Thanksgiving and Gary's Visit

My older brother and his family came into town from Pittsburgh the week of Thanksgiving.  They have three little boys ages 7, 4, and 2.  Sophie was so excited to meet her new "cousins".  Unfortunately they could have cared less about her.  Every morning Sophie would wake up and say "Are we going to play with my cousins today?"  It took her a few days to figure out which cousin was which, but eventually she got it.

We did lots of fun stuff with them.  One day we went to Tracy Aviary to see the birds.  Sophie and Daniel ran around together and were really cute (although that was one of the few times her cousins acknowledged her existence).

We also went to Hollywood Connection.  Sophie loves the Merry-Go-Round and other rides (as I have gotten older I can do roller coasters all day, but spinning rides make me sick.  So after one spinning ride, I made Kevin and Jamie take her the other zillion times she wanted to go).  She even lasted at mini-golf better than usual.  Sophie also loved roller skating with Mama (although my back was killing after one lap of holding her up).

One day we went to Scheel's sporting goods store to ride their indoor ferris wheel.  That was really anti-climatic.  Ferris wheels are really boring and take forever to get on and off.  Aspen couldn't go, so she stayed off with her favorite uncle Kevin.

We also went to Gardner Village to see the elves one day.  Daniel was having a rough day and was being punished a lot.  Afterward Sophie would randomly start crying at home and say, "I don't want to go to time out like Daniel".  Sophie had only been in time out 5 times or less in her life, so this was really traumatic for her.  One time Daniel stole a toy from Sophie so he got put in time out.  Sophie felt so bad for him that she almost started crying herself.

We also went to the school playground to play.  Aspen was napping at Grandma's house, so Sophie had lots of fun playing with Mama, Dada, Kevin, Jamie, and her cousins.

On Thanksgiving/Isaac's birthday we had dinner at Layne's house.  Sophie, Aspen, Emmy, and Nick were the only kids there.  Emmy (8 years old) was really sweet to Sophie and played well with her.  They disappeared into Emmy's room together and were caught pigging out on jelly beans together.  Then we had a second Thanksgiving dinner on Friday with my family.