Thanksgiving at the Hunters 2015

It's Sunday night.

We just took the girls back after a wonderful four days of celebrating Thanksgiving.

We celebrated in Bloomington at the Hunters house again this year.

It was the year for Courtney's family to be with us, so that made it even nicer.

We left Watertown about 10:30 with the girls in tow.

Arrived at Alissa's around 2:00.  The girls and I made some turkeys out of cookies and candies for dessert.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by Alissa and Nathan.  We also enjoyed some fine wine.

We were all excited for the big Packer/Bear game fully expecting a win, but that was not to be.

It was ugly.

Here are some photos from our Thanksgiving.

There was also a lot of wii playing on both Thanksgiving and the days after.

On Friday, John and I took the girls to the Children's Museum in Bloomington.

I think it is one of the best Children's Museums around.

Both girls had so much fun.

We were there for over four hours until it closed.

After that, we met everyone else for pizza and beers.

It was another great, fun day.

On Saturday we headed home, again with the girls in tow.

We stopped at a Casey's where they both ordered a sub sandwich which they totally devoured on the ride home.

On Saturday night we went to the Christmas parade here in Watertown.

It was a bit chilly, but we had a great time.

After the parade we ordered pizza and watched TV together.

Today it was church followed by two straight hours of playing together.

We are so thankful for these two precious blessings.

Oh and we also managed to get a decent Christmas picture.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, too.

Pre Thanksgiving Weekend-Productive and Fun

It has been another great, fun weekend.

The Packers are beating the Vikings right now, looks like they will win this game which is good because they needed this win very badly.  Way to go, Pack!

Nice way to end a good weekend.

On Friday, John and I went to On the Rock for pizza and beer.

We closed the place down at 8:30, yep, nobody there at that time except us.

We headed over to Rock River Pizza for one more beer, Kev and Vikki were there so we had a nice visit with them.

On Saturday we woke up to our first snow.

It was very pretty.

It did not hinder our drive to Oshkosh to go to Courtney's Homemade for the Holidsys show.

My mom came along.

Mal and Vikki were supposed to join us, too, but neither of them were feeling 100% so it was just the three of us.

There was not one flake of snow in Oshkosh while we got 5 inches.

Homemade for the Holidays was great, lots of cool vendors.  We made a few purchases and enjoyed a yuumy lunch at Becket's.

Stopped at Target on  our way home so mom could get stuff for Vikki's goody box.  Always fun to look around in a Target, but I always overspend there.

 

My Preschoolers sang in church today with the Kindergarten class.

They sang, "This Little Gospel Light of Mine."

It was a great performance unlike a month ago when they sang "Jesus Loves Me" very loudly and all in their own way!

 

After church I put up one of our Christmas trees and my village.  I am glad to have that much done.

I always enjoy my Christmas trees and decorations so much more before Christmas.

I need it down by New Year's!

 

It has been a productive weekend all around.

Packers will win this game.

Teacher's Helpers, TV, Flabbergast, TV, Peanuts Movie, and TV

We had another great weekend.

Courtney brought the girls on Friday.  They had the day off, so they were excited to come to my classroom and be my helpers.

They were awesome helpers, well, Tiz was an awesome helper while  Soliana picked up right where she left off last year with her old friends.  It was more playing than helping for her.

 Soli planning what is going to be happening here in the house corner.

 Tiz helping string necklaces.

 Tiz with some of her best friends from last year.

 Now Soli is the teacher in our school center.

 Snack time.

After school, we went home to make rainbow cupcakes.

Unfortunately, both girls got involved in TV, as they always do when they are here, so I had to pull them in during commercials to bake.

 Soli did the beating.

 We made rainbow cupcakes out of six different colored cake dough.

The girls had fun mixing the colors in anyway they wanted.

 After they were finished the girls decorated them.

The finished cupcakes were so beautiful and tasted yummy.

John came home with sub sandwiches which we all enjoyed followed by hours of I Carly on TV.

The girls do not get to watch much TV at home, so when they come here, it is such a treat to be able to watch as much TV as they want.  Oh, TV and eating sweets!  

On Saturday, we took the girls to Flabbergast in Sussex.

It is much like a Monkey Joe's, only on a smaller scale.

Both girls really had a great time.

 There were all kinds of tubes to crawl through.

 The girls had lots of fun in the jump house.

At times they were the only two in the house.

The girls met a friend there named Kira.

The three of them had a great time together.

After three hours at Flabbergast, we went to see the Peanuts movie in Delafield.

