A Florida Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving season was a bit different this year. This momma did NO cooking and we traveled via plane. That's a Thanksgiving first for me!

With Samantha in school this year, the festivities started a week early. She had a class party and feast. I signed up to bring the cookies.  

We were also able to sneak in a quick date night before the chaos of the week to see the last Hunger Games movie. 

Our church has an annual Thanksgiving meal the Sunday before Thanksgiving. S loved getting to have dinner in the gym with so many of her friends to run around with after eating! (And all of the desserts people brought!)

Monday began the actual traveling part of the week. We loaded up our two little ladies to fly to Pensacola to see their Lala and Papa G. The trip there was a breeze. There were only three people in front of us in the security line!! (And only two on the way home). On a holiday week!!! We got to the airport entirely too early thinking it would be chaotic. The girls were great that day, but definitely tired by the time we got to their grandparents' house. S said her favorite parts of flying were apple juice and peanuts!

Tuesday we woke up to a delicious breakfast made by Papa G and a trip to their local zoo. They had a petting/feeding zoo at the front the girls loved. 

After some naps, we went to the retirement community where J's grandparents live for dinner. They had some trails and a fish pond we visited first. S loved feeding the fish (and herself) bread. 

Wednesday after K had a brief morning nap, we headed to the beach. No trip to Pensacola is complete without it! Some people have a white Christmas. We had a white thanksgiving! We were all a bit apprehensive before going. Every encounter S had with sand prior to this trip, she SCREAMED! Sandboxes were basically evil and terrifying monsters. For real... she HATED them! We had attempted to take her to the beach at Coronado Island on our San Diego trip and that also ended in tears. But in the 18 months since that last trip, God clearly did some work on her, because she LOVED IT! She immediately got her hands in it, and was even willing to take off her shoes! She wasn't a fan of the water hitting her feet, but it was cold. We can work up to the actual ocean! K wanted to crawl all in the sand also, but this mean mommy didn't want her rubbing it all in her mouth and eyes so she had to stay on the towel. 

That evening was our Thanksgiving. We had to fly back on Thursday, so J's lovely family agreed to eat a day early. I love Thanksgiving food! Especially when I hardly helped with the cooking. I only made mashed potatoes! (I did make J a pecan pie on Friday after we were home).

Helping with the stuffing

Thursday was our long travel day. Again, it was easy and low-stress, just long. We had a three-hour layover in Houston. I could have driven home faster! 

This Doc sticker book from Dollar Tree kept her occupied for almost an hour!

We had a pizza lunch in the Houston Hobby airport while J worked. (He worked A LOT during this trip! Stupid Black Friday!!)

K hadn't napped yet and we still had over four hours of travel before we'd be home, so I walked the airport for about an hour and let her nap in her stroller. It's not a big airport, so I saw everything about 15 times. 

Once we were home, we had a lazy day (and grocery shopping) and then jumped right into Christmas!