Thanksgiving with the Nokes

We traveled to Virginia for Thanksgiving this year. We were lucky with good weather for the drive. It snowed a lot of the time we were there, but was warm and dry the days we were driving. With the struggles of the business this year, Ryan was blessed to be presented with the opportunity to work as a consultant at JP Morgan for the next year. It couldn't have come at a better time for us and we are so grateful. Since the project is just getting going and they are still waiting for access to information, he was able to take off a couple of days to make a longer vacation. We left after work on Tuesday and drove through the night, arriving at about 2 am. Wednesday it snowed hard for most of the day. I was so glad we came on Tuesday!

We had a great time hanging out with the family. I didn't get a picture of the whole spread, but our dinner was incredible. Stu did the turkey on the Traeger smoker outside. It was awesome and looks beautiful. (Although taste is really what counts when it comes to turkey--and it was delicious!)

Dan and Erin came and joined us for Thanksgiving day, as did our good friend Curtis. Grandma Gloria was also there and it was so great to see everyone. 

Lucy loves Aunt Erin

 One evening we drove out to Old Town Winchester. We think it's a pretty cute little town. We went to their little bookstore and then went to get something for dinner. They have several good restaurants out there, but we ended up going to this little teeny tiny burger place where they just serve sliders. Ryan was so mad that we drove an hour out to Winchester and then just got sliders! It's funny because his dad was raving about how good the place was, but his family never eats that way. They usually like pretty healthy stuff and I've never once seen them eat fast food burgers, but that's where Stu insisted we go.

 After dinner we went to a Christmas light walk. It was fun, and would have been more fun if it wasn't SO cold outside. So we kind of ended up almost running through it to get through and get back in our warm cars. But they did have good hot chocolate. Really good hot chocolate.

All week Lucy has been working on lacing her fingers like this. It usually ended up pretty uneven, but by the end of the week, she did it successfully! I think she looks so sophisticated with her fingers laced like this. What baby does that?

On Saturday morning we went down to Eastern Market. It was such a cool place. I wish we'd been there before when we actually lived in Virginia! They had a flea market, and then a bunch of other vendors as well selling different arts, crafts, foods, etc. They had an indoor food hall that reminded me of Faneuil Hall in Boston. We found a little latin restaurant off the street, (not in the hall) that served pupusas and was incredible. It was the best lunch. I've tried to find pupusas in Columbus with no luck. There seems to be no authentic latin food in the city. Which is funny for a city that prides themselves on their culinary diversity and excellence. 

In the afternoon, Ryan, his brothers, and Curtis went to a zombie room escape adventure. They had an hour to find and decipher clues in a room and try and escape before the zombie gets you. The zombie was chained, but every 5 minutes the chain got longer, making it more difficult to maneuver around without getting caught. They missed escaping by about 15 seconds. They had solved the last clue, but couldn't get the door lock open in time. They have a similar location in Columbus. We hope to go do that sometime here and try again. I'd love to go next time!

Lucy wore her new Christmas dress to church for the first time. Doesn't she look so pretty with Grandma Gloria?