Happy Thanksgiving in MN

This year, we decided to spend Thanksgivings with my sister in Minnesota.  Well, I was sort of making this messy house an excuse to not have to cook.  And looks like it worked! Ha ha!  Well, we haven't cooked a Thanksgiving meal in so long.  We've been spending it by eating at our favorite restaurant - and there's actually one (a chain restaurant called Season's 52) about 30 minutes away. Yay!!

I did make a couple of pumpkin cheesecake pies to take to the my sister's.  I had to make them a couple of days in advance since it needs to set in the fridge overnight.  Both boys kept asking if they could eat it. NOPE!!

Mmmm, nothing better than pumpkin pie with homemade gingersnap crust. Maybe I should have made 3 pies!

And we are off! It's going to take about 7 hours and we didn't get to start our drive until after 6pm on Wednesday night.  So, here we are after spending the night in Tomah, WI:

Gloomy...

Into gloomy AND snowy!

We made it!  And it didn't take long for the boys to get into their usual routine of playing video games with their cousin:

Here's my sister and brother-in-law tackling an18lbs turkey. It's seriously a big bird!!

And then, he went out to shovel the snow in a t-shirt. It's at least 40F outside!  

Oh, I brought a fresh batch of kaya (coconut jam) for my sister as well. YUMMM :-)

Time for a snowball fight!

Graham is building some sort of igloo with this brick mold by the driveway:

A quick photo with my sister - as you can see, she is the one busy cooking. Yay!! :-P

Although she did make me peel about a gazilion potatoes! Ok, like maybe 10 sweet and 10 regular potatoes. The boys should have done it!

Speaking of the boys, they were busy trying to put their gingerbread houses together.  I don't think I bought the correct icing because their houses kept falling over!

Thanksgiving dinner is ready!  Looks like a very traditional one with all the fixin's.  YUM!!

Glad the cousins are all getting along:

Looks like the usual routine the next morning:

And looks like there's a "wall" of ice/snow behind the car!

By the way, our holiday card says it all! :-)

Looks like only Charlie's house managed to stay up.  Too funny:

And... still playing video games:

It's too bad the older cousin wasn't home.  He had a sleep-over at a friend's after watching the soccer World Cup.  Ps. USA and England tied at 0-0 after regulation time.

Bobby looks rather comfortable:

Charlie is getting a chance to decorate the rest of his gingerbread house.  He's been munching on a lot of candy too!

We are going ice-skating tonight.  Woohoo!!  But not before putting some of those ice blocks behind the tires of the truck.  Ah, these boys...!

Graham and Charlie are so excited to ice skate, especially when they are getting some hand-me-down skates as well from their cousins.  Actually, I think Graham's pair is brand new! 

What a cool ice-skating park!

Love this photo with Charlie:

And Bobby is being a chicken and staying on the outside of the rink :-P

Here's a photo op with my sister.  Please tell me I look younger! :-P

I love this one with Graham too XOX

Graham's skating skills have really improved!  He was really smart about asking for a pair of rollerblades a few weeks ago:

Charlie hung on to the side railing a lot. Looks like he will need to definitely get one those rollerblades too for practice:

Uncle Scott was being very sneaky and gave the boys some money to buy a slushie once the ice skating was done.  Ha!

Here are the cousins! Michael will be turning 15 this January, Caden is 11, Graham 12, and of course Charlie 10:  

My sister's boys are so tall!  And if only there was a girl in the mix.  That would definitely change the dynamics a bit.  Ha ha!

We stopped in Wisconsin Dell for the overnight on the way home.  Check out this straw - there's candy in it! Can you believe that - as if kids need even more sugar when they are drinking their milk:

I don't know how we ended up with so much stuff going home.  It's a good thing we are only grabbing that one yellow bag for the overnight:

The next day, it's a quick stop-over for lunch in a small town:

Supposedly there's a "spiritual" tower in this little town.  We drove around it but I didn't take a photo of it, just in case.  No, I'm not superstitious at all... LOL!!

Yup, there's a multi-game table in that trunk. And ice-skates, and snow boots, and more hand-me-down clothes, etc:

It's as if we are moving in again with all this stuff scattered everywhere in the foyer:

And Graham and Charlie are back into their routine of playing video games. I just think their choice of lounging is "interesting" to say the least - cramped behind a couch.  Ha ha!

I'm glad the boys are having fun with this multi-game table!  Thank you auntie!!

I'm glad the boys are finally hanging out in the living room downstairs too.  Although I think the heat only kicks on at 61F.  LOL!!  It would have been nice to get a new gas-insert fireplace in this living room, but we will have to save up for it.  We just fixed up the fireplace upstairs. Money is flying out the door so fast as we are also getting a whole-house generator installed later next month!  If anything, it will add value to the home.

What a great Thanksgiving! Fun to see family and also fun for a family road trip.  There were lots of interesting spots along WI so hopefully we'll get to visit some of those places next time.  Definitely thankful for our family time and our new life in IL XOX