"Farewell" Dinner with Joel and Erin (November 30)

Our good friends, Joel and Erin Walerius invited us to dinner before their big move to Marshall, MN the first weekend in December. We met them and a handful of other couples as well as Joel's sister at Pizza Ranch in Worthington to catch up and visit a bit before the big move.

We closed down Pizza Ranch, but enjoyed visiting with them. We'll certainly miss them being so close, but what's another half hour between friends? :)

Thanksgiving in Humboldt (November 26-27)

Day 1: Thanksgiving Dinner (November 26)

Late Saturday morning we headed down to Humboldt for a couple days to finish out Thanksgiving weekend with the Ropte's. We were celebrating with a nice dinner at 6pm, so we arrived around 2pm and visited for a while with Mom, Jason and Amanda's family.

Shortly before 6, Josh and his family arrived, and we put him to work right away in the kitchen carving the delicious smoked turkey Michael's uncle had smoked at Vinny's BBQ. Amanda had been leading the effort in the the kitchen for most everything else - our little family chef :)

We put Mark in charge of entertaining the little ones, and in the process they got a little rowdy. Looks like I may have my hands full come February lol

We had to bring in the big guys (Uncle Jason and Aunt Tiff) to calm them all down :)

It wasn't too long before the food was ready, so we got everyone seated at the table.

After the delicious meal, Amanda worked on getting some of the little ones' baths out of the way and in their jammies while we worked on cleaning up the kitchen and getting the food put away.

At first, we thought it was going to be a tender moment. But then Reign tackled Kaleigh right to the ground - too cute lol

After our food had all settled, we dug into some yummy pie for dessert. One of the perks of having a big belly is that I now have a place to hold all my food lol

The Kiddos

Caleb and Riley thought it was appropriate to help Nanu arrange her UpWords letters - she quite obviously needed a little help ;)

The Boys

The Girls

Day 2: Church, Visiting, then Home (November 27)

The next day was a pretty lazy one. We went to church, then back to the farm to have a lunch of leftovers and did a lot of resting and relaxing during the afternoon. It was a nice cap to our busy weekend to just kick up our feet and relax and visit. Of course, it wouldn't have been a Sunday afternoon without watching a little football, and a nap or two :)

We had a great Thanksgiving down in Humboldt and are looking forward to our Christmas celebration over New Years' weekend :)

Thanksgiving in LeSueur (Nov 25)

Mark's Aunt Cathy and Uncle Roger graciously opened up their home in LeSueur for Thanksgiving this year. We had a smaller group of twelve, which was nice and cozy, although we had enough food for an army!

The Food and Prep Work

The food was delicious! Cathy had done a nice-sized turkey along with crockpot ham and a few sides, while the rest of us brought more sides and salads to accompany the meal.

Visiting with Family

Meeting Little Alex

Many of us had not yet met Mark and Meghan Holden's little boy, Alex before now! He was such a sweet little guy, at 3 months old here :)

He enjoyed lots of snuggle time with Grandpa :)

Game Time!

While the Aunts, Uncles and Meghan played cards upstairs...

...the boys played some Settlers of Catan downstairs.

We were there until around 8pm, then we headed back on the road for the long trek back to Windom. We had a nice time visiting with family and catching up, and are looking forward to Christmas Day at Mark and Meghan's house!

Thanks so much to the LeSueur Johnsons for hosting!