Thanksgiving and Minneapolis

This was our first Thanksgiving away from family and friends.  I expected a nice quiet dinner with the kids and Ron...up until 10:00pm the night before!  I'd been asking Ron for a month if we were going to feed the drivers (25 guys).  I wanted to be prepared.  He finally made up his mind the night before!!  We spent the day...the WHOLE day cooking!!  The oven was on from 5 AM till 6:30 PM!!

We cooked 33 lbs of turkey

4 dozen homemade rolls

TONS of Mashed Potatoes

Green Bean Caserole

Jello Salad

Shrimp (Pasta) Salad

6 Boxes of Stuffing

6 Pies

I'd have to say its not what I expected but it couldn't have turned out any better...except for maybe if the gravy had actually made it to the truck yard instead of all over the my trunk!! 

 I found some color by number pages and dot to dots to keep the kids busy and we watched a little of the Macy's Thanksgivng Day parade...but mostly I was on my feet in the kitchen.  Ron was a great help too.  He made most of the pies (crust and all!) and took about 4 trips to the grocery store!!

We sat down together and ate our dinner about noon, then it was back to work!!  We were swamped with delicious food and dirty dishes!!  I ran the dish washer at least three times that day!!  I finally got everything cleaned up and put away and....

packed our bags for our spur of the moment trip to Minneapolis!  I think I've mentioned before that I miss being able to be spontaneous...I'd have to say we're back at it!  Our life is ONE BIG ADVENTURE and nothing is surprising anymore!!  *About a month ago, one of Ron's drivers was in an explosion at a job site.  He's been in St. Paul recovering at the burn center there.  They are transfering him to Salt Lake for rehab where he can be closer to family.  Ron wanted to make sure he got to see him before he left, so we hopped in the car Friday morning and drove the 9 hours to visit with him and his family!   It was a really good trip, Ron felt like it was worth it. 

We were amazed at how BIG St. Paul/Minneapolis was!!  It was CRAZY!  Ron even had a hard time navigating us around the city!  Usually finding his way around new places is second nature to him, but we enjoyed it.  We saw some really cool things! Tunnels on the highways, amazing buildings and churches, the city lights, the capital was ALL marble!

Everytime we waited for the elevator at the hotel the kids PRAYED for this one with the view of the city!

This was the view from our hotel room: (I know my camera stinks at taking night pictures)

It was nice to get away with dad!  He was still on the phone a lot, but we got to spend some quality time with him!  The boys even did some bonding of their own: shaving!!  Landon thought he was SO big!!

Saturday morning I took the kids swimming at the hotel so Ron could go see the driver before we headed home.  I didn't think I could fit this into a swimming suit...so I sat and watched the kids play.

 Madilyn had a blast jumping in and going back and forth from the pool to the hot tub.  Landon on the other hand was nervous to get out past the steps where he couldn't reach, even though he had his floaties on!

But he finally made it out there and couldn't stop laughing!!  He must have gotten some kind of thrill from it!  He only lasted about 1.5 minutes then he was back on the steps and done being brave!

When Ron got back we drove around the city and did a little site seeing in the day light!  Such a neat city!  It rained on us most the day, but it was still fun!

Then we went to the Mall of America to eat lunch!  We found out they had a Famous Dave's INSIDE the mall.  There was no question about where we were going to eat after that!!  We LOVE the variety and the ribs and the bisket and the chicken! YUM!! 

Yah, I'm not so good at taking picture in a moving car and somehow they got out of order!  We spent 10 minutes just looking for a parking space!!  We ended up on the 9th level of the parking garage!  The kids have never been in so many parking garages...or maybe ever!  Landon thought they were the greatest!!

It was the perfect time of year to go though!  All decorated for Christmas! 

I knew the Mall of America had a roller coaster inside, but I didn't realize it had its own THEME PARK inside!!  We spend SEVEN hours in that building and only made it completly around ONE of the levels! AND the only store we went in was the American Girl Store!  Talk about CRAZY!  A hair salon for your dolls and its own ice cream parlor inside! 

We tried out the mirror maze.  It was insane!  We kept finding our way back to the begining!!  I have no clue how we finally found our way out!  I was afraid of losing one of the kids!  We couldn't tell what was real and what was the reflections!!  But someone told us that if you've found the fireworks you're almost there...we found them about 5 times before we made it out!!

Next up was around of miniture golf.  Madilyn says this was her favorite part!  Dad tried teaching the kids how to hit it right.  Madilyn got the hang of it...Landon just wanted to do it his way!  They both liked watching the roller coasters while they were waiting for our turn. By the end of the course we ended up on the next floor!

Next up: THE RIDES!  We thought Madilyn would like the "log ride".  Ron took the kids on it and I got to wait and take the pictures. 

Madilyn decided she wanted to be brave and ride in the front by herself.  After the first drop she was ready to climb out.  Ron ended up grabing her and pulling her into the back with him and Landon.  Aparently it was more intense that we realized it would be.  However, Landon was ready to go again!!

The carosale was a much more enjoyable ride!!

Our last ride was the ferris wheel!  Landon liked it.  He kept trying not to cheese...until I pulled out the camera then it was okay to smile big!!

We decided Madilyn is afraid of heights.  She was pretty nervous most of the ride and did NOT like it when Ron would swing our cart!!

I took these next couple pictures for Mack. These are made out of LEGO'S! They were HUGE at least three stories tall!  With a place to go in and build/buy lego's at the bottom.  Someday Landon will appreciate them.  He loves building things especially towers with his megga legos.  He'd love a set of legos one size smaller.

Since we ended up spending the day at the Mall of America we drove to St. Cloud and booked a hotel for one more night.  It was awesome (for a family reunion!) It was HUGE!  It had 10 different entrances.  Volleyball and basketball courts, 2 swimming pools, a "McDonalds" play area for kids, arcade games, pool table, air hockey, fuseball, and who knows what else.  But it wasn't so kid friendly/sound proof!  The kids had a hard time falling asleep with all the games going on outside the door!  BUT they LOVED their bath!!

We could have spent another couple days in Minneapolis, we'll have to take another trip!  But it was sure nice to get away!!