Thanksgiving in the Valley

Thursday

This year Brittany hosted Thanksgiving at her new house.

We debated between going to Grand Rapids, Michigan (where my sister and mom live) and going to Little Chute (most of Brooke's family). With Grand Rapids being a 9 hour drive (no stopping), we opted for the 4 hour drive to her family.

While getting ready for Thanksgiving I found these 30 plus year old German wines sitting in the garage. I guess they'd been sitting in Grandma Lungwitz's basement since then. We uncorked one of them for the night.

I was all for it until my dad opened one and when I mentioned where it came from he made a face and exclaimed he would not drink it.

My contribution for Thanksgiving this year was pumpkin shaped rolls.

For the first time in 33 years we actually get to sit with the adults and the cousins were at the kids table.

They were happy to have their own table.

To our surprise Brooke's cousin Hayden showed up too. We always have a fun time chatting.

Only a few of us were brave enough to try it out. It was a bit off at first, but after a while it was pretty good. By then everyone else had chickened out except Jeff.

Theo was loving the Thanksgiving dinner and couldn't get enough.

My sisters surprised me with a gift of an avocado toast ornament. For those that don't know, I eat avocado toast every morning.

She's such a hipster.

Or millennial. 

Today also happened to be Dan's birthday. On top of pie and apple crisp we had birthday cake.

Happy Birthday dude.

The kids were pretending to be dogs and did whatever my dad commanded them to do.

Even Harvey was in on this.

Brayden had smashed cake in Nolan's face which made him cry. Chelsea later got Brayden back when he was licking a plate of whipped (vegetable) topping.

Lucky Marina has a swing in her house. 

Brittany's new baby.

We then left Meadow at their house for a cousin sleepover.

Friday

The next day on our way to picking up Meadow we saw a dog walking a dog. 

Hey, that's Marina. She's got all the cool costumes.

Today we had plans to go to my grandma's house one last time. Before heading over we stopped for lunch at our favorite small town Mexican joint, El Popo.

It's just down the road from Redgranite in Wautoma.

Brooke got tacos and I got a torta. She was super excited about the avocados on the tacos. You can understand her sisters thought it would be funny to give her that avocado toast ornament.

Chelsea shared her lunch with Theo.

This kid will eat anything.

On our way out Chelsea and Brittany stopped in the conjoined Mexican market and got treats for the kids.

We're too cheap for that.

At my grandparents home the kids found the toys right away.

We realized that there wasn't really that much to do. The place was actually mostly emptied out.

I talked the kids into playing outside while the sisters looked around.

We took one last look around and said goodbye to this house.

Saturday

Immediately upon waking the next morning Amanda invited us over for breakfast.

We always try to get over to see Amanda and Jeff when we're in the Chute.

She made a yummy cream cheese and sausage bake.

It was kind of like a less messy biscuits and gravy.

Theo and Meadow made themselves right at home.

He's pretty good at finding somewhere to play.

Meadow was sad to leave, but we had to part ways.

We had plans to see The Grinch in 3D with Marina. Apparently the movie isn't playing in 3D around here so we settled on Funset Boulevard. I hadn't been here since I was a teenager.

I'd heard about this place so many times. I didn't know what to expect, but it turns out it's like a giant arcade with an indoor playground. Kind of like a Chuck E Cheese.

We played some games while waiting for the Farber's to arrive.

It was actually pretty reasonable to play games for a few hours.

We debated earlier on going bowling, but Meadow didn't want to. Of course when she saw the ten-pin game she was all for it.

Jeff made the right decision and played in the classic arcade game corner while the girls finished a second round of bowling.

Meadow and I played a few games together like the Batman road battle game and Mario Kart.

They had a Thanksgiving weekend special with unlimited rides for only $7. Meadow didn't want to do any of the rides. We even had to talk her into riding the carousel.

The playground did have a 4 and under area.

The big playground was also a part of her unlimited ride pass. She even went back for a second run through the giant jungle gym.

We had to go meet G.G. for dinner. We settled on Anduzzi's. For some reason we always go here when it's a Saturday night and get the family-friendly section to ourselves.

Sunday

Before our drive home, Marina stopped over to paint nails with Meadow.

And that's all that Thanksgiving weekend wrote.