thanksgiving 2008

thanksgiving will always be a holiday that is near and dear to my heart. i love thanksgiving. i love spending time with my family and i love reflecting on what i am most thankful for. last year we found out i was finally pregnant the day before thanksgiving and announced it to both of our families on thanksgiving day. it was such a wonderful day of celebration for me. this year dave, audrey and i traveled back east to virginia to spend thanksgiving day with my family. it was such a great trip. we got to spend a lot of time with family and a lot of time seeing the sights.

here are some highlights:

thanksgiving dinner, i stole this picture from laura's blog, i realized when looking through our camera that we took more pictures of the sights than the family. audrey slept through it. poor little girl...she slept through the halloween festivities and thanksgiving dinner, hopefully she won't miss christmas!


we always decorate gingerbread houses after dinner on thanksgiving. this was my first year participating in the baking of them. laura showed me how to cut them out and bake them. i wish i was there for the making of the dough but my mom did that before we arrived in VA. i have a sneaking suspicion that now that dave has seen me baking them he is going to want me to make them the years we are not with my family (because he told me so, haha). here are laura's kids with the houses and the candy. grandpa put them together and Ana and Grandpa bought all the candy.


kate insisted i help her decorate her house and it was fun to feel so loved and spend time with sweet little kate.


audrey in the airport before her first airplane ride. she was an angel on the plane. the woman sitting behind us even commented on how well she did when we were getting off the plane.



the day before thanksgiving we went to see the civil war battle field in Manasses. We watched a movie about it and then toured the grounds. there was such a serene, peaceful feeling of reverence




it was freezing though so we stopped at 7/11 afterwards and got some white candycane hot cocoa. yum!

on friday we did an abbreviated tour of DC while audrey drove around inside the car with grandpa. thanks dad for watching her and driving us around!

the white house


david standing in front of the united states capitol. do you see the christmas tree :)



library of congress


after going to a few of the sights downtown, we went to union station to grab a bite to eat and got some world famous bourbon chicken, yum!

old town alexandria, original cobble stone street



after showing david king street in alexandria, we headed over to mt. vernon to meet the rest of the family for mt. vernon by candlelight. it was so fun. they served spiced cider and ginger cookies and gave a guided tour of the home. it was neat to see the room and the actual bed that george washington died in. they didn't allow pictures in the main part of the house but we did get to snap a picture of the kitchen.


it was cool to see and we got some fun things in the gift shop. after mt. vernon we went to this new little diner in downtown fairfax for soup and sandwiches. the soup was so yummy!

little audrey got sick on our trip. friday night she was just coughing and wheezing and snoring louder than her dad. poor little thing slept in our bed with us. the next morning when we brought her upstairs and told everyone she was sick, they laughed because she was so pleasant and giving big smiles to everyone. she is a girl who likes to put on a show. on thanksgiving she was screaming and as soon as we turned the corner into the room where everyone was sitting she just started smiling. she LOVED being around everyone. she was really in her element. she also sat up for the first time. she was on her back in david's arms (so not completely flat) and she started doing this little baby sit-ups. it was so cute. she is getting so big.



on saturday morning we went to arlington cemetary and saw the changing of the guard


then we went to boston market for some lunch and headed into alexandria to knock around for a bit. i love alexandria, it was fun to be there in the evening because it was all lit up for Christmas.

Gadsbys tavern, george washington ate here.


after that we went home to decorate the christmas tree with all the traditional food while we watched "white christmas" and sang along.

on sunday dave and i went into the district and went to the holocaust museum and to see the lincoln memorial and the vietnam memorial. it was raining cats and dogs but i really wanted dave to see them. thanks mom and dad for watching audrey so we could go.






havabite eatery



monday we packed our bags, loaded up the cars and went to lunch at havabite eatery before saying our goodbyes at the airport. thanks mom and dad for all the fun memories. we had such a good time.