Worth Every Mile

Well we haven't had a millennium car trip in a while so we figured one of the busiest weekends of the year was PERFECT! :)
We started out Thursday (Thanksgiving) morning at 5:30am and drove to Eldridge to see the Bowers/Syring family. It was a nice surprise since only Jennifer & Michelle knew we were coming. It was really great to see our nieces & nephew again since we are holed up in Kirksville for a while. We did get to play an AWESOME prank on Michelle. We had told her that Mara was going to wear a purple, velour jumpsuit as a joke. Michelle was very skeptical of the joke, but played along with it nicely! We called her ahead of time and she went an changed so her and Mara could "present" the joke together...couldn't have been funnier! Her exact words were, and I quote, "You're Dead". :)



We could only stay at Jennifer's house until about 2:30 since we had a long drive to Baldwin, WI to see Mara's sister Sally, and for her son, Sam's baptism on Sunday. The traffic wasn't too bad and we got to Sally's around 9:30 or so. Unfortunately Sally got a bout of cellulitis and had to get antibiotics at the hospital. Since it was somewhat of a sudden onset they wanted her to stay the next day/night in the hospital to make sure it wasn't more serious. It wasn't, and Sally got to go home Saturday morning. We had a lot of time at the hospital to chat, hang out with Sammers, and catch up with Sally.
We did get a chance to head outside and hit some holiday sales on Saturday. I think after being cooped up in a hospital the last few days made us all a little stir crazy. We got to introduce Sally to Indian food, which she seemed to like; we'll see if Sam likes it as much...
Sam couldn't have been a better kid at the baptism; and Mara and I's presence didn't make the holy water boil at all! :) We even got some good pictures of us with the little tot:



We did have to leave right after the baptism since we still had a 7+ hour drive back home, and it was already 12:30. Traffic was pretty good most of the way, but picked up around Des Moines. We got home around 8:45, and had some time to watch football, do some laundry, study, and stretch after a long ride! Our final trip totals were 1078 miles, ~18 hours, and 4 states!


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We had a GREAT time with both families, and now it's time for Mara to start her 2nd quarter of school! Physiology is the newly added course (on top of everything else!). She's looking forward to her Clinical Biochemistry course as well. Should be a fast month or so before x-mas break. Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!