Rowan's Musical Debut

Thanksgiving Feast

This year we hosted the Allord family Thanksgiving dinner. Each family arrived on that Thursday and brought food with them. Most of the cousins participated in crafts such as hand print turkeys and decorated gingerbread people. Grandpa Allord led the family in prayer before dinner. Lauren requested that each family member write what they were thankful for and put it in a turkey bucket. At dinnertime, she and Elijah read each slip of paper. It was a very special moment. Before dessert, we tried to get some family shots in the living room. As you can see some of them turned out pretty good. The Jolly family departed that evening and the Allords stayed overnight. It was a good time and we were glad to have everyone with us for the holiday. One more month and we will be busy with Christmas travel.
Hope to see some snow by then!
~Janea, Andy & Rowan

Florida Vacation

We recently returned from our trip to Daytona, Florida. On the 15th we took two flights down with Andy's parents. Rowan slept on one flight and was pretty content on the other. When we arrived in Daytona, we visited with Andy's sister, Anne Marie, for a short time. Rowan got to meet her cousin Katie since she was born in June. Rowan did well, but seemed to be more interested in Katie's toys and Katie's cats. Because of space limitations we stayed at a condo rather than the Cummings residence. Dennis and Darlene rented a beachfront condo, our rooms on the 8th floor. We had quite a bit of nice space with a full kitchen, two bedrooms, two baths and a balcony. Our bedroom had a nice walk-in closet that was re-named "Rowan's Bedroom". She stayed in her "room" happily. While in Florida we walked the beach a lot, went to the Farmers/Flea Market, climbed a light house, saw a movie (Stranger Than Fiction) and had a Thanksgiving meal with the Cummings Family in our condo.

On the 20th we returned to Chicago and met up with Grandma and Grandpa Allord, who lovingly watched our dog, Maverick. He was very excited to see us again. We drove home that night and had smooth traffic....making it home before 8:00 PM. Yay! We look forward to seeing the rest of our family later this week for Thanksgiving. Hope you all have safe travels!
~Janea