What a fun movie.

I loved hearing Tiz and Soli laughing out loud at so many parts of the movie.

So glad that they did  not make changes to Peanuts, it is still as innocent and funny as ever.

After the movie we met Courtney and Paul at Marty's Pizza for dinner.

We sent the girls home with them and stopped for a few beers to close our our fun weekend.

Today the Packers lost to the Lions which has not happened since 1991.

It was not a happy time around here.

Way to end a perfectly great weekend otherwise!

Celebrating mom's 87th Birthday in Grand Style

Mom turned 87 on November 4.

On the day of her birthday, I made BLT's which John and I enjoyed with the birthday girl.

I had picked up Grandma Bresslow's cherry pie for dessert.

It was a yummy dinner.  We all enjoyed it.

Alissa arrived on Friday night.  Nathan had to work so he was not able to join us.

We missed him.

John, Lis, mom and I went to Bismark's for burgers and beers.

So began the weekend of celebration for mom.

On Saturday, Kev, Vikki, Nic, Mal, Lis, mom, John, and I headed up to Oshkosh.  We stopped at Schreiner's in Fond du lac for lunch.

My mom and dad always enjoyed stopping at Schreiner's back in the day and she was so excited to have lunch at this former favorite spot.

Mal and mom enjoyed a Bloody Mary.

After lunch we arrived at the Van Auken home.

Mom opened her gifts and actually did very well with the goody box.  She guessed eight out of ten correctly.

 We posed for this big family photo.

And then it was time for cake.

 Here is my mom with her three grandaughters, one grandson, and two sweet grandaughters.

We all enjoyed dinner at Beckett's.

 We enjoyed a few drinks at the table with the fire.

 These three lovely ladies beautified the bar.

After dinner Nic watched Soli and Tiz so that the rest of us could go to Screwballs and enjoy Paul's band for awhile.

John, mom, and I left around ten and relieved Nic of his duties.

 

On Sunday we went to church and then our for lunch together one last time before our fun weekend was over.

 

I am so happy that my mom is healthy enough to still enjoy big weekends like this with all of us. 

Just to watch her tapping her foot to Paul's singing,in a very crowded bar full of young people was heartwarming to me.  She is up for anything.

I hope I am just like her if I live to celebrate 87!

 

 

Halloween and other things

I had Thursday and Friday off last week.

I rode up to Fond du Lac with John on Thursday morning.  Having his new job in Fond du Lac has its perks for sure.

Speaking of his new job, he seems happy and is enjoying it very much.

Being back behind a desk doing his CAD thing seems to be what makes him happiest.

I will be honest here, I had some trouble adjusting to having him get up at the same time I do and having him get home just a bit after I do.

I actually enjoyed his old schedule at the plant.  He worked from 1 - 9 so he was able to do any errands for me in the mornings.  Now he can no longer run to the bank, post office, or grocery store.  I also liked having the evenings to myself.  I looked forward to 9:20 when John would walk through the door and share stories from the plant.

I know that he is so much happier now, but I can't help that I miss parts of the old schedule.

I am doing better this week though.  It just takes adjustment and time.

Anyway, back to Thursday morning.  John left me at a MacDonald's where I waited for about half an hour for Courtney to come pick me up.

I worked on organizing the girls' rooms and the playroom.

I worked all day on Thursday and then half of Friday.  I really enjoy organizing other people's stuff, not so good with my own.

John drove up after work on Thursday night.

We ordered Rocky Roccoco while Courtney, Paul, and the girls met some friends for dinner.

On Friday, John left for work, the girls left for school, and I organized some more.

I went to pick Soli up from 4K and we played together in the afternoon.

We all had dinner at Fratello's.

Came home and watched some old Andy Griffith reruns.

On Saturday, the girls put on their Halloween costumes although neither of them was any too excited about trick or treating.

Tiz made a terrific Michael Jackson and she had all the moves from Thriller down.

Courtney had shared her love of Michael Jackson with the girls and now they love him, too.

Soli wanted to a red power ranger, she loved the muscles.

Courtney and I talked about how we do not really like Halloween.

I always felt so much pressure about the costumes, I could never live up to the other kids' homemade costumes.

John and I left for Manitowoc on Saturday.

I had to take some pictures in that area for a photo collage.

I had to take the photos in  very cold, windy, rainy weather, but I did manage to get a few nice photos.

We headed home from there and spent Sunday doing yard work.

Now that John works regular hours, we have to do our outdoor work on the weekends.

Here are the girls in their Halloween costumes.