OH Turkey Tour: #4

Saving the best for last, our final OH Turkey Tour stop was in Lima to visit Grandma S. We missed her dearly at Thanksgiving this year (she opted to stay in home due to a few recent dizzy spells), and sadly don't get to Lima as often as we should.

We dropped off sis and her pup in T-town before heading south to join the in-laws for lunch with gram. It was wonderful to see her. She is as cheerful as always, keeping up a fast-paced lifestyle with activities, exercise, shopping excursions and tons of friends.

She basically runs the place, friends with all the staff, fellow residents and volunteers. In fact, she was responsible for bringing a library to the facility when she arrived. She has read more books in the last five years than I will read in my life. Amazing.

We had a great visit with her, it was wonderful to see her. I've included a great pic here of grandma and hubby.

And so concludes our OH Turkey Tour.

It will be nice to get home, sleep in our own bed, and stop gorging ourselves at every meal. I can't wait to work out tonight. I feel HUGE and blame it all on those damn delicious French Silk pies that followed me everywhere this weekend...

Happy Turkey Day to all and to all a good night!

OH Turkey Tour: #3

PIZZA PARTY!! (yes, more eating)

In what now appears to be a tradition, MIL hosted the whole blended fam at her house Friday night for a pizza party. This night really makes Thanksgiving for me b/c it is more relaxed than Turkey Day itself, and everyone is together under one roof. My p's and sis come in from the west side, hubby's fam comes in from all around the east side. It's a nice opportunity for the extended family to catch up over cocktails and good eats.

And YES, I realize how lucky we are. In fact, we're MOST thankful at this time of the year that our families are in the same city, like each other and we like them :) It is truly brilliant. And that is why we celebrate like this!

Mom and sis came over early so we could do some shopping on Black Friday. Crazy but it really wasn't crowded. And being preggers cuts down on interesting items so I saved a lot of money.

Over dinner baby S performed with lots of kicks and bumps - most active for the nuns. I learned Mary Ellen is a dulla, very interesting. More to come on this and whether we'll actually have one in the room for delivery (or even use Mary Ellen herself). I'm definitely intrigued.

Sis has never experienced French Silk pie before tonight. Check out her response after trying a piece above (to be added when we aren't in the dead zone known as IN).

Another great night!

OH Turkey Tour: Update #2

Still riding what must be a turkey-high (or could it be a sugar fix from all that pie?), we're returning west in great spirits after our OH turkey tour.

I'm surprised how much we packed in - we hit Chip's for Thanksgiving #2 Thursday night. Spacing out our two feasts by just about two hours. Somehow though, we fought threw it and ate again. I even managed to find room for two pieces of French Silk pie, more on this later...

Overall Thanksgiving was awesome. We squeezed in a ton of visiting, caught up with everyone and managed to get through it all without being exhausted. Well, I'm not exhausted. Do you think could be the lack of alcohol? I typically consume pretty heavily between the two turkey-days and obviously refrained this year. And today I feel pretty damn good. I'm sure it is just a coincidence.

Stella was SMOTHERED with attention this weekend, but her undesputed #1 fan is Emily, seen in picture here (loading from car taking forever, will add when we get home).

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Stealing a page from my colleague and fellow T-towner Danielle, I'm blogging live from Thanksgiving. I've got nothing on her preparations for the day (check out what she is doing here), but we've been busy none the less.

Thanksgiving for us means a massive traveling tour of OH over the course of several days. We arrived at our first destination last night, rolling into Toledo about 9pm. Plenty of time to cram in a huge meal and a few drinks out at the bar (never fear, I had soda water).

We were up early this morning for our (now traditional) Smoke the Turkey 5K run. Sis gathered a bunch of friends to kick off the day of eating with a healthy start. Even Stella joined in the fun.

And then in the car for our next visit - one hour away to Sandusky for Thanksgiving with my side of the crew. Apparently baby S likes turkey, news to me since I'm not a big fan of the bird. Lots of eating, more than necessary in fact. Pie too.

