Family

As I mentioned in my last post, this year was the year of family!! Both of our families were completely, 100% together, on one of the BIG holidays this year...and we managed to get pictures of them both to record for all time! His family was together on Christmas. My family was together on Thanksgiving!! That one is also knows as the BEST SURPRISE EVER!!!

It all started back in 2012 when last minute (talking late October here) I sent me sister an email to find out if that was the year her family would spend Thanksgiving with our parents. If so, I would get plane tickets and fly up to surprise them. It was, however, the year they would spend with her in-laws. So no surprise in 2012. I put it on the back burner as an idea for 2013. Then flash forward to March (2013) when my sister sent me an email about whether or not Mike and I would make a trip north to see them, and if so did we have an idea of when (she was trying to plan summer camps for the kids). My reply on March 4th started the PLAN SURPRISE 2013. In this message I told her that we wanted to fly up the weekend before Thanksgiving, spend a few days with them, then ride with them to my parent's house the day before Thanksgiving to all spend the holiday together. Because of my work schedule, we would have to fly home on Thanksgiving day, but because my parent's were already planning week vacation here, the short amount of time we spent there would be ok. We also knew that my niece would have school early that week and my sister would likely be working, so instead of asking anyone to take time off, we planned a day trip via train into NYC (blog post coming soon on this)!! My sister thought this was a great idea and so the plan was hatched.

Plans didn't start to get finalized until the summer when I was officially able to take vacation and get our plane tickets. But they did get put together and we did get to have our whole family together for Thanksgiving!! Such fun to have pulled this off!!
 

It's upstate NY...so there was a good chance we would get to see snow!! I watched the weather all week before we left and kept my fingers crossed!! Haven't seen snow in a number of years!! As luck would have it...it snowed!! Was snowing so much that my parent's told my sister that if it got really bad out they didn't have to come! She knew that wasn't an option, but humored my parents anyway about it! We got to play in the snow on Thanksgiving day while the feast cooked! Snowballs were thrown and angels were made!! Loved it!!

 
I got video of each of my parents seeing us and those were awesome moments!

Dad was up first as he came outside to help bring in stuff...

Mom was up next once we got inside the house...

I love how she didn't even really notice us when she walked in the room!! This is certainly a memory I am glad to have captured!! Thanks to my friends for suggesting I get their reactions on film!!

The new year is almost upon us and I have been doing some reflection about the year we are about to close the door on. It's been a great year and I'll be back tomorrow to share some of my reflections and those moments I'll carry with me into 2014! I'm trying to get a running start with being a better blogger in 2014!! Until then, thanks for stopping by!
deb