Holiday come and gone

Well we made it back from Alabama in one piece. It was quite a journey and we're glad to be home. It was great seeing Joe's family and it was nice to relax for 3 days. We ate entirely too much though so I'm going to have to pick up the pace at Jazzercise this week.

The drive to Alabama was interesting and exhausting. We wanted to get on the road as soon as we could on Wednesday so that we would have all day on Thursday to relax and hang out with the family. We both had to work that day so we wanted to leave as soon as we got home. We packed up the dogs and the car and ended up getting on the road at 5:00. After being on the road for about 6 hours we started questioning why Joe's family had to move to the absolute farthest and hardest to get to point in Alabama. The drive consists of only a few highways (which are mostly full of construction) and the rest of the drive is country roads. In some parts I felt like we were driving through a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There were no street lights and nothing but road and trees for as far as the eye could see. It was tough. We tried to stop every 3 hours or so to get out and walk the dogs and switch drivers. We finally pulled into Joe's mom's house at 5:30am. She was kind enough to make us some breakfast and then we went straight to bed.

After our nice nap we got up and got ready for the family to arrive. Seeing Sarah and Mary was great. They are so adorable and Sarah is so smart. She'll talk your ear off and it's like talking to a grown up in a 4 year old's body. So we hung out all day and watched football and waited for our feast to be ready. And what a feast it was! We had so much good food and we all stuffed ourselves silly. It was definitely a Miller Thanksgiving! After lunch was more napping and more football and then more food. We pretty much continued that routine for the rest of the weekend. It was very cold there (in the 30's and 40's) so we stayed inside as much as possible. We did take the dogs out to play fetch a couple of times but my Florida blood couldn't take the cold for too long.

We got on the road yesterday morning at 5am (Alabama time). We took a different route home and it was a much nicer trip. I don't know if it was because we were well rested or that we were driving during the day and could see stuff but we had a much more enjoyable ride on the way back. It ended up taking us a lot longer because we got stuck behind a terrible accident just west of Tallahassee. We ended up here just before 9pm (Florida time).

I do have to brag on my dogs for a minute. They were so wonderful the whole way up and back. We set them up with a comforter on the back seat and they just slept the whole way. When we'd stop to let them out they were very good about doing their business in a timely fashion and were very well behaved around all the other dogs that were mulling about the rest areas. I think I need to write a letter to whoever it is that manages rest areas. I was really shocked at the number of people traveling with their dogs. It seemed like every place we stopped we saw at least 5 or more dogs. I think that rest areas should have a little fenced-in doggy area where you can let your dog of her leash to run around. It would've been nice to be able to throw a ball to the girls or even just to chase them around. I think that would've made their trip even better. I don't know how to make it happen but I think it would be great.

It's definitely good to be home today. We all slept great in our own bed and have spent the majority of the day relaxing and getting everything back to normal. We did pull out the Christmas decorations and got some of that started. Unfortunately several strands of lights have decided this is the year they are going to crap out so we'll have to run out for more of those. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is right around the corner! This year has flown by!

I hope you all had a very nice holiday surrounded by family and friends. I am definitely thankful this year for my wonderful family. Joe and I are very lucky to have great people on both sides of our family. It makes every holiday, no matter where it's spent, very special.