Typically we stay home for Thanksgiving and do our own thing. Occasionally we’ll have a family member come and join us for the holiday, but it’s usually just our family of four. This year, realizing we would otherwise not see Alex’s sister and her kids all year, we opted to visit them for Thanksgiving in Illinois.
We flew into Chicago and stayed with Alex’s sister in their new house the first night. Ben and Hannah had never been to the city of Chicago before, so it was fun to give them a little taste of a major metropolitan city.
Our first full day we ventured out and explored the neighborhood and had lunch at a famous Chicago-style deep dish pizza place, Lou Malnati’s.
After lunch we packed up and headed for the western suburbs to Alex’s parents house, where we stayed for the rest of the week. Hannah had never been to their house before and Ben hadn’t been there since he was 5 months old {we typically visit them at their lake house in Wisconsin}.
The kids, particularly Hannah, loved one of the parks nearby Grammy and Papa’s house because it had a zip-line.
We ventured across the river to a nature center to go on a little nature expedition one afternoon.
Thanksgiving we were able to keep up our tradition of doing a turkey trot – the kids “ran” {i.e. rode in a wagon} for the kids mile, though our nephew Nico ran the whole thing! And Alex and I ran the 4-mile trot, along with seemingly everyone in the town. There were so many people!
Ben and Hannah went to their first movie {Trolls 3} and got to cap off the night with Chuck-E-Cheese, a true Midwest experience!
While they were out on their excursion, Alex and I joined Alina and Alberto at Top Golf.
We had a nice time catching up with everyone – the kids loved seeing their cousins!
