This Thanksgiving we traveled to Minneapolis to visit with the Evans side of things, Sarah and her family moved back to Minneapolis in June; not only was it their first Holiday in their new home it was their first whole family visit in their new home.
Clare had school on Tuesday where she made a teepee hat; she was so proud of her hat and wanted to hold it the entire way home. She couldn’t remember that it was called a teepee but loved wearing it around the house. I wonder if she’ll dress a pilgrim some year, I know someone who can make a great pilgrim costume.
The first thing Clare said on Thursday morning was ‘can we go to Maggie and Jack’s house today?’ I was happy to oblige and was just as excited as she was. We left for Minneapolis on Thanksgiving morning, flights were cheaper and I figured travel would be less stressful without all the pre-holiday rush of people. We arrived in Minneapolis in the early afternoon and met Andrew at the airport; we arrived within about 30 minutes of each other so it worked out great. Thankfully the drive to Sarah’s house was short, Clare was SO excited to see Maggie and Jack. Because everyone else was already there dinner was nearly ready, we just had to heat things up and it was time to eat.
Mama was in the kitchen as usual, she made the best artichoke dip!
What would Thanksgiving be without dessert! Clare enjoyed a bite or two of ice cream before having Grampy help her finish, he was more than happy to help her with the last few bites of vanilla ice cream. Maggie and Jack both love ice cream, not wanting to be left out Clare wanted some also, despite not liking it.
Clare was exhausted by the end of the evening, but didn’t want to miss any of the action.
Friday morning Mom and I woke up early to hit the Mall of America. Many stores opened at midnight, but we decided to wait until 5am hoping to miss the majority of the crowds, thankfully our plan worked and we were able to shop without masses of people. I can now say I shopped at the Mall of America on Black Friday.
We arrived back home before anyone was up, and before Jack started asking about putting up the Christmas tree. After much anticipation Paul brought up the Christmas tree around 8am, I’m not sure which was more exciting the tree or the giant box it had been kept in. Clare was skeptical at first, but decided Maggie and Jack had a pretty good idea, that box provided lots of fun for everyone.
Clare was more interested in drinking chocolate milk and playing the 'monkey game' with Uncle A on Jacks laptop.
Another exciting part of Friday was the fresh snow that fell overnight. Of course Jack and Maggie wanted to go out and play in it, and whatever Maggie and Jack wanted to do Clare wanted to do. I hadn’t packed clothes for snow playing, but that didn’t stop her. It was fun to watch them playing in the backyard, they made train tracks, snowballs and snow angels. Again, Clare wasn’t sure about the snow angels, but after both Maggie and Jack made theirs she got down and made a beautiful snow angel.
Maggie and Jack demonstrating how to do a snow angel.
The excitement didn’t stop there, if you give Jack a Christmas tree he’ll ask for Christmas lights! So, of course Paul was happy to help and hauled up the box of Christmas lights and got Jack’s help figuring out which ones worked and which ones didn’t before climbing the ladder outside in the below freezing weather to decorate the house.
While Jack, Andrew, Dad and Paul worked on the lights Clare discovered possibly her most favorite game ever, The Sleepy Princess and the Pea, she must have played that game no fewer than 100 times. Even Jean, Paul’s Mom, got in on playing the game, thankfully she was quiet while the Princess slept. Clare was also more than happy to show Jean her Lady.
Clare loved playing with Maggie and Jack and all their toys, I was right in my assumption that she wouldn’t have much interest in her own toys and was grateful I hadn’t hauled any along with us. One of Clare’s favorite toys was Jack’s computer that had games and songs in addition to the learning aspects of it. Clare and Andrew spent a lot of time playing and laughing. Andrew taught her how to use the mouse, which turned out to be a little more difficult than you’d think; when Andrew would tell her to move it up she would pick it up, it was pretty funny.
Clare got SO excited when she selected the right answer.
Before Maggie and Jack when to bed Friday night they finished decorating their first Minneapolis Christmas tree by topping it with their Kenny angel, an angel that Grampy made that looks just like Kenny, six freckles and all.
Sadly Grammy and Grampy left for Ohio on Saturday morning, so it was just the kids left for the rest of the weekend. Sarah had the idea of visiting an indoor park; I was expecting a small play structure, Clare and I both had never seen anything like this. Maggie happily took Clare by the hand and showed her a good time. They climbed, slid, swung, and played for over an hour before calling it a day.
Maggie happily helped Clare down the slide.
Clare was able to convince Jeff to go in when Maggie wanted to take a break, I think they both had fun.
Despite being beyond exhausted after playing so much Clare refused to miss out on any of the fun and didn’t take a nap, she was one really tired little girl by the end of the night. She saw Maggie doing this and gave it a whirl, pretty darn cute.
Sunday Andrew had to leave for Houston, so while he headed to the airport Sarah and I were going to head to yet another indoor playground, until Clare fell asleep. So, the stayed at home while she took Maggie and Jack to the playground that apparently was even bigger and better than the one on Saturday. Clare napped for quite a while; she was so tired. While she and Jeff napped I headed out to the post office to send home a few boxes, Maggie very generously gave Clare some of her movies and toys for Christmas, Clare will be so excited to open them and know they are from Maggie.
When Maggie and Jack returned so did the fun, there is never a shortage of excitement when they are around. Clare found Jack’s karaoke machine and sang us all some songs while Maggie and Jack played with Legos.
Jack also taught Clare how to lie down under the Christmas tree and look up the middle at all the lights. The evening ended with some quiet time for reading and catching up on cartoons. I think everyone was pretty tired from such a fun long weekend.
Overall it was a wonderful Holiday spent with some of my favorite people. It was so nice to see Maggie, Jack and Clare playing together and having fun, Clare is absolutely in love with Maggie and would live in her back pocket if she could. When we woke up on Monday morning to come home Clare cried because she didn’t want to leave Maggie, the only thing that made it better was talking about how Maggie and Jack would be coming to our house for Christmas.
