Thanksgiving Weekend in Ft. Hood

I was just saying the other day that November has been the fastest month of my life and probably not for the best of reasons. After Romney got Hand, Foot and Mouth, he then got a stomach bug, and then a double ear infection. He has literally been jumping from one sickness to the next. I'm just so grateful that Olivia has been healthy and I've, for the most part, been healthy as well. Jordan is still on TDY (temorary duty yonder) at Ft. Hood and we've got just a couple weeks left of that, hallelujah! We are so sick of having to say goodbye and none of us can wait til we are all back in the same house again for a good long time! On top of all of this, Jordan graciously came home one weekend to help me out with Romney because he's been so sick, and we ended up getting in a head to head collision with another car that has totaled my car and I now have some whiplash that I'm dealing with. Luckily and blessedly, Jordan and the kids were not hurt one bit.

It's been one of those months where I have seriously contemplated running away. I've had to deal with a sick kid pretty much on my own nonstop for the last month, take care of our house, two birthdays to plan, make sure Olivia keeps up with school, people visiting from out of town, and now losing my car. It has been a heavy load to bear.

I am blessed with many people in my life who I've been able to turn to and rely on for extra strength during these hard times, and I'm not trying to complain here. I guess what I'm saying is that I have a lot of reasons for running away, and in a sense, I kind of did.

For Thanksgiving this year we went to visit Jordan in Ft. Hood and stayed at his hotel. My cousins, who are about 8 years ahead of us in the military medical training life, also live there and so we shared a Texas BBQ Thanksgiving dinner with them on Wednesday night, since my cousin was on call. Olivia loved spending time with her cousins and this Thanksgiving has made me recognize what a treasure my family is. Normally I get really hung up on what kind of food we're eating or what activities we are doing, but this holiday I was just so grateful to be spending the time with my family.

Although I didn't actually run away from home, it was nice to get away from everything and just focus on the holiday and have some time to breathe. On Thanksgiving day we went and saw the movie Wonder and then went to Golden Corral. The movie was really well done, but Golden Corral was a bit of a mess. The food was just fine, but we wandered around for ten minutes trying to find seats and then Romney practically cried and threw a tantrum the whole time. I don't think any of us really relaxed and enjoyed our meal. That night we watched Wonder Woman in our hotel room, which was hard because Romney was having a hard time sleeping in a one bedroom hotel room, and Olivia kept talking. Finally we put Romney in the closet and he fell right to sleep.
We went hiking with my cousins while Jordan worked a 24-hour shift and hung out with them the rest of that day. I'm super grateful for my cousins always being willing to let us come over and being so welcoming. We had such a fun time with them and while this Thanksgiving was very different from any others I've had, my family made it so worth it.

Pumpkin Pie 

Banana Cream Pie

Romney loved Teddy and Teddy loved Romney! 

Our last night together at Ft. Hood we went to BLORA park and drove through their outdoor light exhibit! You can tune your radio to a certain station and listen to Christmas music and it totally put me in the mood for Christmas. 

This mad man let Olivia drive!

Our last activity together was to go to Topsey Ranch safari, where we got to feed animals from our car and visit their petting zoo. We saw buffalo, Texas longhorns, zebra, a camel, llamas, goats, deer, impala, and emu and ostriches. One emu actually attacked Olivia's finger when she was trying to feed it, thinking Olivia's hand was food. She was pretty scared after that and every time we saw an emu, we closed our windows and drove past real quick! The ostriches were also really mean and would try peck at the cars and run after us. It was a crazy last adventure together, but overall fun and Olivia loves telling her emu attack story. 

Goat poop EVERYWHERE! 

But so cute! 

That brown goat was super aggressive and would climb right up on you to get food

So slobbery! 

Driving away from the crazy ostrich

This llama was quite offended that I ran out of food and refused to let me pet it.

Camels are really tall. 

So I drove back home and come to find out our lives were there waiting for us. It's nice to be home and we are looking forward to celebrating Christmas, but most of all I'm looking forward to my family being together again. I have a lot to be thankful for. Through trials we are stretched and learn to grow, through families we learn to love, and through good times we learn to enjoy life and make the most of what we have.