We packed up the van and headed out early Thanksgiving morning to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each year Mark's family gathers at his aunt and uncle's house in Milwaukee. By leaving Thanksgiving morning, we are able to make the trip in about 4 hours vs. 7-8 hours if we hit Chicago traffic wrong (Which we did last year. It took us 3 hours to go from one side of Chicago to the other. It's hard to imagine unless you've been in a similar traffic jam.) We arrived by breakfast and had a wonderful weekend with everyone. Will and Erin did awesome with the traveling and new people. We stayed with Mark's cousin and her fiance (he proposed on Thanksgiving!), which worked out great! We are thankful that they allowed us to invade their home.
One Thanksgiving Day, we hung out at Uncle Joe's house with everyone ( 20 adults and 8 kids) watched the Lions loose to the Packers and ate way too much delicious food. Will had his first trip to the Quarry, which is located behind Uncle Joe's neighborhood. Mark said that bad things always happened at the Quarry so Will had his first sip of Coke. :-) We had 4 delicious turkeys and a variety of side dishes. I went back for seconds and had a belly ache later that night. But, everything was so good and I couldn't help myself. :-) Will slept through Thanksgiving dinner, but he did experience (I can't say enjoy because of the faces he was making) a yellow pepper earlier in the day. 
Erin and Samantha played nicely during dinner.
On Friday, we did a little shopping and braved the mall for about an hour. I bought a few shirts, but other than that, there were too many people there and I didn't want to fight the crowds. We did have fun people watching though. The family tradition is to see a movie on Friday. This year we stayed home and enjoyed a little downtime at the house. 
On Saturday, we had a dual Wine Tasting baby shower for Samantha (who was born in June, but we haven't seen her since) and a bridal shower for Mark's sister Sarah (who is getting married in February). The guys watched all of the kids while the adult girls had the shower in the dining room. Everyone brought a bottle of wine. We sampled the wine and rated them based on four different things (I don't remember what they were). None of us knew much about wine so it was pretty comical to hear us trying to judge these wines. Our bride Sarah's favorite wines were the cheapest bottles (under $3.00) which was funny. After the sampling, we painted wine glasses for Sarah. We all took the task of painting very seriously. 
We made Samantha birthday cards. This has been a family tradition for all of the baby showers. Each person is given a year and you have to make a birthday card for Samantha to open that year. We had her 2nd birthday. Mark traced Will and Erin's hands and put $10 in the card from the family poker game he won the night before. (Sorry for ruining the surprise Christine and Trinh.) This is a fun tradition and I can't wait to open Will and Erin's first card in a month. On our way home, we stopped in Chicago to see my sister and her new apartment. The kids had fun playing for a few hours and we had a chance to visit. I can't wait to get back there this summer because she is within walking distance to the Lincoln Park Zoo and Traders Joes. :-) Will and Erin slept the whole way from Chicago to Grand Rapids. We are thankful to have good car riders because as you all know, we are always on the go.
We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for especially the support we have received from all of you!
On Sunday, we had a chance to doing some skiing at Crystal Mountain (where Mark's parents have a vacation home). Mark and I took turns watching the kids while the other one skied. We only took 2-3 runs, but it felt good to be on the snow. Will and Erin enjoyed people watching and hanging out in the snow.
