Turkey Day 2014 and Recap of SJMMW {St. Jude Memphis Marathon Weekend}

We traveled to South Florida to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Naples this year. We had a blast and we were extremely excited we could extend our normal trip this year. We got lots of family time, caught up with old friends, and relaxed!

Traveling with a baby is just normal territory for us now! We have a routine and can easily breeze through security. I would like to think I could post a blog of all the tips on how to travel with a baby or toddler! BUT, let's just face it.... traveling with kids is hard. Away are the days of relaxing, sleeping, or reading on a flight. Now we spend every second entertaining E so she doesn't disrupt others' relaxing, sleeping, and reading. My biggest advice is to bring LOTS of snacks!! I love to share and give other families new to flying advice but I think it's one of those things you just have to do and figure it out as you go!

It was fun to pull up to mom and dad's and see the house all lit up {Florida Style!}

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner! Dad was in charge of the "trash can" turkey! If interested click here to see how this is done! It's delicious but Dad said the most important thing is to have cooperating weather. And NO that is NOT a used trash can. Shannon and Cory did an excellent job with the rest. Mom was  a huge help and I did everyone a favor and stayed out of the kitchen. I was in charge of the table setting! Naturally! 

After dinner, Evan Lilly and Yaya went to go get whipped cream for our dessert (we knew we would forget something!) They were gone for quite sometime and came back with whipped cream and lots of Frozen goodies, including an Elsa dress, Ana dress, and slippers!

Thanks to Yaya and Pa! We had a fun adult night out and my friend Kaitlyn came to see me from Tampa. We had a blast!!

Sneaking Evan Lilly off to the beach to look for seashells!

Heading home was a bit stressful! Our first flight had mechanical issues so we had to deplane and board another flight. However, we missed our connection! So in the end we flew out of Ft. Lauderdale, stopped in St. Louis, flew to Chicago, deplaned and boarded another delayed flight to Memphis. We were suppose to be home at 4 pm. We got home at 2 am. We were exhausted!!!!! This is a picture of E when we were all still happy!

We got back to town Tuesday night (really Wednesday morning) and started gearing up for the St. Jude Half Marathon on Saturday. On Friday we went to the Expo....

 And Saturday morning we laced up our shoes and took on the 13.1!! It is always such an amazing experience running this race. If you are a runner, I highly recommend you add this to your race to do list.

And last but not least, a big shout out to my brother who couldn't be with us on Thanksgiving. He was in Utah on a mountain and I can't wait to see him soon!