Thanksgiving 2021

 Happy December! To kick it off, I'm throwing it back to Thanksgiving. This year we were so happy to be invited to Jared's cousin Rachel's home for Thanksgiving, along with Jared's parents. This is the same cousin we celebrated July 4th with at Jared's parents' home. Rachel and her husband have 6 kids, the oldest of whom just got married and the youngest of whom is just older than Jack. They live in Port Orchard, which is a quick ferry ride or slightly longer car drive south of Seattle. We opted to take the ferry down and then drive back. Jack loved the ferry. It was a beautiful ride. 

It was so fun to be in a rural setting for Thanksgiving. Jared's cousin's family is good friends with their back-door neighbors, who have a little farm. We were able to see their goats, chickens, and a few little kitties.

^^Jack didn't eat a whole lot of the Thanksgiving dishes, but he made up for it with 3 kinds of pie. He and Mariah were thick as thieves. I was so happy he had someone close in age to play with while we were there. He spent a good chunk of the day missing his cousins Asher and Cole, so I'm glad he had Mariah to keep him company. He warmed up to her quickly and while the rest of us went for a short beach hike, he and Mariah stayed home with Jared's mom and we came back to two red-faced, giggly little kids jumping off the couch into a cushion fort they made. So cute. 

It was a good time with family. My favorite part of the day was watching Mariah carry her little kitten around with her literally everywhere all day long. I've never seen someone love animals that much and have that much of a calming affect on them. This was also the most docile kitten I've ever seen. I held it for a bit at the end and almost considered becoming a cat person, but then on the drive home my nose started running and the sneezes came and I remembered, oops, I'm allergic to cats. Anyway, it was a good time, and we're excited for them to come up to Jared's parents for Christmas Eve and for Jack to have a little playmate again.