasagna, enchiladas, chicken pot pie, chicken and broccoli with pasta, chocolate bran muffins, not to mention Ben’s birthday cake!

Is that little Shiloh not the cutest thing EVER!?  (After Bridgette, of course!)

The ladies in the house:

It was such a lovely visit and I look forward to the next time!

I can’t tell you any thing about Cincinnati, except that our friends live there.

We never made it downtown, but I’m OK with that. The point was to visit with friends and see their new baby boy! (He’s a handsome little guy!)

Bridgette had such a blast!

Thank you again, Ben and Annie!

Until next time!

Wow, it’s been almost 2 months since my last post!

The break from blogging is always great and we’ve been one busy family lately!

We traveled to Kenosha, WI to spend Thanksgiving Day with my sister-in-law and her family.

Uncle Rick likes to talk science with our nephew, Benton. Bridgette just cheers them on!

(They’re looking at Benton’s blood under his little microscope. Eww.)

My sweet sister-in-law, Cara, prepared a traditional Thanksgiving meal and it was delicious!

Her husband comes home from Afghanistan soon, and we are so excited for her and her children.  He’s been gone 8 or so months!

She’s learned the game of football so she could teach her boys to be boys, she’s had to clear a clogged pipe with a 30 ft snake, she’s had to deal with appliances breaking, etc. Not to mention: shovel snow, mow the yard, rake billions of leaves, make meals, carpool the children everywhere, keep her children from killing each other, and keep the house spick ‘n span because it’s on the market. How this woman does it all, is a mystery, but we sure LOVE HER and support her best we can.

Uncle Kevin and Uncle Rick playing a round of checkers

Bridgette enjoyed her helping of Turkey dinner. It was her first go at a piece of meat. She gnawed, but mainly enjoyed the vegetables.

And Miss Mia put together a slide show of the day’s events, so her dad wouldn’t miss out on a thing!

It was a perfect day!