Thanksgiving in Chicago

So, we took a train ride for Thanksgiving this year! We headed to Chicago to see Stef's dad's side of the family, all Stef's siblings and her Grandma Mac turn 100!!

The train ride was an adventure for us all and mostly enjoyable. Summer and River both enjoyed eating in the dining car. After we arrived, we were met by Stef's parents who then drove us to Wauconda to her uncle's lakehouse for Thanksgiving dinner and an overnight stay. Burke and Mary put on a spectacular feast and Summer and River played with Grandma D, Poppa d and Uncle Mikey as well as Stef's cousin's 3 little girls. Summer made a great new friend with her 4 year old, as you'll see in the pictures below! We topped off the night with a trip to urgent care for both kids-- Summer had a major ear infection-- Riv was diagnosed with a bad cold.

On Friday, we headed into Schaumburg, where Stef's aunt and uncle and gram live. We relaxed a bit at the hotel we were staying at and then Buffy, Eric, Heather, Jamie and Bernadette arrived in the early afternoon. The kids played- little B and Summer had a great time together- Riv was a bit more standoffish. We all went out to dinner and then headed back to the hotel and watched "Ocean's 13."

Saturday was the day of Grandma Mac's big 100 year celebration, which was very nicely put on by Burke and Mary. She did wonderfully and really obviously enjoyed watching the great grandchildren run and dance around. We all enjoyed ourselves, except River, who ended the night with a high fever. Needless to say, we headed back to urgent care on Sunday for River, who was then diagnosed with a double ear infection, poor baby. Mary and Burke entertained us for the day before taking us to the train station later that night. We got a quick tour of the city by Uncle Burke before arriving at the station. Once on the train, we got to enjoy some free wine and cheese for the first class ticket holders (us). We finished up, and got the kids and ourselves off to sleep pretty quickly. We arrived in Syracuse and Clayt's sister picked us up, we went out for lunch, and then headed on home in the car for a 4 hour drive back. So, it was a hectic, but mostly enjoyeable time. The highlights were definitely seeing Stef's gram and meeting Bernadette.