Thanksgiving at Mom's

Thursday morning, Mel, Emma, and I were joined by my sister for our journey to Waterloo, Iowa, for Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's condo. That morning I realized that I had neglected to let my mom know that we were planning on driving down Thanksgiving morning rather than the evening before. When I called her to let us know that we were on our way, she said that she realized around 10:00 the evening before that we would be coming down on Thursday, and not on Wednesday. We had a very yummy dinner at my mom's place. Besides the five of us, my aunt, uncle, and grandmother joined us. Emma and I saw my grandmother just a few weeks ago, but I hadn't seen my aunt and uncle for some time. This was the last trip that Mel will be taking to Iowa before the baby is born some time in January or early February, so it was good that we got to see some other relatives.

I had thought about staying up late on Thursday or getting up early on Friday to do some Black Friday shopping, but I decided against it. Instead, Mel and I went to Toys R Us at a more respectable hour to see if a particular toy we had seen in their ad was still available. It was not. We did however find a few gifts to pick up. Fortunately, while the store was quite crowded, we did not have to wait in line too long to check out.

As Thursday was Mel's and my fourth wedding anniversary, we asked my mom and sister to watch Emma Friday evening so the two of us could go out to dinner and to a movie. We had dinner at Carlos O'Kelly's. I really wish we had a location of that restaurant closer to our home. While we have plenty of good places to eat, I really like the meals there. Besides, half-price margaritas on Thursdays are good as well. Following dinner we went to see New Moon. I had not seen Twilight, so I was initially concerned that I would have difficulty following what was going on. That was not the case though. I found the movie quite easy to follow. Overall, it was a good movie, but I did find the first half of the film to be a bit slow.

The four of us returned home to Minnesota Saturday morning. We would have stayed in Waterloo until after lunch, but my mom had a funeral to go to. The drive back went pretty well. It can be a bit challenging driving three and a half hours with a two-year-old who is still relatively new at not wearing diapers of Pull-Ups, but we made it home okay.