Thanksgiving in Paradise

Just when you thought Thanksgiving recaps were over...here's ours! Fashionably late. 

Billy and I had originally planned on spending Thanksgiving in Denver since flights back East do not come cheap and we already went back for the Naval Academy Reunion and are going to Maryland for Christmas. Billy's mom VERY generously offered us plane tickets to Florida to spend it with her, Billy's stepdad, and his sister's family. We jumped at the chance to spend the holiday with family instead of attempting to figure out something in Denver...plus who turns down a vacay to Florida?! We flew out late on Tuesday night and prepared ourselves for sun and serious relaxation.

For those of you spending the holiday in colder weather, it will probably make you feel better to know that it wasn't sunny and warm the entire time. Our first day was windy and cloudy, so since it's not exactly pool weather, we loaded up into the car and drove out to Sanibel and Captiva Islands for a day of exploring. Billy's favorite restaurant on Captiva is the Mucky Duck, so we headed out for lunch before stopping at the beach and a wildlife preserve (although we didn't see any wildlife...just trees. But very cool looking Floridian trees).

On the beach at Sanibel

 I've only ever seen Wellington and the Everglades, which are obviously wildly different from eachother. Wellington is highly manicured and tries really hard to look like the most perfect version of Florida. There's palm trees perfectly lined up along every street and all the buildings are stucco with that Spanish tile roofing. On Sanibel, it was nice to see a more natural version of Florida with "normal" vegetation and houses. Although there was at least one hot pink house, which is still probably fairly normal for Florida.

Billy's sister Aly and her family were due to arrive that night, so we enjoyed few hours of silence in the house once we got back from the beach. Spending the long weekend with them was a blast, and further reinforced that parenting is more work than you could ever imagine or put into words. 


Since the kids only see Billy (and now me) once a year, they are still at the age where they don't always remember us and are very wary of the new strangers sharing a house with them. Chase (the baby) mistook me for Aly their first night here and was horrified to discover he had walked over to the WRONG lady with brown hair.

Chase looking unsure of the large human holding him captive

Uncle Billy won over Rowan (who's three) with a round of soccer, but I was initially told (in no uncertain terms) that I was NOT invited. Fortunately by the end of the weekend we had successfully convinced both of them that we were actually pretty fun. 

It may have helped our case that we directly facilitate making Rowan taller and able to see things

We were also celebrating Chase's first birthday in addition to Thanksgiving. I'll let the pictures do the talking. We did a lot of binge eating, family bonding (which may or may not have included beer/wine), and Monopoly Deal games (Google it. It's awesome.).

Chase figuring out the intricacies of unwrapping gifts

Aly modeling Chase's new pirate towel. I realize it looks like Rowan's about to hit her, but I'm fairly certain he was just flailing his arms around in excitement over his fire chief towel.

Aly and Dan on Thanksgiving! Aly is digging into the infamous "Green Junk" which is some sort of Jello concoction Billy's family is obsessed with. I'm still working up the nerve to try it.

Me and Billy in front of the Thanksgiving spread (Turkey not pictured)

I almost forgot to add that I saw several manatees, including a baby one. So my life is pretty much complete.