Thanksgiving and D.C.

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving! Most of our family were together for the day. My son Neal and his boy Ricardo, traveled from Michigan to be with us. His wife, Claudia, recently got a new job as a prep-chef (she is in culinary school) at McCormick and Schmidt. It was mandatory for her to work because they were opened on Thanksgiving day!!! Jennifer's boyfriend Jimmy went home to Michigan to be with his family, but she stayed behind to spend the time with us!! And of course, Amanda and Jordan.... who hosted our feast. Although, I did the cooking once again. Maybe next year. I did tell Claudia she needed to have the experience and we were ALL coming there! She is the cook in the family. My other daughter, Alyson, and her family stayed home in Tampa. But we will be spending Christmas with them. Because we were all together, we celebrated Christmas and exchanged our gifts. It was actually really fun and odd at the same time. No snow, no tree, but we all made out well with the presents. As most of us do every year, we ate too much and watched too much football.

The next day we avoided Black Friday shopping. But Jennifer ventured out for the good bargains and Amanda had to work. (Her store opened at 7:00 AM.) Jordan went hunting but Andy, Neal and Ricardo and I drove into D.C. to show Ricardo his capital city. It was a great day for him but the weather was very cold, windy and rainy!!! Unfortunately, it was our only possible day to go. We did see most of the landmarks and only one museum, the Natural History with all the dinosaurs, fossils and mammals. It is the most interesting one for a seven-year-old. He loved it! He is planning on putting together a photo book to take back to school to show his class. Along with all his D.C. maps he collected.

Ricardo didn't want to go back to Michigan, begged to stay with his new BFF (Jordan and Cash...the dog). They played with him, kept him entertained and let him stay up way too late every night. We are sure he will sleep most of the way home during that 9 hour drive.