Another Wisconsin Thanksgiving Road Trip

The great thing about Scott freelancing and me working part-time is we can take longer vacations and leave before the rest of the country does.

The paychecks don't come in like clockwork, but I'll take a little uncertainty for freedom.

We drove all day Monday and arrived after seven to my parents house. 

With Meadow it takes longer than it used to.

My parents are always excited to see Meadow. 

My mom made turkey soup for dinner. Isn't that something you make after Thanksgiving?

Apparently she had leftovers from some other time in the year.

My mom was super excited to show Meadow the song "What Does the Fox Say?"

Actually Brooke, the title is "The Fox." Come on.

My dad was busy in his workshop making looms for Brittany's Etsy shop. Meadow loved watching him so we decided to help him out. 

He started making these for Brittany when she was going to college. All the other fiber arts majors wanted some, so Mr. Mike made some more and sold them. Now he's an Etsy sensation.

My dad has created many things out of this workshop. I remember as a kid asking him to make me a toy and awhile later he comes up with a wooden wagon for our dolls. 

I think Mr. Mike needs to add woodworking to his carpet business.

The other half of his workshop is still part of my old bedroom. Scott liked that my Target badges from high school were still on the wall.

I like how Mr. Mike just took down the wall, but left up everything else in the former bedroom.

My dad has to drill a hole for the pegs every quarter inch. He figured out how to do that quickly with a sample pack of grout colors.

Before going to bed we watched Alaska: The Last Frontier and then some Breaking Bad that had just arrived at home. Good thing the in-laws have Netflix. Otherwise we would've had to wait a week.

Every morning is playtime with Meadow.

She's really working on trying to crawl.  I tried motivating her to come towards me, but she only knows how to go backwards. 

My mom watched Meadow while Scott and I ran errands. This was the second time we got to go out without Meadow since she was born. I needed to get some supplies for my sock loom so we headed to Hobby Lobby and Michaels.

Momma Gail asked us to pick up some wine from World Market. We spotted this awesome cafeteria/Butcher and the Boar style table on sale for only $599. I would love this in our house.

It wasn't the world's largest table, but I'd sacrifice a few place settings for this baby.

World Market also had our favorite candy, Daim.

Come on Ikea. Bring back our Daim.

After picking up some groceries at the craziest grocery store, Woodman's, we headed back home.

My grandparents went to one of these near Racine. I didn't realize they had so many unknown brands.

Meadow was super grumpy with my mom and didn't nap much. She just wanted to be held so I put her in the Moby wrap. 

Chelsea and Nolan stopped by for dinner. 

Chelsea decided Meadow needed to look girly. 

We decided on pizza for dinner. Simon's Cheese was already closed so we ordered Jet's. I thought it was local, but it's actually a chain. 

Not bad. I love the boxes.

Meadow showed off her baby yoga pose to Nolan. 

After they left and Meadow went to bed I prepped the pie dough. 

We watched the last episode of Breaking Bad season 5 part 1 and called it a night.

The next day we had lots of baking to do. Scott was making his famous whoopie pies and I was making pumpkin and pecan pies.

I don't know if I can take credit for someone else's recipe.

My parents like to use their garage as a fridge in the winter. Not a bad idea actually.

If your garage is attached to your kitchen, that is.

I made cinnamon sugar pie crusts with scraps. Only later did I realize I wanted to use the scraps for decorating the pies. Oops. 

After cooking all the mini cakes, I had to frost them.

Meanwhile Meadow was being a cute little babe.

With only one oven we had to take turns. Scott finished his whoopie pies first. 

This was the first time I've made pecan pie.

No one could agree on how to top the pie. Brooke came to this conclusion.

My dad asked Scott the other day if he wanted to go along hunting to take photos. I warned Scott how cold it was going to be.

I'm a man. I can handle the cold.

Meadow loves her Grandpa Romey. 

Finally Blake arrived. We hadn't been to Duluth in a long time. We hardly see the kid anymore. 

This summer Blake grew his own wheat in his garden. I definitely want to try this next year (and maybe rye or buckwheat too). 

Blake doesn't have anything to grind his wheat berries so I brought along our grain mill so he could turn it into flour. 

He plans on making bread with it. 

Marina is old enough to eat yogurt now so Brittany asked me to make her some. I was checking with Blake to see if it was firm enough. 

Judging by this posed image, I'm not sure.

I made chickpea fritter stew. It's basically falafel in a middle eastern-spiced tomato and potato sauce.

Meadow also loves her uncle Blake.

Brooke was supposed to use Blake's camera to take photos of them hanging with Chelsea and Nolan. They both forget. Instead I took this smart phone pic when Mr. Mike and I stopped by for scotcheroos that Chelsea made for us.