Another Amazing Travel Experience

We had yet another cool travel experience on our way home from our Thanksgiving visit with Grammy & Pa.

Meet our new friend Jay- he and his family were on our flight home from St. Louis. Jay is almost the same age as mommy and he's a baker at Wegmans. When we borded the plane, Jay's mom Ann asked how old Porter was, not getting a good look at him at first. I told her he was 9 months and asked how old her son was, as I turned Porter around. Of course, Porter flashed one of his trademark smiles :) When we got off the plane, Ann and Jay were waiting for us with a note including all their contact information and kind words of encouragement. Such sweet people! We talked to them for as long as it took to get our bags and for RC to get the car and we exchanged email addresses.

Another cool travel experience indeed! I continue to be amazed by the Down Syndrome community. We've met so many kind hearted, amazing families who not only encourage us that Porter's future will be just as amazing, but also to push him harder, to expect more from him, and to give him every opportunity that we can to push forward!

Meeting Jolly Old St. Nick

Porter met Jolly Old St. Nick for the first time this weekend. He LOVED Santa!!!! Yet another amazing moment!

Oh Christmas Tree!!!!

Another year of fun heading out to the fields to get our tree. This year's beauty is almost 12 feet tall :) Penny loved running between the trees and Porter smiled at everyone from the carrier. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!!

Fun in St. Louis

Settle in...we had such a great trip and there's so much to tell and show! We spent Thanksgiving break in St. Louis. We flew on a purple airplane :) We'll post more on our airplane adventures soon.

The day we arrived, Grammy & Pa took us to ride the carousel at Faust Park.

Porter enjoyed his first carousel ride! Penny named her horse Emma, just like the one at our mall.  We took advantage of the amazing fall weather and hit the playground!

 They sure do have an amazing playground! Porter and Penny had a blast playing with Grammy & Pa.

 Fun! Penny keeps asking to go back :)

 The kids slept well after a fun day and woke up ready for new adventures. Grammy put them to work in the kitchen :)

 Aunt Terra and Almost-Uncle Bill arrived while we were sleeping and Penny was so excited to play with Terra. Pa pulled out the old guitar and Terra got to work teaching Penny how to make chords.

 Penny challenged Pa to many games in the basement...she created a hybrid ping-pong, pool type game and they had a blast yelling "fumble" and "tag" while they played!

We started Thanksgiving off with a Turkey Trot race...it was so much fun!

 When we got home, we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and Aunt Meggie painted Penny's toenails :)

Aunt Meggie also gave Porter some 1:1 therapy...we can't even tell you how much progress he made while we were on our trip. He came home sitting on his own!

While everyone helped get dinner ready, we decided to have a little Thanksgiving fun!

 We danced and played and had so much fun! 

We took some family photos. And ate some delicious Thanksgiving dinner. It was a great day!

 One of the best parts of our trip was hanging out with Andria, Adam and Kylie. Miss Kylie is going to be a big sister like Penny any day now!

Penny & Porter had a blast playing with Kylie! Miss Kylie is very good at sign language...it was inspiring for us to see her in action. We can't wait to see how Porter picks it up over the next few months!

We had a blast playing at Grammy & Pa's house!

We watched some football and celebrated Sooner & Notre Dame wins!

We visited the Butterfly House in Faust Park. Penny was not a fan of the butterflies flying at her, but she liked to look at the ones who were sitting still. Porter was fascinated!

Porter learned the secret recipe for Buffalo Chicken Soup...he'll never tell!

We had a great trip! It was so much fun for Penny & Porter to be able to spend time with Aunt Meggie, Uncle Chris, Aunt Terra, Almost Uncle Bill, Grammy & Pa.

Can't wait to see you all again soon! love you!