What a Week!

We are finally back and recovered from our holiday travels! Another thing to be thankful for - travelling safety!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Steve and Micah drove down to Delaware to Steve's brother Jeff's house to attend his cousin Bud's wedding. Steve brought Micah with him for travelling companionship, and because his other brother, Pete, and his wife Rachael and 2 sons Bryson (7) and Riley (4) were going to be there as well, and Micah would have fun playing with them. Well, considering that all of us were going to be BACK down in Delaware for Thanksgiving, Pete & Rachael and Steve's parents all decided to just stay down there for the week. And Micah stayed there with them. I was concerned that, when it came down to Steve leaving to drive back here last Sunday, Micah would decide he wanted to come home after all. Silly me - there he was surrounded by cousins - he stayed! And according to him, he didn't miss us one bit! Rachael shared a funny story with me about Micah while he was down there. Apparently, he decided he needed some privacy while he went to the bathroom, so he locked the door. And then, of course, he needed some help, and Rachael could not get in, and he would not get off the toilet to unlock the door, so she finally found a screwdriver and got the door unlocked and he said "I wish my dad was here - he would have gotten in much faster than you did" Funny kid.

So, after Emmalee got out of school on Tuesday, Steve and I and Em and Lily packed into the car and drove to Jeff's house. What should have been a 4 1/2 hour drive turned into about a 6 hour drive due to traffic near the George Washington Bridge. And of course we had to stop at McDonald's for dinner. Lily is not a very good traveller - she was yelling "OUT" 45 minutes into our drive! As an aside, the McDonald's we stopped at in Danbury, CT was probably the nicest one I have ever been into. There was a fireplace in the middle, with booths on either side (think Panera or Starbucks) for fireside dining (which we did), and the booths lining the walls all had individual flat screen tvs on the walls! The food still tasted the same though... :-)

So we finally get to Jeff's and of course there is the whole family there, so the kids were all very excited to see each other. Emmalee LOVES hanging out with her "big girl cousins" - Jeff's daughters Heather (22), Tabitha (19), Kaitlyn (16) & Chelsea(14), and trying on their clothes and looking at their shoes and purses!

Wednesday was spent preparing for the meal! Caroline, Rachael & I had some last minute items to pick up at the grocery store (Super Walmart). I decided I was going to make chocolate cream pies. I've never made them before, but there was a recipe on the chocolate pudding box, so I went with it. I didn't want to use a graham cracker crust, though, so I bought pre-made real crusts (to avoid having to roll dough with a bottle, although I am sure Caroline has a rolling pin!) Steve's grandmother was down also, and she is an amazing cook, so we were sure our meal would be just perfect! That night I whipped up the chocolate pudding, poured it into the ready-made crusts, threw them into the refrigerator - easy as... well... pie.

Thursday morning the turkeys were cooked, the side dishes prepared, I mashed potatoes for the first time ever, and we were good to go for dinner at about 2pm. Steve's Uncle Mike and Aunt Irene and their sons Jamie and Justin came over also. That put every living person in the Richards family in one place all at the same time! And can you believe we did not get a picture to document that!?! What were we thinking?? The meal was delicious, food was in abundance! We stuffed ourselves and retired to various places in the house to relax. An hour or so later, the pies came out. There were 10 pies - 3 pumpkin, 2 apple, 2 peanut butter, 1 pecan, and my 2 chocolate cream. I wasn't hungry for dessert, so did not go out to the kitchen. When I did finally decide to dig into some pie, I noticed my pies were not on the counter. I was just about to ask, when Rachael pulled me aside and said something along the lines of "I didn't want to say anything out loud and make a big deal about it and hurt your feelings, but we left your pies in the refrigerator, because - the crusts are not cooked." You know - when I was preparing those pies the night before, I had thought that it all seemed too easy. DUH - I did not cook the crusts - I poured the pudding into RAW crusts! I thought if they were pre-made, they must have been ready to go! Now, my feelings were not at all hurt- I thought it was hilarious and SO typical of me! And it was an easy fix - I scooped out the pudding, cooked the crusts, replaced the pudding, and they were delicious!

Now for the exciting part of the evening - Jeff & Caroline, Pete & Rachael, and Steve & I all bundled ourselves up and drove to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia to attend the Eagles football game! Rachael had gotten 2 free tickets from her work, and at the last minute, the rest of us decided we wanted to go to the game too, so we found (actually Tabitha found them) 4 tickets on Craigslist for a great price, and off we went. And we had really good seats. Now, I am not a football fan AT ALL, and the Eagles stink this year (I only know that because Steve is a die-hard fan), but it was a fun time. Any sport live is fun. And I discovered Stewart Bradley, #55, middle line-backer for the Eagles - take a look at his picture and you'll become a fan too!

Anyway, we got back from the game around 1am, and then Rachael and I were up at 4:30am to get to the doorbuster deals at Walmart for 5am! Walmart was a madhouse. It was not even fun, or really even worth it to be there that early, in my opinion. There were SO many people, you could not even maneuver a cart around the store. I didn't really find anything that I had gone for, except for some of the $2 and $4 dvds! We then hit Toys R Us and TJ Maxx and were home by 11am! I promptly went to bed!

The rest of Friday was pretty low-key, aside from Micah nearly getting his finger chopped off in the bathroom door. Of course, if someone was going to get hurt, it was going to be Micah. And when Micah gets hurt, it's not a minor thing! I exaggerated a little - he didn't really get his finger nearly chopped off, but it did get shut in the door, and scraped a big chunk of skin off it, and he cried like crazy. For a little while, Steve thought it might be broken, and the fingernail was all black and blue and we thought for sure he was going to lose it, but today the black and blue is gone and it seems to be healing up just fine!

We left Saturday morning, and again, the drive took a little over 6 hours due to an accident on the New Jersey Tpke, which closed all the lanes, and we had to find an alternate route, and then there was traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Again, Lily was a punk in the car. We couldn't figure out why she was continuosly whining and NOT falling asleep. Well, about 5 minutes over the bridge, she started vomiting. And it just kept coming. She was absolutely covered, and there was nowhere to pull over. I mean, we could have pulled over on the shoulder, but we needed a place with water, so that we could clean her up, and there were no rest stops or exits with facilities! Windows were down, Micah and Emmalee were holding their noses, Lily was covered in chunks and screaming, and COLD, and I was praying there would not be a chain reaction with the other kids! We finally get off an exit that had a burger king, and by this time, Lily has fallen asleep. So I had to wake her, dig out clean clothes, and take her to the bathroom. I stripped her and bathed her in the sink (which got stopped up from the chunks! Oops!) while Steve took care of the car seat. Thankfully, we had an extra car seat in the car - Steve had left Micah's seat from Steve's car in Delaware when he was there the weekend before, and we didn't think to take out Micah's seat that stays in my car, so we had the extra, and were able to put Lily in that one for the rest of the ride home. Which she thankfully slept for. Of course, the car still reeked of sour milk vomit, but at least she didn't have to sit in it!

We spent all day Sunday in our PJ's, lounging around the house. Everyone has a bit of a cold, so we didn't go to church. I had to work last night, and now it is Monday morning and we are back on schedule! Whew! What a week!