Well, we are back from our Thanksgiving weekend at my parents'. Actually, we were back yesterday, but yesterday was catch-up day, not writing day. The visiting part of the weekend was great. Getting there and getting back home was a nightmare.

To start with, we had snow here in Michigan last Wednesday. It started around 2:00 at my house, and by the time we were ready to leave, at 4:45, we had at least two inches on the ground. That didn't look good. The good news was that it was supposed to be increasingly warmer the further south we went. The bad news was we had about 90 miles of snow to get through first. Normally it takes us about 15 minutes to get from our house to I-75. This day it took us more than half an hour. Once we got to 75, the road was better, but not great. We went through pockets of light snow and pockets of really heavy snow. By 6:30 (now 45 minutes behind schedule) we were just a few miles north of the I-75/US23 split and we stopped to grab something to eat. The snow was starting to get lighter and the roads were not as snow covered, but it was still slow going. We were finally pretty much in the clear by about the time we got to the Ann Arbor area. From there on, the trip was pretty smooth. We still didn't arrive at my parents' until nearly 11:00, way past one little girl's bedtime. It was 11:30 by the time she finally got to bed, and amazingly enough, she was up before 8:00 the next morning.

Thanksgiving Day was nice. One of my friends from college and her new husband, who lives in Cincinnati and whose mom lives in Brecksville, stopped by to visit for a little bit on their way to her mom's. It was good to see them. The last time we saw them was at their wedding, and we (obviously) didn't get to spend much time with them. Shortly before they left, my dad arrived home with my grandma. While I was glad that we were actually able to pry her out of her house for something other than a doctor's appointment or her hair appointment, it was not entirely pleasant to have her there. I feel bad for my mom and all that she has to deal with on a daily basis with my grandma. That in itself could fill an entire entry.

Friday was a pretty laid back day. My mom and brother had to work, so we basically just hung out with my dad for most of the day. When my brother got home from work he headed out for his property to go hunting. To my mom's dismay, he actually came home with a deer. He was pretty excited because, in addition to being an 8 point buck, it was his first deer that he got with a bow (and arrow). He was even more tickled about it because he had only been sitting out there for 5 minutes and had been sitting in the seat of his buddy's dad, who wasn't able to be there, and he knew that buddy's dad was going to be mad.

On Saturday, Kevin and Paul went out to take some pictures of the deer before Paul got it ready to be processed. Alison went out to see the deer to and was thrilled with it. She even petted it, which is kind of gross to me, but what does she know, she's only 2. :) Every now and then during the rest of our visit she would go over to the door to the deck or get up on the chair by the window and look out to try and see Uncle Paul's "reindeer." Luckily it was gone by the time she started doing that, because I think it might have freaked her out to see a skinless deer hanging from the bucket of the tractor.

On Sunday we went to church. Alison had a blast playing in the nursery. She even got to walk around the church a little bit because she was the only child there at the first service. I met her (and Carol) walking down the hall with a donut in her hand when I came down to pick her up. While we were having juice and donuts after church, in walked a friend of mine from high school and her family. It's only the second time in the last 6 years of so that I've seen her. The last time was at her baby shower last year. It was really nice to see her and see the baby. I also got to meet her husband for the first time, too. We chatted a little before they headed up to church. We had a chance to hang out again later because we joined the Lunch Bunch for lunch, which we don't usually do. It was really nice. After lunch Alison took a nap and I snoozed through most of the Browns game before finally getting around to pack.

We finally hit the road at about 4:30. The trip home went great until 5:56. At that point we were on the Ohio Turnpike and were about 4 miles away from the last open rest area on our route (the actual last rest area on our route is closed for reconstruction). We decided to stop there and eat since it would be pushing 7:00 by the time we were off the turnpike and had the chance to stop somewhere else. Unfortunately, at mile marker 104, traffic stopped....completely. An hour and a half later (7:30) we finally made it to the rest area. By that time, Alison had polished of her applesauce, all the Cherrios I had left, and a handful of Teddy Grahms, and was no longer a happy camper. Taking the straw out of her cup and dumping half of it down the front of her probably contributed to the crabbiness, too.

When we finally made it to the rest area, there were cars everywhere. Being trapped on the highway with the next rest area 50 miles away will cause that to happen, I guess. We found "additional parking" areas that we never knew existed. When we got inside, we split up.....Kevin got in line for food and Alison and I headed for the restroom to change a diaper. Of course Alison wanted to walk. Luckily she held my hand the whole time without much fuss. The line for the "family"restroom was way too long, so we headed for the ladies room. That line was even longer. I found an empty bench and figure that was good enough. With the diaper change taken care of, we went back to try and find Kevin. To my surprise, he had already gotten our order in was waiting to pick up the food. Alison and I went off in search of a table. We found one more easily that I thought we would. I didn't even attempt to find a high chair....figured Kevin could do that when he brought the food. The people at the table across from us had one, and they weren't using it, but I didn't want to ask them, since you never know how people are going to be in situations like we were all in. They're either going to be really, really nice or really, really not. Turns out that they were in the nice category because when Kevin went off in search of a highchair they grabbed him and told him to take theirs.

8:15 and we're back on the road. From what we could see out the window, traffic was moving pretty well. That proved to be true when we were back out on the road, at least for about 10 miles. The words "wow, we've actually gone 10 miles in 10 minutes" were no sooner out of my mouth then we were stopped again. Arrggghh!!! The next 10 miles took us about half an hour. Beyond that, it was smooth sailing. Unfortunately we still had about 2 1/2 hours of travel to go.

I had talked to my mom just before we left the rest area and we figured we had about 3 hours before we would be home, so that would be 11:00. At 11:05 my mom called to check on us (probably because she was ready to go to bed). She was very sorry to hear that we were still an hour away from home. I told her about the additional traffic tie-up and told her I would call and let the phone ring twice and hang up when we got home. That way they'd know we were home safely, but they wouldn't have to get up and answer the phone to find out. At 12:05 we pulled into the garage.

Alison, mercifully, slept for about the last 2 1/2 hours of the trip. When it was about her usual bedtime, she started getting cranky so I covered her up with the little receiving blanket we leave in the car and gave her the little pillow she got for being cooperative for the x-ray techs and told her to go to sleep. To my amazement, she did! It was kind of a fitful sleep, probably because, in addition to having a wet shirt she now had wet pants as well. She took the cup, which we filled up for her again at supper, and put it under her leg, which squirted water out of the straw and all over the car seat until I noticed it....when I covered her up again because she got all squirmy and upset. She woke up the second the car pulled into the garage, which I thought was a bad sign, but after I got her diaper changed and got her into her pajamas she wanted to go directly to bed. I obliged and her eyes were closed as soon as I put her down.

All in all, our 4 1/2 hour trip took us 7 1/2 hours. Including our dinner stop, we spent 5 hours on the turnpike instead of 2. I really hope that things are better when we make the same trip at Christmas. I'd hate to think they could be much worse.