And now we're back in the car making our way to our next tour stop - Chagrin Falls, 1.5 hrs away, for another Thanksgiving. Hubby's side of the lot. For a second turkey extravaganza!!

Lots to be grateful for today.

How are you celebrating??

Ugh - I think I'm getting sick. Do you think it was as a result of getting my flu shot on Friday? Does that happen?

I really have no time for sickness, especially with the wild holiday weekend coming up. And of course I can't take any medicine while preggers, thoough I'm not really a medicine taker.

I skipped my pilates class tonight so I can go to bed early and hopefully wake up healthier. Nite, nite.

Misc post of odd updates for tonight -

Super fun day with the girls. We went out to burbs to see KJ since she is somewhat housebound with new baby Gage. He is too cute and slept the whole time we were over. I walked away feeling a little more confident about the whole thing. He is only two weeks old and everything seemed managable. We girls are like the three little bears with Bid due in Feb, me in March and Carrie in May.

Our main mission today, outside of catching up, was testing cupcakes. Bid's shower is in two weeks and we need to select a bakery, so we brought cupcakes from various places and ate ourselves sick. Thank goodness my glucose test was yesterday.

KJ gave me a SICK amount of clothes. Seriously, I was embassed when my neighbor caught me unloading it all into the house for fear he'd think I'd actually purchased this many items. I could open a boutique with the haul I took in and it is all really cute. No surprise with my clothes horse BF but super time to reap these benefits. I need to treat her to dinner.

I checked out a good holiday bazaar and picked up a couple cute ideas for work people, always a tough one. Overall the shopping experience was a total cluster. I was running about 30 minutes late, not allowing enough time to get to brunch, so I tried to buzz through. There were way too many people, in too small of a space and not enough time to digest everything. I considered the work idea a major victory.

We visited a new church in the hood for 5pm mass, which was a MAJOR accomplishment. We've completely fallen off the religious wagon since Father Don left Chicago and need to get back on board. This place wasn't exactly love-at-first-sight, but has potential. We'll head back next week and see if we don't feel a bit more at home. Please pray for us :)

AND lastly, a new Middle Eastern restaurant opened around the corner from my house and I ordered carry out tonight. Chickpea. I'd intended to save it for lunch tomorrow but have already snacked on several items. It is AWESOME. And hubby likes it which makes it a grand slam. I've been stuffing myself full of falafel everytime I go to Toledo to visit my sis b/c I can't get anything worthwhile in Chicago. This place ROCKS and the owner's mom cooks everything. She helped me create my order, made great suggestions and seems geniune. I want her to succeed. And be open longer hours. I'll be back often. I can't wait to try everything else tomorrow.

Cheers to a great Saturday!

So we're out to dinner Tuesday night - our favorite Cuban place (Cafe LaGuardia) - and arrive much too late for a school night. It is nearly 9pm and the place is PACKED. There is a live Cuban band and a wait for a table. While slightly surprising for a Tuesday night, not totally unheard of. This place isn't afraid to pack 'em in and is so busyon the weekends, that pre-baby, we'd end up having far too many margs while waiting at the bar for our table to even remember that we ate dinner...but now I'm just teasing myself with memories.

The band is dangerously close to bringing down the house. There are two birthday parties, an 80+ year old man dancing with a waitress, and the music was really good.

So good in fact, that baby S got a little spirited too. I've said for awhile that it's been a dance marathon down below. Baby is always doing a jig - or so I thought. Nope, that was all just warm up for the show last night.

He was seriously busting a move!

And I couldn't stop laughing. The band would go on break, things would quiet down. Singers get back on their mics, baby S gets his groove on. A week or two ago the weekly update said babes would be able to hear outside noise and appreciate music. I guess we know we're on to something here. He is a rock star in training.

Or he simply hates Cuban food.