My Packer Fans

Turkey Trip

Another awesome Thanksgiving road trip.  Chicago and then Kzoo.  This year I'm failing as a writer, but I'm doing my best not to fail as a mother, and that's more important right now.

STOP ONE: ILLINOIS

As we rushed through our adult conversation while Sam and Brandon raced around the hotel room and Eva hid her chocolate chip cookies in her shoes, I was amazed that it's been so long since we saw these special friends.  Jezail and I talked about how she came to live with me when I was just a few years older than she is now.  How did she get to be 30?!  So great to hear the stories of her journey teaching in the Chicago Public School System and the impressive accomplishments of her boys.  Jaylin is definitely a scientist in the making, and I won't be surprised if we see Brandon on So You Think You Can Dance someday.  After they left, despite having just one little plastic spoon that I found in the bottom of my backpack, we all dug in to the delicious sweet potato pie that Jezail baked for  us.  Awesome bedtime snack!

STOP TWO: The Awesome Holmes Clan Football and Feasting Extravaganza

If there is one annual family gathering we don't want to miss, it's the day that the Holmes family gets to together and tells stories and plays football and eats turkey and has a limbo/dance marathon in the living room.  They don't usually do their family Thanksgiving dinner until after Thanksgiving so our first day there was all about watching football and exploring the mountains of girl toys.  Sam was thrilled to hang with Uncle Ron and cheer for the Packers even as the Lions pulled way ahead... which Sam didn't mind because it meant Michael ran around like a crazy man wrestling Sam in celebration.  And Eva was thrilled (and a little overwhelmed) to discover a home with dozens of Barbies and more than a few Barbie cars.  Back at Ron & Judy's the kids got to help make coleslaw and do some art work and get a photography lesson from Uncle Ron.  And even before the family Thanksgiving celebration on Friday, the fun the kids had was worth the trip.  But when Sam's face lit up upon seeing his big cousin Jack and playing monkey-in-middle-football in the basement and my stomach hurt from laughing at the Johnny and Michael Loveboat dance contest and Eva dove towards the carpet in the hopes of keeping up with the big girls in their cartwheel contest, I was over and over again reminded of why we make the trip and sure that we'll keep coming back as long as they'll have us.  In the car on the way home we listened to Laurie Berkner singing F-A-M-I-L-Y and we talked about how these very special people are in our hearts and in our family.  Wonderful memories.

It's a Tie

Thanks to having a best friend with season tickets and a mom who lives in Brown County (and is willing to babysit), I was extremely lucky to be able to go to two Packer games this season.  We loaded up the car and headed to grandma's on Friday night, and despite a A LOT of whining and noise and general 3-5-year-oldness, we survived without having to pull over for the threatened spankings.  The only real tantrum was mine when the Wautoma McDonald's wouldn't give me a second free ice cream cone because I'd lost the orange coupon from the Happy Meal I'd bought ten minutes earlier.  "Be calm," The Man said.  "Deep breaths."

At Grandma's the kids had a blast playing Lego and banging on the piano and reading books and exploring all the old junk from their mother's childhood.  And Eva's new trash-picked Barbie house is "super duper awesome!"  The spinning class at the local Y made a slight dent in the calories consumer during a delicious prime rib and scalloped potatoes Thanksgiving meal, and after pumpkin pie and ice cream it only took 2 hours to get Eva to go to sleep Saturday night.  But Sunday TT was once again a rockstar mother and I got some time away with friends to drink bloody marys at Stadium View and walk along Holmgren Way to Lambeau and cheer for the green and gold a few sections away from Curly's Atrium.  Not sure what I was thinking bringing 3 Minnesotans with me.  Had I left them back in the Land of Lakes perhaps the Packers would have won instead of tying, but I cannot imagine having more fun in that kind of cold.  I think I'd invite them back again... if they'd agree to wear less purple.

Grateful for Grandma

Four days before we planned to spend the weekend at TT's house, she fell on her tailbone and only after we had unloaded the suitcase and the toys and climbed the stairs to her living room did she mention it.  She had trouble sitting and she was in obvious pain, so she told us about her fall and I did my best to keep the kids from crawling all over her.  But kids will be kids and grandmas will be grandmas and even though she was in significant pain all weekend, TT spoiled all three of us.  She took the kids to Bay Beach and McDonald's Playland while I had free time to do a Saturday long run at UWGB.  She bought them Lego and pink horses and took them to the Children's Museum so I could spend Sunday in and around Lambeau Field watching the Pack beat up on the Redskins.  Grandma was amazing, and we all had such a great weekend, and on our way home we started talking about planning another weekend with TT in which she could relax and we would all take care of her.