November 2017: Girl Scouts, JA Best & Brightest, Anniversary and Thanksgiving Celebration in VA

November 2017 was a whirlwind of activities related to school, work, and family. The girls had an interesting time at the Exotic Feline Center with their Girl Scout Troop. It was really rainy, but the large cats were magnificent. And I was honored to win the Junior Achievement Best & Brightest Award for Government! It was a wonderful surprise to me, and it was so special to celebrate the night with my colleagues and one of my oldest friends, Sarah Eli. 




A few weeks later, we were off to Williamsburg, Virginia to celebrate Aunt Jean and Uncle Joe's 50th Wedding Anniversary, Jack Luken's 14th birthday, and Thanksgiving. You can check out the link here for a video with lots more photos included, but I've also included a few of my favorites below.


We had a great time at Jean and Joe's 50th Wedding Anniversary. We started the celebration with an anniversary mass, and then there was a nice cocktail reception with lots of photos of the family. After that, all of the Mackintosh girls had a great time dancing the night away and eating a bit of cake as well, of course! The whole night ended weirdly in the middle of the night with an unexpected fire alarm complete with a visit from the fire department, but fortunately, there was no fire anywhere! 









After the anniversary celebration, we had fun staying at the Marriott Vacation Club in Williamsburg and checking out both Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown with Jean and Mom as well as Kate, Scott, Gus and Cecilia. We visited Jamestown on a particularly beautiful day, and it was fun to look at the replica boats of the ones that originally sailed up the James River back in the 1600s. 







As Thanksgiving approached, David's family arrived from Arizona on Jack's 14th birthday. We had a family celebration at Blaze, the pizza place, and it was wonderful to see the cousins reunited. 


Shortly after the celebration, we moved into Great Wolf Lodge where we would celebrate Thanksgiving and have fun at the water park! The water park was fantastic--I had a blast going down the big tube water slides, especially with my mom and dad! I never think of them being very old, but in reality at the time they were 72 and 76, so I wasn't sure how well they would do getting up and down from a big tube water slide. But they impressed me with their agility and made it happen. 




Thanksgiving itself was a delicious buffet dinner with every kind of food you can imagine, including a lot of fresh seafood, which I often don't have at home. My favorite part of the afternoon was watching the cousins play together. 


We finished off our time in Virginia by visiting Busch Gardens on a crisp, cold day. WinterTown was in full effect; the lights were beautiful, and the girls had fun on some of the smaller rides. I'll never forget Hannah's squeals of delight on one of the spinning teacup-like rides. We spent the night at Kristen's house that evening and then headed back home to Indy the following day. On the way, we stopped at Tamarack, as we often do when traveling to Virginia, and saw Santa Claus while we were there. It was a fitting way to end our Thanksgiving break and move fully into the holiday season. 







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