Chicago Day 4

After such a big day yesterday, today was much more chill. Riley and I were lucky enough to sleep in again past 9! But Keags was the first kid up and I was very happy to hear she was very helpful to Aunt Vicki all morning! We literally spent the day mostly in our jammies eating good food like a big Pakka breakfast and phillipino food for lunch from Vicki’s darling mom, playing games like sequence, Pictionary and cards, chatting and Black Friday shopping online. It was pretty dang glorious I must say! 

Once we finally got motivated and all dressed we ventured out for the most fun dinner! We went to Sushi Plus which was not only totally delicious but so entertaining! We either grabbed sushi off the conveyor belt or ordered it on the iPads and it was delivered by mini race cars! Adults and kids all loved it! I particularly loved my monster maki and may even declare it was the best sushi roll I’ve ever had! Afterwards we went to the neighborhood frozen custard place, Scooters to sufficiently stuff ourselves to the brim! 

The plan had been to all go see the Zoo Lights but the cold rain quickly put a damper on that. So it just kind of happened that Kirk and Kari volunteered to take my girls so I could go to a movie with Sa, Todd, Vicki and Sami. So nice of them and Tyler too as it’s not very often that I get to go to an adult movie! We saw Robin Hood which was definitely amazing and the girls came back to the house to play more games with everyone like BS, spoons, and black magic. When we got back from the movie the games, jokes and even card tricks continued until we all could not keep our eyes open any longer! Now after getting the girls to bed, doing laundry, getting packed and now blogging, that keeping my eyes open thing is getting pretty tough! 

Good night for the last time from Chicago. We leave tomorrow but don’t worry we will be back! No question! 

Best Thanksgiving Ever!

Oh my I wasn’t prepared for just how great today was going to be! It was wonderfully amazing! I can’t remember a single thanksgiving that was better then today was! First off I LOVE Thanksgiving! I’m all about that gratitude to begin with and then you add in great food and family and I’m sold! 

The day started off on the right grateful foot because Riley and I actually slept in til 9:15! Meanwhile Vicki, Kirk, Kari and Tyler dressed as a giant turkey took Keagan, Campbell and Tess to do a turkey trot. Keagan led them in a warm up and then she ended up running almost 2 miles! So proud of her! 

Once they got home Kirk joined the onesie costume shenanigans and everyone woke up to get to work cooking dinner! We had an amazing time working all together to put together a massive amount of food! Keagan, Tess and Riley made the most incredible Mac and cheese and a lot of it! But we also made mashed potatoes, candied yams, stuffing with sausage and onions, rolls, cranberry sauce, and green beans. Vicki had purchased the two most amazing smoked turkeys from a near by restaurant and gravy and lots of different pies too! Vicki, Tyler, Lisa, Todd and Kari deserve most of the credit for a really fantastic thanksgiving spread! 

In between all the peeling, dicing, simmering and cooking the teenagers had a gingerbread turkey decorating contest, the littles colored cute Christmas stockings and Sami combined all our most grateful things onto our grateful tree. We also played California speed, laughed a lot, cringed at Kirk’s big costume change to overalls and voted with the littles on what thanksgiving food we were most excited about. 

At some point in the afternoon the majority of us walked over to a near by park for a seriously entertaining game of kick ball. We invited a random sweet girl at the park to play with us because she was the only other one there and she discovered real quick how crazy our family is! There was more trash talking, yelling and cheating then she had probably ever seen before! The littles were sliding into bases, I was trying to prevent scoring with extended hugs, Riley was milkin it that no one would get her out and Kirk whipped off his shirt and proudly ran the bases for his home run in style! Of course team overalls came out on top with an 11-10 win and we rubbed it in as much as possible. 
























After much needed showers and more food prep it was time for everyone to change into their annual reunion shirts which I was in charge of designing and ordering this year and load all the cars up with the serious amount of food we had! We took it all to a women’s homeless shelter that Maya volunteered at this past summer. What an incredible place Breakthrough Urban Ministries is and what a blessing it was to be able to meet the beautiful women who work there and are temporarily living there in order to try to resolve their homelessness. It is located in one of the poorest parts of Chicago, West Garfield Park but the place was very rich in heart! We used their commercial kitchen to finish cooking everything and to heat other things up. Then at 7:30 when it was time to eat, Barbara the lead staff member gave one of the most heartfelt and beautiful sermons that I’ve ever heard! She talked about being thankful for all things big and small and that the Lord has saved us not for ourselves but for others. And then she had all of the women and all of us  state one thing that we are grateful for.  It was beautiful! 

The wonderful thing about tonight was we not only had the chance to serve these 16 women dinner but also to sit down and eat with them! They were spread out at lots of small round tables and we just naturally split up and joined these beautiful women to make new friends. Riley and I sat with Jane and Latalicia who were really delightful. And I can not tell you how proud I am of Keagan who lead Tess and Campbell to go sit at a table with another more quiet woman. Those sweet little girls asked this woman questions like her favorite color and favorite food and it could just make my heart burst! All of the teenagers did just as great by helping with whatever they were asked to do and also being so kind to all of the women. Sweet Barbara found out Sami can sing, and convinced her to sing for everyone twice. All the women loved that and really loved all the food which was definitely delicious. At one point I looked around to see all of us at different tables all talking and laughing with different women and thought “now this is exactly what thanksgiving is about!” We all had SO much fun and were so impacted in our grateful hearts that Vicki and I said on the way home that I’m not sure we can just go back to a typical thanksgiving dinner now. Every single one of us loved it that much! 

After all that complete amazingness we came home and changed into our jammies for a girls movie night of “While You Were Sleeping.” After an exhausting day we didn’t make it all the way through the movie and will finish it tomorrow. We all went to bed tonight very tired but with hearts just so full of gratitude for each other, for all the many blessings we have, for the experience we had tonight and for this thanksgiving reunion. I’m tellin y’all #ginnthanksgiving2018 has been absolutely phenomenal and I don’t want it to end! Good news is we have one more day! Add that to the very, very long list of things we are all thankful for!