Veteran's Day-Thanksgiving Weekend in Ohio

Aidyn & Anna....in Aidyn's pajamas
Anna got to enjoy a long weekend over Veteran's Day thanks to parent-teacher conferences at school.  Since Mom also had Monday off AND it happened to be the weekend of the Kent family Thanksgiving, Anna hopped on the plane with her parents for a long weekend in Ohio.

The major milestone for this trip was the fact that Anna willingly left her kitty pillow behind.  In her place, she took her much smaller owl, Hoot (thanks Aunt Gayle).  Anna survived, although we may have seen a tear in kitty's eye as she was left behind for the first time.

After arriving in Columbus, we picked up our rental vehicle - a bright red minivan with New York plates.  While we were initially chuckling about the New York license plates (haha, Joe if from New York), we found out later that the real problem was the color of the license plates:  orange.  Apparently under current Ohio law, if you have 3 DUI offenses you have to put special orange plates on your car (a scarlet letter if you will).  These are known as "party plates."  This became quite the joke of the family dinner.  In short, we were driving a bright red minivan with party plates, otherwise known as a police magnet.

Anna and family spent Saturday night in Columbus, where she got to hang out with her cousin, Aidyn.  They had a great time racing cars and played/talked non-stop the entire time.  Aidyn was kind enough to let Anna borrow some of his pajamas since she forgot her's.  They also enjoyed a delicious dinner, thanks to Aunt Courtney.

Sunday it was off to a very large potluck with 80 relatives, many of whom we had no idea who they were.  Uncle Rod & Uncle Tim's contribution to the potluck was a bucket of chicken that they purchased at the drive-thru on the way in.  We waited in our party plate mobile while every senior citizen at "Lee's Famous Chicken" stared at our license plates.  When we arrived, we found a huge buffet table, 2/3 of which was desserts.  The big scandal was that Aunt Marty, who was in charge of the mashed potatoes, opted for instant instead of the real thing (a form of heresy).  The family voted with their feet, thus leaving Aunt Marty to contemplate how many potato doughnuts should would be making this week.

We spent the remainder of the trip at Grandma and Grandpa's, otherwise known as Anna's favorite resort.  Grandpa gave us a tour of his skunk graveyard.  We made it out of Ohio just ahead of the first snow of the season.

When we returned to DC, we got off the plane to find 1940s music and swing dancers at the gate surrounded by World War II veterans.  Apparently the veterans were part of an "honor flight" brought in to tour the World War II memorial.  It was a very cool sight, especially on Veteran's Day!

Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa, Uncle Rod & Courtney, and Uncle Tim; Aidyn for a great weekend!

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