It Wouldn't be a Trip Home...

...if there wasn't any drama! Wow, well we knew we were going up to WA for Thanksgiving, we left the Tuesday before the holiday and got in there late that night. We planned to stay until the following Saturday (so like 10 days) but ended up staying a little longer, keep reading to find out why, but I warn you, this could be long and rambling!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, we got to see all of the WA side of the family and we got to meet my sister's new boyfriend Mike; we just loved him, what a sweet guy! We had some great food, watched some football, and had a really good time. That night, however, Charlotte decided she didn't want to sleep, and Brandon's stomach decided it didn't want to keep all that delicious food so he was up all night throwing it all back up...gross. Not a great way to start off a trip, but still, we got through it! We got my parents' Christmas tree on Friday and decorated the house for Christmas. The kids had fun playing with all of Grammy's Christmas decorations. On Saturday, we went to Poulsbo to see Heather and Kevin and Tyler's new house and celebrate Tyler's 11th (that's right, I said 11th) birthday. Can you believe that kid is so old :) Timothy really loved playing ping pong and Charlotte loved playing with the puppies.

On Sunday morning, we went to church and noticed that the police had the street blocked off when we turned to go to the building. We found out after Bible class that there had been a shooting at the coffee shop down the road and four police officers had been killed. That was the most tense sermon I've ever sat through! You could hear the helicopters overhead, there were several men from the congregation patrolling the outside of the building and we were told at the end of the service to please leave quickly and carefully because the shooter was still on the loose. The police ended up catching and killing him later that week, but it was so so sad to hear about the families that the fallen police officers left behind, all of them had children and the coffee shop that they were killed at was the place that Brandon and I used to go every Sunday morning to pick up coffee for church (they donate a huge thing of coffee to our church every week), and we know several of the girls that work there by name.

They ended up cancelling services that evening, so Brandon and I went out on a date night and saw New Moon and got some dinner. It was nice to get away from the kids for the night and we're SO thankful to have grandparents that love and spoil them so much!! On Monday, my parents and Brandon and I took the kids to the Children's Museum in Tacoma. They had so much fun playing dress up and making movies and doing art projects. Timothy worked in the "store" and the "restaurant" and Charlotte mostly played with the magnets. It was a really neat museum. On Tuesday, my nephew Tyler came over and we celebrated his actual birthday by getting Santa pictures made and bowling and playing mini golf. Timothy had so much fun, I think that was his most favorite day of the whole trip. Wednesday we stayed pretty low-key and just hung out, and Thursday we went to see that Planet 51 movie, not a great movie, but we had the whole theater to ourselves, so the kids pretty much just ran around the whole time and had fun. On Friday, my mom and Charlotte and I did a little shopping and the boys hung out at home and McD's. That night, we went up to see my nephew sing in his church's Christmas program, it was really cute and Timothy sang along to every song. It was such a good week and it really made me miss living up in the NW.

The real adventure was on Saturday. We had an early flight and Brittany did too, so we all left about 5am for the airport. It was really foggy and really cold and about 30 minutes into the trip, we hit a patch of ice and spun out really bad, went off the highway, through some brush and finally into a concrete wall. It was pretty scary, and thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. Brittany was really sore and ended up going to the ER on a stretcher in a neck brace and my mom hit her shoulder pretty bad on the car seat. Timothy and Charlotte both immediately started crying, but calmed down pretty quickly when got them out of their car seats. We were all pretty upset and shaken up and finally made it to Brittany's car (where my dad and Brandon had been) and the police told us where to drive to to pick up my dad who went with the tow truck. We got to the car dealership and while we were waiting on the police to finish writing everything up, Timothy started crying that his back hurt and then he started throwing up. We told the cop that we needed an ambulance and me, Brittany, and Timothy all rode in the ambulance to the hospital. Timothy was admitted, had some x-rays done, and was finally released, they said everything looked fine, he probably just threw up because he was scared. Brittany was released about the same time, she's fine as well, just really sore. I think we were all quite traumatized. Timothy will tell you in detail about everything that happened that morning, I took him for a follow up with his pediatrician this morning and she said that physically he's fine, but the re-living everything and anxiety might last for a few weeks.

The ER doc wouldn't let him fly on Saturday though, so we had to wait till Sunday afternoon to fly out. When we went to check in for our flight, they told us that it was delayed and we were going to miss our connection in Denver so we couldn't fly out that day, we would have to re-book. We talked to a different ticket agent who immediately got us booked on a flight that left that afternoon and went through L.A. instead (thank you nice United agent, whoever you are). So we flew to L.A. and right before we were supposed to board for San Antonio, the gate agent announced that there was a weather advisory in San Antonio and that we were going to try and land there, but if we couldn't, we would be re-routed to Oklahoma City. I almost cried at that point!! I just wanted to get home!! So, we got on board and thankfully, God held off on the fog and we were able to land around midnight.

What a trip!! Needless to say, we're very tired and we were very thankful to have a nice peaceful day today! We do have a busy month this month and we're really looking forward to catching up with friends that we haven't seen in a while, visiting with my parents while they're down here for a couple of weeks, and going to Brandon's parents' house for Christmas. Here are some of the pictures from Thanksgiving, I'll put them all on facebook!