Turkey Day 2012...Fall to Winter In 4 Hrs Flat

An adorable welcome sign at Grandma Jan's house
I think my favorite part is the little turkey...she's so funny :)

This just in.... I still love MN.  Jace may no longer invite me back though because it never fails that I spend 90% of my time looking at real estate and telling him 30 thousand times we need to move back...yesterday...

So now with that random thought out of the way, let me quickly break down our Turkey Day 2012. It started eeeearly on Thanksgiving morning as we packed up the D-jo and headed for the airport at 0445. Our flight left Dayton @ 0645 and landed in Minneapolis at 0750. E was great for most of the flight except for the decent. He did NOT find that to be an enjoyable segment of the trip -- and neither did the other passengers.  The only way the flight could have been worse would have been if Rae pooped in her kennel. Bullet dodged, thank goodness :) We landed and headed to Huntington Ave for breakfast...and coffee...

                                

Breakfast with his buddy Buzz

After Easton ate...and ate some more...we enjoyed the last four hours of beautiful weather MN had saved for us!

                                          

After all that playing it was inevitably time for Easton to eat again. So Grandpa Dean and Grandma Cheryl gladly helped the kiddo out. I mean, it'd be cruel for a kid to starve on Thanksgiving.

Rae was also tryin to get some love. Pretty sure she was successful.

We relocated the party indoors once the clouds began to roll in...four hours later it was snowing/sleeting. Mother Nature had to normalize. No worries because there were plenty of vintage McChesney toys that needed some attention.

He loved this airplane! Ata, boy, E :)

After playtime it was nap time for Deano and Easton and the rest of us just hunkered down in the basement for some quality time with the Lions and Texans while the turkey was cooking. Chuck M and his fiance Erin arrived with her four homemade pies towards the end of the game and we sat down for the big meal around 3 pm. It was yet another marvelous meal with a heartfelt round of "thankful fors"...thanks Sherry & Wayne!!

My "thankful fors" :)

That plate didn't stand a chance. He even ate the squash! 

After we finished our meal I think Team Anders stayed up for a less-than-respectable four hours and went to bed around 8:30 (and I should mention there was a brief period of pie eating during those four hours...eek!). The downside to flying so early but that's OK.  Here's what we woke up to:

Brrrr... and, um, we forgot to pack jackets!

Easton was up and at 'em early, early, so we faced the day and worked out those vintage McChesney toys again -- and danced to Christmas music on the couches for just a bit, too!!

4/16's...they have so much fun!

We departed the McChesney's around 9 am and headed to Grandma Jan's in Bloomington -- it was slightly traumatic to be so close to the Mall of America and not go in but I've managed a full recovery by now. I really wanted to take E to LegoLand...good thing we'll be back. :)

Amazingly this kid ends up in front of the
refrigerator within 10 minutes of our arrival

Eating snacks on Daddy's old placemat! :)

Who doesn't like to crawl under chairs?

Is that Santa? Yes, it's a two-year-old Santa named Jace Anders.

Easton's new sweater...and Grandma's
wearing the matching hat (that wouldn't
fit his 90 something percentile head!)

Easton's Corner. The cutest thing ever!! We've got to get one of
those slides for our house. Thanks Grandma!!

After wrapping up our super fun visit with Grandma we swung by the Nelson's for a quick chat. It's always fun to see Josh and Jill and you'll never guess what Easton did at their house...verb...starts with E...ends with T.

Thanksgiving with the Nelsons 2012

Thanksgiving with the Nelsons 2011 :)

From there it was off to Shakopee to reunite Easton and "wrae" his puppy. She and Daddy are the first thing he asks for in the morning these days. :)  He also loves to go "ouuuuside" so we obliged and introduced him to the MN weather. We lasted a solid 7 minutes. Then there were tears.

s/s tee, l/s tee, sweatshirt, jacket,
no gloves. ugh.

Even in B&W you can see his rosy cheeks!

That evening Cheryl cooked us a wonderful meal and we enjoyed catching up with her son Jason and his fiance Mandi and reminiscing about wedding planning and gift registries and all that jazz that is so reasonably priced  in the middle of a cornfield instead of in the middle of the city!

Saturday morning greeted us with a cruel 9.5 degree F reading on the thermometer so we laid low and played games and watched some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse before packing up for a trip back up to SLP and a major first in Easton's life...

Rae rockin' her purple diaper. She pees in D&C's basement.
Fashion statement, no, but problem definitely solved.

And the big moment...Easton's first trip to Bunny's!!!

Supporting SLP Hockey as such a young age! What a guy :)
(for those of you who don't know, those are pull tabs...
the best/worst game on earth)

This is what happens when you leave
Jace and Chuck M alone in the arcade
with a quarter

After eating a super scrumptious Bunny's breakfast (so flippin' good) we took a trip over to see the Leonards. They are such wonderful friends...the kind that you can see once a year and still feel like it was just yesterday you were sitting around in their living room, getting your hair dyed and trying to calm Chloe down after she'd been running all over the house for two hours (haha). Mel and I keep tabs on one another through our blogs. Greta and Easton played together and got along well while Wyatt hung out and took it all in from his exersaucer! I loved our visit and didn't want to leave :(

Me and Greta bug :)

I love this picture. The chaos. A peek at the tree. The friendship. :)

And so it was back to Shakopee we went...by way of Culver's for a cheeseburger and custard that finally put me over the edge. I had officially hit rock-bottom...and wanted to go for a 15 mile run but couldn't even bend over to put on my shoes (that I didn't pack).

We left on Sunday morning with the same recurring sadness that's always present when saying goodbye to family. I searched for houses (with an imaginary job that would allow me to afford said houses) the entire ride to the airport. Another MN Thanksgiving in the books!!

Outside Grandma & Grandpa's house -
bye bye MN, we love you!