I hope everyone who's celebrating had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday and is enjoying a long vacation. And if that isn't the case for you, then I hope you're having wonderful days no matter where you are and what you're doing.

My parents came yesterday morning and stayed until right before lunch today, so it was a short visit but a good one. We have eaten so much food over the past day and a half, and it's all been so yummy. Cory did most of the cooking, so it was only fair that I did most of the clean up, right? Of course, having my parents around made that job a little easier. After lunch, we took my parents over to see how construction on the new bridge over the Missouri River is progressing, and even though it was only in the 20s, we stayed at the little park for a short time to walk around. My parents actually stayed at a little hotel just a half block from our house because they thought the kids would have fun going to their room. This was huge for Accalia and Cole because they've always wanted to see the inside of the motel rooms, but that's never happened. Really, our visit consisted mostly of eating, visiting and playing. It was a little bit warmer today, so this morning my parents took Accalia and Cole to the park with the duck pond so they could feed the ducks and geese. Soon after that my parents left to return home.

My mom told me that a lot of the relatives in Mankato were expecting some sort of baby announcement from us this Thanksgiving since we seem to do that, but I'm going to have to disappoint those relatives and say that there is currently no baby on the way. And really, we've only made the pregnancy announcement once at Thanksgiving and that was in 1998 when I was pregnant with Accalia. I guess that in 2001 my announcement at this time was that I had miscarried, and it was just a month later that I found out I was pregnant with Cole. We announced Ella's pregnancy at Easter in 2004 - same day, in fact, that Jessica and Jeremy announced her pregnancy with Brooklyn. So that's my short history of pregnancy announcements and holidays.

Last night we all went to bed early - around 10 p.m. I was exhausted and Cory was planning to get up early to hit some Black Friday sales. I so foolishly ventured out this afternoon to pick up a couple things, and Cole and I even stopped at Goodwill to drop off a bag of donations and browse. We found a brand new Eloise board game, which Accalia and Cole have had fun with today. I also picked up a few books for myself and a book for my dad - a collection of stories about flying.

Cory is working tonight and called to say it's quite busy. There are six drivers on tonight, and usually there are three or four on the weekend. He's supposed to be done at 10, and hopefully he won't have to stay longer. Cory works Saturday and Sunday nights, too, but otherwise we don't have big plans for the weekend. Tonight the kids and I have been putting up a few Christmas decorations, gotten out all of our Christmas videos and books, etc. Maybe we'll put up the tree tomorrow.