Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We had some changes to the usual plans this year but hope that everyone enjoyed the weekend in the end. First, our usual Thanksgiving companions, the West family, went to Ohio this year but will be back in future years! Next, Nana and Grandpa were set to come up on Amtrak from Kansas City, but Grandpa had a fainting incident after standing for an hour in line (boo, Amtrak for handling your KC passengers so badly!) and they had to miss the train to make sure he was OK. He’s doing fine now but next up after this blog entry is me writing a letter to Amtrak asking that their KC procedures be reviewed and that the issue boarding passes like in Chicago. Passengers shouldn’t have to stand that long!

But on the good surprises front, Jeff and Maddie (Debbie was working and in Europe) were able to come up from Florida! Also, John’s work colleague Spencer joined us for appetizers and Beatrice from next door joined us for dinner. It was great seeing those who were here and we missed those who weren’t!

Maddie is very good at lots of things, including finding places on maps. Here she and Liam are looking at Florida on the US map.

Dinner time! The Thanksgiving meal was all delicious, thanks to John’s great cooking! He smoked the turkey on the big green egg / new grill & smoker outside. We also had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with cranberry chutney and stuffing.

You know how after dinner you want to watch a little kids YouTube on an iPad and at the same time do some typing? Miles and Maddie did that.

Friday, we went on a trip downtown. After some delicious thin crust pizza at Coal Fire pizza on Grand (and a discussion about how despite being in the land of deep dish we were eating possibly the thinnest crust possible) we went down to the American Girl Place to do a bit of doll shopping. I realized I didn’t take a picture of Maddie with Camille, her new doll, or the super amazed look on Maddie’s face when we went into the doll store, but the shopping trip went very well.

Then we hopped in a taxi to Clark and Lake where the holiday train was scheduled to roll through. Exactly on time, the decorated train pulled up to the delight of all the families waiting on the platform. This specially decorated CTA train runs on the regular tracks on a set schedule from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and it is an equally fun but different experience if you plan to go ride it or if you are lucky enough to catch it as your regular train home!

Waiting for the train

Not a regular train at all!

There’s an open car for Santa’s sleigh and he greets everyone via microphone and speakers as he pulls into the station.

Elves ensure people get on and off safely (that would be a nice feature for the morning commute!) and hand out candy canes. The inside of the train is lit up and decorated and the sound system usually used for announcements plays Christmas songs.

We rode about 3 stops on the holiday train and then doubled back to go home. Note the American Girl bag with Camille inside!

Back home, Maddie and I had a good read of one of my favorite books, Mr Lunch Takes a Plane Ride.

And Jeff took some great portraits of the boys

Of Liam playing trains with Maddie

And of the full group of cousins!