Early Thanksgiving Hosts with the Most

What a fun weekend!  

Unfortunately Meri wasn't able to join us as she was under the weather and feeling miserable.  I think 12 hours in the car by herself, there and back, would have killed her.  

Robb, Leon and I drove to Wisconsin and got into town in time for Robb and Leon to catch a matinee.  I didn't want to interrupt Maddy's classroom time so I decided to pop into the library where Matthew works and say hi and work from there before picking up the guys from the theater.  Matthew got off work shortly after the movie and met us at their house.

We visited for a little while, then headed to the school to see Maddy's program.  It was adorable!!  and all about hats.

That's her in the chair, directing and pumping up the kid's enthusiasm!  She's good at that.

And there's ALWAYS one in the bunch who is having NONE of it...

lol!

Maddy and her kids did a great job and actually, we (after thinking we got the worst seats...) had the best seats in the house!

We picked up some pizza on the way back to the house and ate a late late supper with them.

The next morning was Thanksgiving prep!  I didn't bring my bread machine and Maddy's appeared to be missing a part so we did rolls by hand.  They didn't raise like I had hoped they would but with butter or cranberry sauce, they were ok.

We went out to lunch at a hotdog place that is a landmark around that area!  Leon loves it and they were closed whenever we tried to go there last time we were in town.  So we made sure we got it in this time.

Then we hit an arcade!!!  We got $10 of quarters and we hit the games!

All of us!

I spent $1 reliving my glory days of Galaga!!!  They reset the games every day I think, because I got the top score easily.  After 15 minutes, some stranger did, so I had to beat that score!  I got my initials in the 1st and 3rd place before I was satisfied.  It did take a quarter to get back in the Galaga groove.  I used to be the master!

All four of us played Gauntlet.  Well, it didn't accept Robb's quarter for some reason, so three of us played it.  In college, I played this as the Valkyrie and of course I played that one here too.

Leon said that the new Gauntlet has better graphics.  Ummmm  ANY game made since 1980s has better graphics...

Before we went into the arcade, we noticed three boys with their bikes trying to cross the round-a-bout to get the arcade too.  Robb mentioned that they looked like the Stranger Things gang. lol!  

And they did!

They held the door for us when we went in.  Nice boys.

While I sat with the coats and relaxed with some pop, these three boys came up to my table.  

"We're going to go over to Walmart for a little while." 

"ummm ok..."

"Do you know if they have (*some unintelligle electronic sounding gadget*)?"

"I don't know..."

"Well, we'll be right back ok?  Probably just about ten minutes."

"You know I'm not your mom right?!"

"Yeah, we know! But we've seen you around."

and with that they headed out the door...

What I want to know is WHERE have they seen me around?!!!  I'm in this town 3 or 4 times a year at most!

Anyway, we eventually ran out of quarters (a winks as good as a nudge)...  So we headed back to the house.  Too bad Matthew had to work, he would have loved the arcade too.

We got more prep work done for dinner.  Robb got the turkey in and Maddy and I got other items ready.  We'd had the Instant pot hot that morning making squash and mashed potatoes.  But now, Maddy made creamed corn with a cayenne kick.  Delish!

We cooked with Christmas music in the back ground.  WONDERFUL!  Robb stayed far far away in the living room to drown out the music.  For him, it's just not right yet.

Suddenly it was 2:30pm and nothing to do for about an hour so we sat down for a few minutes and Maddy told me about her idea for some Christmas decor that she wanted to make.  She had planned to spend all Sunday afternoon putting up the tree and other things.  You know...  now that Thanksgiving was over for their household.

So she and I ran over to Maynard's and found the exact boards for both her stylistic Christmas trees.  Then we went out to their garage and used both the circular saw and the reciprocal saw to make the pointy spear ends.  We glued and screwed them into place and then it was time to put in the rolls.

Aren't they cute?!  They're super sturdy too!  I was thinking we'd have to have a base board, but not so.  She and I signed the backs with a magic marker and the year.  She's going to put push pins and string back and forth across the bigger one and hang her Christmas cards on it.  

I'm thinking my creative bug may have rubbed off on this one!

So if you have her address, send her a bunch to fill it up! :) Or at least one.  Speaking to her aunts here...

She's planning on sending out her own batch of Christmas cards this year for the first time since their wedding.

It just occurred to me that I didn't get any pictures of Matthew this weekend!  

OR the Thanksgiving feast!

These two are showing us how miserably full they are after eating ALL that food.

I'm convinced!

THIS is the only pic I have... the remnants.  Bummer!

Maddy made pumpkin dump cake in the crock pot for dessert!  YUMM!

We played some Jackbox and then a loosely based version of Say Anything until the turkey caught up with us and we were falling asleep during the game...

After the early church service, we kissed/hugged them goodbye and hit the road for home.  Leon got overheated as well as buggy eyed from a video game in the car and almost barfed.  And I'm glad he didn't, because we'd swapped cars so Maddy and Matthew could have the van for a trip and we'll be using their car til Christmas.  We had to pull over a couple times, but made it back home in the time we needed to get back.

Weekend reported!  And it's Tuesday...