Speaking of...
my Thanksgiving was a good mix of fast-paced family fun and a little bit of relaxing.
Scott and I decided to attempt to hit up both of our family Thanksgivings this year. We stayed with my aunt and uncle Wednesday night, and on Thursday morning I was trusted to help make some of the delicious pumpkin pies for the day!
I've never been successful getting the pie crust to cooperate, so it was awesome to have my aunt Sherri give me a first-hand tutorial and let me prep two of the pie crusts. I'll probably make a couple more pies now that I feel comfortable with it, and who knows- maybe I'll even get good at it! :)
People began arriving around 11, and the house quickly descended into a chaotic, fun mess- lots of good cheer, good food, and a fantastic lay of food!
We always have around 30 people for my family Thanksgiving, so it's anything but "small" and "quaint".
My uncle Brent and I have a running tradition of doing a tequila shot together on Thanksgiving. This has been a thing since I was 18, when his goal was to teach me the importance of knowing your booze (and knowing what to stay away from, perhaps). All I know is it turned me off to tequila shots. Somehow, that one lesson turned into a yearly tradition, and the family always gives us a cheer as we down them! Talk about supportive...
Scott and I had our late lunch/dinner, then headed over to his aunt and uncle's house to do his side's Thanksgiving. We had a second dinner, played a few games, and enjoyed the company of his relatives. By the time we picked up my brother , we were all exhausted and ready to crash.
I spent the rest of the weekend alternating between relaxing with my brother and his girlfriend at their new house and getting grading and school stuff done.
I did get to help them set up their tree and some of the Christmas decorations, which was really nice! Kyle and I also made sure to watch at least a couple of the Charlie Brown specials, including Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown!, a couple of favorites from when we were kids.
I got back home Sunday night with just enough time to throw in a load of laundry before launching into another week.
My week, however, quickly became very short.
It started snowing here in Duluth on Monday night and didn't let up until Thursday morning. I had school on Tuesday, but there were very few students in my class. All the public, private, and charter schools were closed Tuesday, so I didn't have dance Tuesday night. Instead, I watched the storm move in!
It was the snowstorm that didn't stop. All the schools, including the colleges, closed both Wednesday and Thursday. In the course of a few days, we got over 2 feet of snow.
I went out on Wednesday night to do some shoveling (the snow hadn't let up by this point, and wouldn't for another few hours), and the snow was just past my knee in depth.
When the snow finally stopped in the middle of the night on Wednesday, the temperature plummeted. All the heavy, wet, and piled snow turned into 2-3 foot high banks that were like concrete to shovel. The city was a mess. The plows had barely been able to keep up with getting the snow off the emergency snow routes, and now they had oodles of frozen blocks of snow to push... on the sidewalks? There was just so much snow everywhere.
Scott and I did a little grocery shopping on Thursday, but otherwise just stayed inside. We amused ourselves by dressing each of the cats in a little kitten Christmas sweater, and laughing at how ridiculous they looked and acted in it!
I'm pretty sure Maeby was more than a little unhappy with it on. We're going to attempt to incorporate the cats wearing Christmas sweaters in our Christmas card, which I need to make and send out in the next week here.
In between all the grading...
I've been doing a bunch of knitting, but I'll leave those for another post. At least I feel caught up now! There's still ten tons of snow outside, the streets still suck to drive on, and I'm ecstatic that I have my parent's truck to drive this winter.
I just hope it doesn't snow any more this winter, because we really don't have anywhere else to put it now...
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