Holidays

We spent our Thanksgiving in Norfolk, VA with our sister-in-law's family. They host every year, but we haven't gone consistently due to the cost of flying and the length of the drive. But since Christmas has been relocated to our house this year (and therefore we will neither be flying to New Orleans nor driving to D.C.), we decided to brave it and drive to Norfolk.

It wasn't all that bad, really. We left early Wednesday morning and hit almost no traffic. In fact, the worst of it was when we arrived in D.C. to spend the night with Morgan's brother and his family. The boys did quite well in the car, aside from the obligatory "Are we there yet?" and "How much longer?" and "I don't want it to take so long!". Toward the end of the drive, Morgan offered them each $5 if they could avoid any questions or comments about how long it would take to get there. I remembered a tip I read somewhere and revised the rules so that each time they asked one of the forbidden questions, they'd lose some money. Whatever was left when we got to D.C., they could keep. Let me tell you, this was the most amazing trick ever! We will definitely be doing this on future trips. In case you're wondering, the idea I had heard about was to give kids a roll of quarters at the start of a long trip, then take a quarter away from anyone who asks "Are we there yet?" or other similar questions. They keep any money left when the trip is over.

My boys don't even really know about money, but they knew they wanted some. What a great idea. Next time we'll go with the quarters, as it's both cheaper and easier to keep track of since you simply take the money away on the spot.

The visit in Norfolk was fun. This was our first non-vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner in many, many years. I think we had been vegetarian for about 17 years, but recently started eating meat again. And our hostess didn't mess around. She served a turducken, so there was meat aplenty. Maryam is a good cook, and we had a good time. Fortunately her son Keon, who is about 9 months older than the boys, had lots of cool toys in his room to occupy the kids.

Of course, then we had to drive back to Boston. The last day we were in Norfolk, Rowan got sick (fever and vomiting), which made the drive home somewhat dubious, but we survived. I don't know what it is about our family and travel, but someone always ends up being sick. Oh well. I'm still glad we went. With so much loss in my life, I find myself eager to try and create family for my boys whenever I can.