My family "adopted" Jenny a number of years ago.(you may remember I attended
her wedding last summer). She's really more of a member of the family than a friend. She's spent Thanksgiving with the whole Coleman gang a number of years now and she's also been inviting all of us to spend Thanksgiving at her house, in South Dakota, for a few years now. So this year William and I and my mom and dad decided, whether she meant it or not, we'd take her up on her offer. And off to South Dakota we flew.
Luckily William and I still had frequent flyer miles we collected while flying back an forth from China. This trip was our last gift from China.
We used the tickets well.
This was also Rosie's first time to have her own seat. She's over two now so can no long fly free as a lap child. She was very proud to have her own seat.
She is such a good traveler. She especially enjoyed the toys in both the Nashville and Dallas airports and she enjoyed looking out the window on the airplane.
We did so many fun things with Ross and Jenny. The first night we were there Ross's family generously included us in a family birthday celebration and took us bowling. This was Rosie's first time Bowling and William and I haven't been since the Halloween before we were married... 7 years ago.
Rosie LOVED bowling and got a better score than I did. Actually I was so bad I just let her play most of my turns. She giggled and danced and cheered for every one all night long.
Rosie also really loved playing Jenny's piano. Jenny is a wonderful musician and sings and plays amazingly well. I've always loved listening to her. This trip she had her Christmas song book out and would stop and play something almost every time she walked passed the piano.
Rosie thought this was splendid and loved playing the piano too. We may have to get her one.
My favorite part of the trip was our girl's shopping day. Jenny is wonderful to shop with. She's so much fun.
While the boys played on Ross's ridiculously large farm equipment we girls when to town, got Starbucks, and went shopping.
Jenny took us to Sephora and taught us how to shop there. I've always been completely intimidated by that store and have never gone with any one my own age, gender, and color. (the Sephora in Shanghai had nothing that would match my skin tone. Everything was too yellow or too pink.)
I've never had so much fun in that store before and now I feel much more confident about going back. Rosie also loved shopping in Sephora. She loves make up and loves colors and walked around and looked at everything with Jenny while I got a make up consultation.
In the end we came away with a little black and while bag that Rosie was very proud of and they even gave her some of her very own samples. She was so proud of them she wouldn't let them go the whole time we walked around the mall. She is such a good little adorable shopper.
After some very productive shoe shopping it was time to meet up with "the boys". We'd left it to Ross and William to pick up my dad from the airport and then we headed to
Falls Park, on the Big Sioux River. (that's where the city if Sioux Falls gets its name).
We went there because it was magically decorated for Christmas and Jenny knew we would love it.
ALL the trees were covered in lights. It was so fun and magical I kind of forgot how cold it was.
We then ended our wonderful day with Gluten Free Pizza and hot tea.
Doesn't Rosie look so grown up with her own cup of tea?
When we finally landed in Nashville it was kind of late and Rosie was hungry. So we stopped by Publix Grocery store on the way home to get her some yogurt. We decided to look at the turkeys just to see if they were on sale. And sure enough, they were!
