Thanksgiving Trip

For Thanksgiving this year, we went to Wisconsin to be with my family. We flew into Chicago and Sue Barnes picked us up from the airport. We went back to her and Jason's apartment and hung out while Jason was in class. We had an overnight flight, so we napped a little while we were there.

Tristan enjoyed not being on the airplane anymore!

On Thanksgiving Day we went to Joyce and Anders' for the usual feast! This is one of the three tables set up to accomodate the 45 people that were there.

Jason and Susan Barnes

Tristan meets his cousins Andrew and Carson from Colorado.

The annual Turkey Bowl ended with the "young guys" winning. In order to keep the teams equal in number, the age cut off between the old team and the young was 24.5 years old. So, Kale was considered an old guy!! I was on the injured reserve list with a swollen belly. Here's mom and dad enjoying a hot cocoa break.

Kale and Jaspar

Logi-Bear, Bryce, and Tractor

Barry and Alyssa

After the Turkey Bowl it was time for PIE!!!

Tristan is leader of the pack.

Garrett, the other crazy driver.

Jaspar wows us with her amazing talent!

Tristan was especially enthralled. He was so entranced, he slowly slipped down until he all of a sudden fell and bonked his head.

Jason entertains little Andrew.

Tristan and Brayden

Garrett checks out his depth perception with Jason's optrician goggles.

Kale and his new bride.

Cammy and Neale

Mommy's little prince

Tristan got a new car seat!! He giggled for the first 15 minutes he was in it. He loved facing forward and being able to look out the window. Mom and Dad gave us their Sienna minivan!!! What a wonderful gift!!! We started out on the 30 hour drive home late Saturday night.

Sunday after our little meeting, we were at the Badlands of South Dakota. We took a little detour so that we could see the wonderful sights. Jason and I hadn't been there for about 15 years, so it was great to see again.

We saw lots of deer on the way home. Hundreds of deer grazing in the fields....about a hundred laying on the side of the road, dead.....and one really up close and personal. We had only about 5 hours left in our trip when I hit a deer. It was about 9:30 at night and a deer jumped right in front of the van. It bounced off of the hood, and the van slid out and we ended up in the grass in the median. We were all totally fine (Tristan's car seat did a good job). The impact wasn't all that bad, but the van needs some work. We weren't able to drive it away, so it is still in Superior, Montana. We had to find a ride back to Missoula where we spent the night in a hotel and rented a car in the morning. We made it home Monday at about 4 pm. We have yet to hear what will be done with the van. We hope that it will be fixed and we can have it back for our winter vehicle. So, our trip didn't end very well, but we really did have a wonderful time being with our family and friends!!!