Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we finally made it out to the Aresco's (Matthew's sister and brother-in-law's) in the Florida Panhandle.  We left Thursday morning and it took about 7 hours to drive there.  Margaret already had dinner ready when we arrived and we thoroughly enjoyed it after first taking a tour of their homestead.  You can check out the Aresco's blog for more photos because apparently I hardly took any!

 

On Friday Matt took us on a great tour of Nokuse, the 50,000 acre plantation that he manages.  We were able to see many different levels of habitat restoration as well as several types of habitat.  We weren't sure how many animals might be out due to the cool temperatures, but ended up seeing deer, a coyote, a pygmy rattlesnake, wild turkeys, lots of birds, and a fresh gopher tortoise burrow.  All very exciting for me!  We also ate lunch at a local cafe that was delicious.

 

After being cooped up in the car all day the boys were ready for something a little more fun for them!  We played some board games including candy land  in the afternoon and Matthew watched a movie with them while Margaret and I prepared dinner.

 

On Saturday morning we were supposed to finish the tour of Nokuse and then Matthew and I had planned to drive over to Tallahassee to spend the night with Max, Janet, Jessica, and Elise.  Unfortunately our plans were ruined by a stomach virus and I ended up spending all of Saturday incapacitated in the Aresco's guest room.  We left Sunday mid day when I was finally well enough to travel.  It was a good thing that we didn't visit any more family  though because Matthew came down with the virus Sunday night and spent Monday in bed at home.  At least we didn't both get it at the same time and hopefully the Aresco's are all in the clear!