Thanksgiving

I can't believe it's already been over a week since Thanksgiving. We took Danny on his first long car trip, which we were dreading. But it was really important to me to visit Granny and Papa and the rest of my Sacramento-area family, and have them meet Daniel.

Danny did much better in the car than expected. We left really early in the morning, and tried to be prepared; had a bag of fruit, milk boxes, etc. close at hand, as well as a bag of books and toys. (I called it the "Bag O' Fun" - another fine product from the folks at "Bag O.") One of us sat in the back sit with Big D most of the time, to keep him distracted. He didn't sleep much on the way up, so we made several stops so he could run around and play. This included a 2 1/2 hour lunch stop because a) Danny enjoyed a leisurely lunch at Applebees (a nice way of saying he dawdled over his chicken nuggets), and b) it was rainy, so we went to Wal-Mart and played Hide-n-Seek in an empty part of the store.

We arrived in Oroville Wednesday night and went straight to our motel to get Danny ready for bed. Within minutes, he managed to bang his head hard against the headboard and get a huge purple bump. Fortunately, Eric had paid attention and noticed where the ice machine was when we arrived, so he ran out and grabbed ice, which helped a lot. Thursday morning, we went to a nearby playground for awhile before heading over to Granny and Papa's.

The gang at G & P's on Thanksgiving inluded Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle John, Uncle Tim, (cousin) Chris and Amy, and their kids Ryan, Isabella and Bailey. It took Daniel a little while to warm up, but then he had a great time playing with everyone. And he ate SIX servings of turkey, not little tiny servings, either. He liked dipping the turkey in cranberry sauce, just like Mommy. A wonderful first Thanksgiving for our little guy!

The next morning, Eric, D and I had breakfast with Granny and Papa. Daniel was charming, and loved when Papa chased him outside. He gave both of them lots and lots of kisses. He also ate ALL my hash browns, dipping each bite into ketchup. The boy loves his ketchup!

After breakfast, we drove to John and Mary Ann's house. Daniel got to play with even more of his second cousins. In addition to Ryan, Isabella and Bailey, Ryan's brother Nicholas was there, plus Matt and Jackie's kids Allyson, Emily and Maty. (Allyson turned 17 the day after T-Day, and Emily is 15 1/2, so they're not really "kids" anymore!) Daniel had a BLAST playing with the gang! Isabella read books to him. Uncle John didn't even know she could read! She did a great job. Nick played store with Danny using the cash register and play money. They all showed him how to race Hot Wheels cars on the racetrack. And they initiated him into the cousins-only clubhouse. At one point, the kids were all wrestling, and Eric said Daniel looked for his opening, and finally just tackled one of the big boys! I think Danny's favorite activity of the whole trip was playing "I'm Gonna Get You," where he gets chased by people. Hence the various photos you'll see of Daniel running away from someone with a huge grin on his face.

I started putting individual photos here, but I realized it would make the post hugely long. So I created a slideshow instead. ~Enjoy~