Whirlwind

We have been literally running all over the country the past few weeks. We spent a week and a half in New Hampshire to spend time with Glenn's family over Thanksgiving. This year we stayed at Gregor and Amy's house for the first time and they were so wonderful. They fed us delicious food, let us take over an entire corner of their house, leave things all over their kitchen, borrow their car, and talk to them for hours on end late into the night. We had a great time! Thanks guys.

We took a drive up the white mountains one day. I had never been to that part of the state on previous trips and it was wonderful. The kind of scenery that makes you take a deep breath and think to yourself, "What can I do to slow my life down a bit and feel like this all the time?" We stopped to take pictures at Rocky Gorge. Tate needed a break from the car seat. Beautiful.

We also took a few pictures of road signs you will likely see only in New Hampshire.
Love it.

Tate spent a lot of time with his cousins. They were very sweet with him and it was fun to watch. He spent time snuggling with cousins on the mattresses at Sam's Club,
Getting his first taste of ice cream from Paige who was so sweet to share with him,Shopping with Brynne. It was adoreable. Brynne walked beside the stroller the entire time and just held his hand. And listening while Cope and Nelson performed for us.
I am so glad that I was able to spend more time with their family and get to know these kids a little better. At least for now. Next year they'll all grow up entirely too much and be entirely different people again! Little Miss Paige loves dresses right now. She comes down stairs with a different dress on a few times a day. She is a girl through and through. She also loves Ariel and walks around singing "Ahhhh" all day long. Here is my favorite ensemble. Striped tights plus blue fluffy coat plus blue sequinned clogging dress equals FABULOUS!

We had another big family event this year. Si Nguyen came from Vietnam and lived with the Makechnie family as a teenager. This year he was officially adopted and became "Steven Arthur Makechnie".
On Thanksgiving morning a select few of us ran the Lake Sunapee Turkey Trot 5K. It should definitely be a tradition from now on. I'd never run a 5K before and I had so much fun. Well...to say I "ran" would be a bit of a stretch...but I did keep up a slow jog the whole time which for me, is great! The scenery was so beautiful. Jogging next to a lake with tons of trees, huge houses, and a lighthouse in the distance, and passing the occasional pilgrim, turkey, chicken, or indian. Yep, they encouraged the runners to dress up. It was a blast. Tate had a great time all bundled up in Amy's jogging stroller. Amy is a real runner. She is so inspiring to someone like me, who is just figuring out that my body feels better after I exercise. Baby steps Kim.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, as usual. Gregor, Amy, and Arthur cooked. Wow. So much awesome food. Gregor is seriously a genius in the kitchen. I leave their house wanting to find new recipes and try new things.

Thanks for another great Thanksgiving Makechnies!
We flew home on Friday after Thanksgiving. Then we flew to New Orleans on Monday and came home again on Tuesday. One of Glenn's job offers was from Shell in New Orleans and I was pretty hesitant about living in New Orleans so they flew us out to check it out. The city was about as I imagined. It's pretty worn out still. The French Quarter was really neat and we took a trolley ride down town and saw some of the wealthier neighborhoods that had enormous homes with columns and balconies...just like I imagined the wealthy deep south looked 100 years ago. Just stunning. I mean, who would want to live in a house like this!
A lot of them reminded me of the Haunted mansion in Disneyland...but maybe that's because I really love Disneyland.
By this time Tate was done with all of the travelling. Here's a melt down in the airport. This is what happens when the food is gone. So sad.I'm glad we went to New Orleans and found out that I could live there. I'm also glad that we've made a decision. Next summer Glenn's going to start working with a company called Newfield. It's a Houston based company with offices in other places too. He's being hired to work in a division that is working on a new area in Pennsylvania. So their plan for him is to have him start in Houston for 2 years and then move us to Pennsylvania when the office opens out there. So that's our plan right now. I'm grateful that we had such good options to choose from and I'm even more grateful that we both feel so good about this job. Hooray for having a plan!