Thanksgiving 2009

It's Sunday morning and I just had the best night of sleep in quite a while. I'm going to keep this post short as I have a lot to re-cap and I have to get crackin' on my accounting homework.

We had an uneventful trip down to Nicollet on Wednesday. Our arrival was eagerly awaited as everyone was waiting to eat. My fam made a fantastic spread:

Clockwise from top: stuffing, turkey & gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry salad, bun, locally grown corn, pot roast and then green beans from Becky's garden in the middle. Mikey and I split a piece of pumpkin pie for dessert. I also sipped on two small glasses of white merlot. My aunt, uncle & cousin-Becky, Myron & Kayla- joined us for dinner. A good time was had by all.
On Thursday morning we did a lot of this:
You notice how it's all the guys?
It was also my dad's 50th birthday!
While my mom was cooking brunch Mike, Matt & I took the dogs down to the baseball field to run around. It was frigid outside! Champ found the perfect spot afterward:
We had a delicious brunch complete with egg bake, maple sausage, bacon, potatoes and muffins.

The Nicollet football team played in the state championship game on Friday so they had a little send-off on Thursday afternoon. Matt is one of the managers so he rode the bus:
While my dad drove the van full of coaches:
We brought Anna along thinking she'd enjoy being outside. She was primarily interested in barking at people so Mikey had to take her for a little walk. Here they are:
Thursday evening we headed up to the cities to visit Mike's family. Mikey & John made beef fajitas. I had just one with a Stella beer:
I also had 2 dove chocolate ice cream treats (70 cals each).
It's a holiday tradition to fire up the heaters in the garage and smoke a cigar. Dianne and I had little berry flavored ones. I had a glass of wine and a small snifter of cognac with my cigar. 3 drinks is my limit in one evening
Here's the "smoking lounge":

It's quite cozy being all wrapped up in a sleeping bag. The air temp is nice too thanks to the 2 heaters.

On Friday morning, I started out with coffee, Oikos yogurt and cereal:
Dianne, Kristen & I went for a morning walk in anticipation of a big meal tonight. Mikey & John cooked food and bonded with Sienna while we were gone. For lunch, I had a can of Amy's Minestrone soup (only 120 cals for an entire can), some goldfish crackers and water:
Sienna and Mikey playing around:
SO CUTE!!!
We played all afternoon until dinner time. Jake joined us after work for dinner and we enjoyed this feast:
Clockwise from upper right: brussel sprouts, stuffing, sweet potatoes, turking & gravy, mashed potatoes. Bet you can tell the sweet potatoes are my favorite... always the biggest scoop!
I had a glass of white wine before dinner and a glass of red wine with dinner. For dessert, we had pumpkin creme brulee. Delish!

Kristen and Jake headed home to put Sienna to bed and so John, Dianne, Mikey and I had another cigar in the lounge. I had a small snifter of cognac with my cigar and then a bunch of water.
Annie was completely exhausted after 2 days of playing with Champ, Timmy and Sienna:
We had to get up early on Sat. a.m. so that we could get back to Duluth in time to work. I had to work at the UMD football game at Noon and Mikey at the Cafe at 2. For breakfast, I had leftover stuffing, Oikos yogurt & cranberry/pear/giner relish.
We got home on Saturday around 11:30 and so I had enough time to do a little unpacking. I brought our dirty laundry down to the basement to be washed and happened upon a water leak! It started while we were gone BUT, it leaked right over the laundry tub so everything drained!! How is that for good karma??!! I had to get going to work so Mikey ran up to Home Depot to get some plumbing supplies. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to fix anything before work and he got home late last night. He also worked at 6:30 this morning so we still have to fix it yet today.
Mikey and a torch?? Sounds scary...

UMD lost the game and so their season is over.
Once home, I enjoyed some alone time last night. I was given a pork sandwich at the game and so for dinner I had a small serving of leftover egg bake:

After a bubble bath, I had some tea and a little leftover sweet potatoes:
As mentioned earlier, I slept great last night! This morning I had coffee and the last of the egg bake. Now it's off to do my accounting before Mikey gets home. I have a feeling this plumbing project could take up a big chunk of our day since this is Mikey's first time repairing a water line on his own. Yikes!