Every year we take a trip out to Ohio for Thanksgiving where JK’s brother and family host us and a lot of other family members. It’s 4 days of family, food, and relaxation. Everyone looks forward to it. This year was no different and we had a great time. We also got to share our plans for moving to China to room full of family.

Usually, we pack up our bags and head back to New York early on Sunday to get back to school and work on Monday. But this year we decided to head South for another week of vacation with my parents. This really worked out quite perfectly for us. We were already more than half way to their house by being in Ohio and there wasn’t another time that we would’ve been able to easily visit with them before we headed to China.

Though it didn’t seem like we did a ton of stuff, we really did accomplish alot. Our first priority, of course, is just being the family. And we did just that. But Jacquelyn had a determined mind to get to my brother’s house and clean out some of the storage we put in their attic 6+ years ago. She spent a couple of days doing that and got rid of a bunch of stuff. We also took a large load of books to McKay Books and got a good amount of store credit and then promptly used it all to buy some Christmas presents for the kids.

Of course, Eloise’s job was to be cute. And she accomplished that quite easily.

Anna was determined to get to Opryland Hotel. She has good memories of going there with the family last year, so that’s what was on her mind. We walked around the hotel with my parents and my brother’s family. The kids seemed to have a great time and we all enjoyed the time together.

On our last day we went to the Opry Mills mall. I’d been trying to get there the whole week so I could stop at Cinnabon. It made me sick. To be fair, Cinnabon usually makes me sick because eat too much, but this time was different. Within 30 minutes I was not feeling well. I had a headache and just felt basically uncomfortable.

Usually, when I start to get a headache I can prevent it from turning into a major headache by taking some Ibuprofen. Unfortunately, this time I didn’t do that. And I paid for it. After seeing The Martian with my brother at the theatre, my head was hurting pretty badly and I was nauseous. We found an open store and I bought and took some Ibuprofen. But it was too late, it didn’t help. On the way home, I was so sick I thought I was going to hurl in my brother’s car. Thankfully I didn’t, but I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Afterall, it’s hard to avoid throwing up while having a conversation. (Sorry, bro.) When I got home, I went straight to bed and slept like a rock.

All in all it was a great trip. My only regret is that we didn’t get a chance to see my other brother and his family. But it was just too hard to get down to see them with all of our schedules.