It certainly has been a while for my writing….everyone knows how the holidays can go and time slips by….but you know me, I always have some reason….LOL…whether legitimate or not! 🙂
Trip from Arizona
The trip from Arizona was fine, although having to charge the Tesla was probably a little more added time than we planned on. It was fine…we are not in a hurry…we are retired!! Our first stop was in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, and that had a charging station right at the pet friendly hotel, which worked out great. We were pretty cautious at the hotels, trying to wipe sanitize everything when we first got there…guess we were successful since neither of us have any sickness signs….cross our fingers. Next stop was Perry, Oklahoma and our final night we stayed in West Des Moines, Iowa. Charging was fine — we could watch Netflix and YouTube while it charged which made the time go faster, I think. It was funny, we drove through Flagstaff, Arizona when we left and I swear we saw snow from then on until the Minnesota/Iowa border. I asked the people at the OK hotel if it was unusual for them to have as much snow as they did — and they said very unusual — more often it would be in the 70’s for highs.
Then once we crossed into Minnesota, it was brown and NO snow!!
Who would have thought no snow in Minnesota. Well that soon changed when the Eve before Christmas Eve, a blizzard decided to make its Christmas journey into Minnesota!!! Probably about 8-10 inches of snow in Maple Grove and winds sometimes up to 50 MPH!!
Christmas Eve
Some Christmas Eve plans were postponed because the roads were not in the best shape. We went ahead and took our time traveling to Jackie’s so we could have our planned Rueben dinner. Although that menu went out the door when one of their neighbors brought them a full Christmas dinner ready to pop in the oven from BLVD restaurant!!! What a great surprise for Jackie and Jermar…and we got to enjoy it also!! We saved the Ruebens for another night. Caley bought Christmas pajamas for herself, Darcee and Jaxen.
Because they were a size 3 and a little big for Jaxen, he was not too happy about them at first, but quickly warmed up to them both for the Eve and Christmas morning.
Christmas Day
The usual tradition is that Jackie hosts everyone (our family and Jermar’s family) at her house on Christmas Day. In the morning, we usually have a brunch with just our family while kids open their gifts. With this year and Roni Rona plans had to modified slightly and only our family came to Jackie’s house. I offered to do the cooking so she did not have to be on her feet for hours and could just enjoy. It was going to be simple Egg Bake and Monkey Bread. We arrived there and opened presents first.
Once we got close to being done with presents (about an hour later…LOL) I put the food in the oven. Within about 45 minutes, we saw smoke pouring out of the stove!!! As usually happens with monkey bread the juices (Sugar and cinnamon) were overflowing in to the bottom of Jackie’s stove and it was making a mess, along with the smoke pouring out!! I forgot to put a cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven!! The smoke detectors starting going off, our dog started shaking and Jaxen had fear on his face. We started opening windows, doors anything to get the smoke out of the house!! I am sure this will be one cooking adventure that no one will let me forget. But the egg bake was good and the part of the monkey bread that got cooked was fantastic!! And Jackie got a clean stove out of it too!!
I also made dinner to let Jackie relax and with that sparkling clean oven we had no disasters!! But the day definitely took a toll on little Jaxen — he even started to fall asleep at the table while we were eating supper — not sure he even got all of his presents open!!
Caley was able to stay some extra days, so both she and Jaxen had the chance to enjoy the fun of a Minnesota winter and do some sledding. She took him down the “bunny” hill at this park!
New Year’s Eve was pretty quiet. David did take the Tesla to Jenny’s house so Erin and Emily could go for a ride — they had requested that he do that on the Eve for them. Emily did get a chance to drive it also, which she really enjoyed. We had beef roast in the crock pot and then barely made it to midnight, hearing the fireworks reminded us of what time it was!!
We are staying in a rental house for January and February so we can help out Jackie and Jermar when the baby arrives. She is due 2/14 but then will do a c-section on 1/26 (the day after her 40th birthday) and will be in the hospital for at least 3 days. Right now we don’t know if the baby will be able to come home with her when she leaves, but we are hoping he is continuing to gain weight so he can leave when she does! Will write more about the house and the neighborhood we are in for my next post.
Stay safe…stay healthy!
TIFN
Dandy Ventures 