A Christmas to Remember!!

Well, I have definitely neglected my blog over the last month.  Doing laundry today, so a perfect time to try to summarize the last month or so.

Leaving to drive back to Wisconsin/Minnesota

At these campgrounds, there is no penalty for not being at your campsite for a period of time.  Like Carrie the manager said “you are not in prison here!”  🙂  Some campgrounds do not like you to leave for a period of time and may either not allow it, or add a fee, so we were so happy that we could leave without any restrictions.  And since we are both retired, we could take as much time as we wanted to drive.

We decided it would be a good idea to winterize the camper while we were gone.  It had gotten below freezing while we have been here and only thought it would probably do the same while we were gone.  With checklist in hand, David did the winterizing while I assisted (checked off the done items) where needed.

We headed towards Flagstaff with a final destination of Milwaukee.  It is always great to see the San Francisco peak where the Snowbowl is located and also the first look at snow on the ground.

The drive itself was pretty uneventful — we left Monday afternoon and arrived in Milwaukee on Friday noon.  We really took our time and did not continue to drive once it was dark and always tried to have a LaQuinta as our destination when we mapped our day in the morning.  LaQuinta’s are one that allow pets with no charge so we prefer to find them.  We did find one in a St. Louis suburb, but I kept the city as St. Louis (5 Gateway Drive) and imagine our surprise when we pulled in to this parking lot in the middle of downtown St. Louis.

But getting a little lost did allow us to drive over this pretty bridge.  And once we put in the suburb name we found our destination.

Milwaukee

Besides visiting with the Andersons in Milwaukee we were also planning to see our nephew Greg perform as part of the Milwaukee Choirsters.  While David and Bill had some visiting time, Mary and I went to the Pabst house which was beautifully decorated for Christmas.

Each room was decorated by a different designer adding their own taste to the room and the tree.

We also visited the Domes (Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory) where there are 3 domes that included a desert oasis, tropical jungle and floral gardens.  It was a great place to visit with the snow on the ground on the outside.

Greg’s concert was Saturday night and it was really a great treat!  The songs were great, the voices fantastic and the venue amazing!

Sunday Lou treated us to brunch at the annual Christmas Brunch at his golf course.  The food was amazing and had so many choices!!

Minnesota

Monday  morning we headed to Minnesota and of course our first stop was to see that little boy, Jaxen, who was almost 6 months.

Wednesday night we had the great joy of surprising Erin and Emily at their new house.  They opened the front door and just hugged us both!!  It was so much fun to see them too!

That Saturday we all went to the Jens house for Christmas cookie baking.  It was a great time and lots of fantastic treats were made by all the bakers there.  We had a lot of laughs and finished the evening with Swedish Potato Sausage for supper.

After that is when the “Christmas to Remember” started in full swing.  The next day, Jenny said Emily was sick (flu like symntoms) — then Jackie got sick, then RJ, then me, then Caley, then Jermar, then Tell…well, you get the picture!!  Of all that did cookie baking there were just a few that were lucky enough to avoid the bug that came to visit while we all baked.  Needless to say, the cookies all got tossed and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day plans were cancelled!!  Definitely a Christmas to Remember!!

But soon we would have “Christmas Redo” and it would be a great family gathering.

TIFN