This year for Thanksgiving we decided to make the trip down to Austin to spend it with Cory's Dad's side of the family. We have never really spent a holiday with them, and we are within a day's drive of Austin. From Memphis it was about a 10 hour drive. We were concerned Emmy wouldn't be up for that, so we left home at about 10 pm and drove through the night so she could sleep. She slept a good bit of the drive, but was awake for the last 3 hours or so. The last hour and a half were brutal. Cory could not console her no matter what we tried. It was so sad, but we were so close, and exhausted. Cory barely slept, and I drove the whole way. When we finally made it, it was nice to have other people who could entertain Emmy while we recovered.
I didn't grow up with brothers, so it is always nice to visit Austin and have Logan want to play basketball with me, or play Mario Party with Davis and Noah. Even on my zero hours of sleep I was ready to hoop it up. Emmy watched Daddy and Uncle Buckets play for a while. I should have worn shorts...
The morning we got there Davis got some important mail. He received his official acceptance to the University of Texas--Dallas. If he decided to go there, we can have him over for some family dinners!
Later in the afternoon, after a quick nap and shower, we all had a fun time playing at the park across the street. Grandpa pushed Emmy in the swings and played on the jungle gym with her. She isn't quite comfortable going down slides face-forward legs-first by herself, yet, but she will go down backwards feet first on her belly.
While Grandpa and Mimi K kept Emmy entertained, the rest of us got in touch with our inner-child. Cory, Davis, and Logan all rode some horses while I dig some deep digging in the sand. It was a blast.
You may remember that last year, on Emmy's first Thanksgiving, we ran/walked a 5k with her and she won an award for being the youngest racer. It just so happened that Cory's family participates in the Shady Hollow Turkey Trot every year on Thanksgiving, so we could keep the very new tradition of a Thanksgiving 5k alive! We woke up on Turkey Day and put on our running shoes. Cory and I ran/walked while pushing Emmy in the stroller. Here are the Schiess/Gilmore family racers, post-finish.
We spent the rest of the day watching parts of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the National Dog Show. I love watching the dog show. Then we sat around the dinner table and each expressed what we were grateful for before chowing down on Thanksgiving dinner. It was definitely a successful holiday.
Of course, the next day was Black Friday, and Cory and I thought about making some purchases. We have never braved the crowds, but had looked into buying a television for our bedroom. We thought we would go to Sam's Club or Best Buy to snag one. Well, Cory decided to check one last time online for the prices and discovered that for the T.V. we wanted, we didn't have to go into the store. We could get the discounted price and free shipping ordering it online. Deal. That's what we did.
Later, to get out of the house, we thought we would go to Buy Buy Baby and browse around. Little did we know, they were also having a Black Friday sale, and there were no crowds. We remembered how terrible the car ride was with Emmy, and quickly decided that we should capitalize and get a forward facing car-seat. Behold, Emmy's new car throne. It is huge and cushy.
When we actually got it home, Emmy was more interested in playing in the box. She made it her own little clubhouse.
With our trip coming to an end, Cory and I decided that we would try to go on a date while we had the free baby-sitting. We got Emmy in her jammies and handed her over to her uncles' care while we were out.
We decided to head over to Gourdough's, which is a place in Austin that uses donuts in all of their dishes. I didn't need much convincing when Cory brought it up. They had donut burgers, donut sandwiches, etc. We decided to just go with some classic dessert donuts, but what came out were large, gourmet masterpieces. It was awesome. The perfect way to cap off our trip to Austin.
We loaded up the next morning and headed back to Memphis. We drove through Dallas and scoped out our future hometown a bit, but mostly we were just trying to get back to Tennessee ASAP. Emmy loved her car seat, but not 10 hours worth.
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