Happy Thanksgiving!

I *thought* I'd have this whole week off from school, but I actually worked a full day on Monday due to the snow last week. I had the kids do a tiny bit of schoolwork on Monday with Paul, but other than that they have no school this week. Technically I am recording three days as school days this week because they did a little schoolwork on Monday, had their music class concert on Monday evening, went to the Discovery Station (science museum) in Hagerstown on Tuesday, we're sight seeing in Philadelphia tomorrow, and yesterday we toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Museum of the Bible, and Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday morning we left around 8AM. Our first stop was the Discovery Station; it was our first time there. We got in for free because of our ASTC membership (best $40 every spent!). We were glad we went, but I don't think we'll ever go there again. Some museums are nice to do once, and others we like to visit multiple times. We arrived at my friend, Laura's house around 2pm. I hadn't seen her for a few years. She made a delicious beef stroganoff for dinner.

I've never made that before, but I plan to make it sometime in the next two months because all three kids ate it pretty easily. Nadia and I shared the guest bed upstairs, and the boys shared a futon in the basement. Oliver woke up way too early. Poor Ian! Laura and I were roommates from 1994-96 when we were both teaching at the same Christian school. I hope less time passes before our paths cross again. I haven't made any new close friendships over the past ten years so having such a lengthy time to talk to a friend was a real treat.

On Wednesday morning we left around 7:30AM. We drove to the nearest Metro station, parked our car, and took the train into DC. It was a novel experience for Oliver! We walked to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to pick up four free tickets. Thankfully they hadn't distributed all of them yet. Whew. I selected the 12:30 tour as I was hoping that would give us enough time to visit Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian and have lunch before returning for the tour. We watched the movie (wasn't that

great) and then spent almost all our time in the room that is geared toward children. The best part of the museum for children (in my opinion) were the carts that were manned by an employee in various places. We could have eaten Native American food in their café, but I opted just to buy four hotdogs plus two big pretzels from a street vendor. After we toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, we explored the Museum of the Bible for almost 4 hours. The third floor of that museum was definitely the highlight of the whole day for all four of us.  As we left, Ian said "this museum was AWESOME!" Nadia asked me, "when are we coming back to this museum?". The two museums we visited were very close together, but the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was almost a mile away which meant we walked an extra three miles to take that tour in the middle of the day. According to my phone, we walked almost 9 miles total yesterday. Oliver and Ian both slept on the Metro train ride back to MD. Oliver also slept most of the time we were in the van (aside from when he ate his dinner from Taco Bell). I was hoping we'd get home by 9pm, but it was almost 10pm when we got home. That last hour was really brutal for me. I just wanted to SLEEP.

This morning the kids and I each wrote in our Thanksgiving journal that we write in every year. Oliver and Nadia wrote lists that were as long as their ages (6, 10), but Ian wrote a much longer list (I'm thinking he had about 30 things on his list if I remember correctly). We drove in two cars down to Paul's parents' house because the kids and I are driving to Philadelphia tomorrow and Paul will be at work. Oliver and Nadia went with me and did a little Black Friday shopping at CVS on our way down here. I barely do any couponing these days, but I did get a lot of great bargains at CVS today. That's the extent of my Black Friday shopping aside from anything I might do online over the weekend. We had a lovely meal around 2pm with Paul's parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. We are spending the night here because our drive to Philly will be a little closer from their house than from ours. In light of all the driving we're doing this week, I'm very grateful that it snowed last week instead of this week!