Turkey 2012.

Jared here, I stole the blog from Kimmy to post the turkey day vacation blog.  This year was another journey to Georgia to spend the vacation at Monastery of the Holy Spirit, where Uncle Dee is a Monk.  Mom and Dad came down from Indy and Uncle Rick drove over from Richardson, TX.  The drive down from Michigan was wonderful.  We left in the morning at a reasonable time, something that isn't typical.  And this year we decided to stay in a hotel somewhere in northern GA.  The drive was great and we were talking to mom and dad on the cell phone and agreed to both stop at the same hotel in northern Georgia for Tuesday night.  We all crashed at the Super 8 in Dalton, GA.  The boys really enjoyed their first stay in a hotel and we were right next door to mom and dad's room. We got a good nights rest and were ready to go to the Lego store in Lawrenceville, GA.  Mom and Dad decided to meet us there as well.  We arrived first and got a hold of Mom and Dad via cell phone.  They were having some difficulty finding their way and it was quite the adventure to finally get them to the Lego store inside the mall.  But they made it.  Adam picked out a really cool creator set and Jacob decided to fill a pick a brick container.  He picked out all kinds of cool Lego's.  Eli got a crazy monster racers set.  We left there and headed to the monastery, arriving around 12:30 pm.  Uncle Rick arrived about an hour later.  We had a great time visiting with everyone. Uncle Dee hung out with us all week and on the last night read the boys a chapter out of his Pinocchio book.  The boys really loved it and continued to look at pictures in the book as Uncle Dee summarized the rest of the story.  Mom cooked a great turkey and all sorts of other fixings.   Rosemary and Don Jackson joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.  We had a wonderful chat with Rosemary who use to teach and work with Uncle Dee at Georgia College.  We really appreciated all of Rosemary's insight into learning disabilities and how we can work with Jacob in the future.  She also blessed us with a book she and Christopher Lee wrote.  Lots of turkey was consumed, apple pie and lots and lots of ice cream. Thanks Uncle Rick. Uncle Rick brought lots of cardboard for the boys to take home.  Just under half a ton I think...wow.  Uncle Rick also delivered a few loads of Dallas Stars and Allen American odds and ends.  Many thundersticks so our epic sword fights can continue at home.  We met Brother Martin from Vietnam this year.  Mom showed him how to make a few things and once Brother Martin looked at the example he understood how to make it.  He is quite a talented tailor.  We made the usual hike to the location of the old pine board monastery to hunt for glass.  It's amazing how some of the glass that was found looked so new.  hint hint wink wink nudge nudge.  And we also found some older looking glass.  We checked out the stores as well.  Sampled some wonderful Nicaraguan coffee but passed on the Swedish Winter beverage known as GLUG.  As it tastes like cough syrup.  We also got to try some candy that was very good, peppermint chips in white chocolate. We also climbed some magnolia trees and kicked through the chestnut tree leaves.  We made a trip to the bakery to watch them make biscotti bread.  The boys thought the huge mixer and large oven were cool.  Adam really liked the biscotti bread.  I showed Jacob the large container with 2 large 50lb sacks of sugar in it.  He thought that much sugar in one place was pretty awesome.  Brother Peter Damion came to the guest house for mom to make some changes to his cowl that he will be clothed with in January for his solemn profession.  The boys thought he looked really cool in it.  The boys agreed that he looked like a Jedi Knight but we didn't get to see the light saber.  Maybe he gets that once's he makes his solemn profession.  Jacob told me earlier in the week that the Monks "wear really cool cloths." Adam then tried on the cowl and also looked really cool.  The boys played with legos a lot of the time.  And when I say boys I mean those that range in age from 2.5 to 70 something. Grandpa made Eli a double barreled gun from the legos. Jacob and Adam took a box we'd brought down and made a soap dispensing robot out of it.  It was really funny.  Tapping on their head made the soap bars dispense out a little window..  Reminds me of a dream I once had.  The boys loved playing in the two closets. Jacob threw a birthday party for his puppy dog Adam who turned 1 year old.  We had a great time and are looking forward to next year.  We got home at 9:30 pm making the drive home in one day.  As we pulled in the driveway there was about 3 inches of snow and Norman was out running around.  Not sure what the story is and how long he was out running free.  But we are glad he stayed in the area.  We came in and the house was 48 degrees.  burrrrrrrr wood pellet burner is running but it's going to take some time to heat up the house.  The big furnace won't stay lit so I"ll need to fix that tomorrow.  burrrrrrr glad we have some slippers to wear.  That is all for this year...now it's time for Kimmy to add pictures and me to warm up.