Long time no see

That's something that people say all the time back home. It most definitely applies now. I can't believe how long it's been since I've been on here. Here's a quick update:

Thanksgiving

We got off 1/2 a day on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and one of front tires blew out on the way home from work, so we spent the afternoon getting that fixed. I watched Dr. Phil in the car shop waiting area, and that's exactly what I would have been doing at home anyway. At least this way, Robert was trapped and had to watch it with me.

The next day we ate leftover Vietnamese (a very traditional Thanksgiving meal) for lunch and packed up and headed to West Virginia. We got to Charleston around 9:00 pm, checked in, called the fam (Mom, Beege, Jarrod, Kerri, and Peyton) and found out that they hadn't left yet. Nice. Then we ventured off in search of food and found a Cracker Barrell so we got our turkey and dressing after all. It was maybe the best dressing I've ever had. For real. Robert and I went back to the hotel, swam for a bit and went to sleep on the VERY uncomfortable sleeper sofa.

I was awoken at about 2:00 by someone violently shaking me by both arms. I didn't speak just hit Robert over and over to try to get him to wake up and do something about the serial killer in our room. Turns out it was just Jarrod, who thought that would be really funny. He was way wrong. Since I don't hear that well, I didn't hear them all come in and shout "We're Here!" and turn on all the lights. I was just jarred awake and really thought that someone had broken in the room. Jarrod showed me the giant scratches I had left on his arms the next day. I'm pretty sure he deserved it.

We had a great time together. We went bowling (Robert won, but Peyton was the cutest), ate at a decent seafood place, played laser tag and did go-carts, and went to a Japanese Steakhouse on Jarrod's birthday. This was mine and Rob's first time at one of these places, and it was a lot of fun. Note to all those who've never played laser tag: GO! It was sooooo much fun. I thought that I would hate it, but it was a blast. We parted ways on Sunday afternoon after lunch.

Christmas

We had a great time in KY for Christmas. I got to see Stephanie and Ashley in Richmond before going on home for the week between Christmas and New Year's. We did a lot of traveling once we were there as well. First to IN to Ma's, then to Lexington for the UK-EKU game (our Christmas present to our dads), and then to Indianapolis for the Colts game on New Year's Eve. It was awesome! I want to do it again next year, but I don't really see that happening. We got to see Trevin play a basketball game and also got to spend a lot of time with the 2 baby nephews as well. They are both very cute, and have very different personalities. Hard to believe that we will have 5 nephews pretty soon! Crazy. We played board games a lot and laughed a lot. I love our giant combined family.

It was really great to be home, but sad as well, since we don't know when we'll be back. Maybe it's everyone's turn to come see us again!

-Rachel