Thanksgiving in Branson

 We set off Wednesday morning for Thanksgiving in Branson MO with my family.  Ever since my mom's older sister turned 50, we have done big family get togethers for my mom and her sisters' 50th and now 60th birthdays.  So this weekend was also set up to celebrate my Aunt Carol's 60th birthday.  We had a pretty drive up through Arkansas and into Missouri.  We listened to podcasts and enjoyed conversation together.  We got there after it was starting to get dark, so the first night we ate dinner and talked around the table with family before heading to bed.

On Thanksgiving Day we had beautiful weather.

 Our cabin was gorgeous and so were the views of the lake from the deck

 David and I hiked up a little ways and took in some scenery.

 Otherwise we spent most of Thanksgiving hanging out in the cabin.  We watched football and played games.  My mom and my Aunts cooked dinner and we waited for my cousins to get in to share dinner with us.  

I spent a lot of the day being entertained by this cutie:

Piper is still not so sure about anyone but her parents, but after spending several days together she warmed up to us and enjoyed playing with David and I.  She would frequently call out "hi David!" when she would see David from far away (but not necessarily up close).  We also played lots of games with her big brother.

My aunt had planned out the table decorations and she set a beautiful table for Thanksgiving dinner.  We had 20 people around this big table and enjoyed the meal together.

One of the trademarks of our large family get togethers are matching clothes.  My mom and her sisters had matching dresses when they were younger, so for my Aunt's 50th birthday she tie dyed a bunch of shirts and did different colors for each family (Blue for ours, Green for hers, and Red for my Aunt Carol) and since then we've had matching shirts at each of these big get togethers (see here for matching shirt day at Disney World).  This year my mom and Aunts decided to go with matching pajamas for everyone.  My Aunt always buys her kids and grandkids matching pajamas for Christmas and my mom has done that for us a few times, but they decided to break them out for Thanksgiving this year and we took our big family picture.  

On Friday David and I got out for a while and drove into Branson.  We didn't end up doing a whole lot and decided to head back to the cabin around lunch time.  

 We spent the rest of the weekend resting at the cabin, playing lots of games with family, watching college football and eating.  It was a very relaxing time away and we enjoyed extended time with family that we don't get to see as much.

And we get to add another state to our map!  That's our 7th new state this year.  We figure our traveling will slow down a little with baby coming next year, so we are grateful for so many opportunities to see new places together this year!