Sup Y'all

So, yeah, it's only been more than a year since I've last wrote. Time flies and I've been, you know, keeping things going both at home with Kim and the Kids and at work. Jayden's now 6, in Kindergarden, and had to have a couple of his front baby teeth pulled to make room for his more permanent fixtures. Josie is 4 and keeps both Kim and myself on our toes. Last year in preschool she was learning some sign language so Kim got some signing DVDs from the library and Josie's been eating it up. It's fun to see her so excited to learn.

I'm not sure what I'll do with my blog. I feel like trying to include some more software development information if I can...it's something to write about at least and I feel like giving back to the community.

East Coast Fun

This summer we decided to go to the East Coast to visit my Sister and her family who live in New Hampshire. We weren't sure at first if we wanted to tackle such a feat with Jayden and Josie not being that old, but thought what the heck might as well give it a try. So, on May 24th, 2009 at we set out at 6:00 in the morning. We didn't make it out of Iowa before the kids already started asking if we were there yet. oh dear!

Our first overnight destination was the Maumee Toledo, OH area. Traffic wasn't bad up to this point despite it being Memorial Day weekend. We traveled from Toledo to visit Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The kids thought it cool and hadn't seen so much chocolate in their life. From there we traveled to Strasburg, Pennsylvania to visit the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum. Jayden and I could have stayed there a lot longer, but we had to continue on to visit the Crayola Factory in Easton, Pennsylvania. We got to see a mini crayola factory and all things color. We also got to play with some boats and cannals. We survived driving through New York City and Connecticut even though "Carmin" (The Garmin GPS) let us down in a few spots...more on her later.  We managed to arrive at my Sister's place on day three.

It rained the first two days we were in New Hampshire so we decided to do a few things that didn't require us to be outside...shopping and visiting a few places. We went to the Cape Neddick Lighthouse on York Beach, Maine, and shopped at some outlet stores in Kittery, Maine. The following day went Boston to visit the New England Aquarium, and Ikea.

Finally, on May 29th we had no rain! We headed to The Flume Gorge and then up to a fogged in Mt. Washington.

We also made extensive use of Steve's Kawasaki Mule (Red Gaiter) and 4 wheeler. We also visited Hampton Beach a couple of different days. Jayden loved the ocean, but Josie hated it. Karrie and Steve also threw a party for us with Steve's family and their friends. It was fun to meet them all and have kids play/make new friends. Steve also hooked up his leaf blower T-ball machine. It was hard to say goodbye as we had such a good time out there.

On our return visit we stayed overnight at the Wolbrinks' in Liverpool, New York and then made our way to Niagara Falls, New York. We also missed the Supper Nanny, but saw her car. We arrived back at our place on June 4th after another night's stay in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Here are a few tips for anyone taking long road trips. Get your hands on a GPS. That thing saved us so much and let us find places that we normally wouldn't have gone to. Yeah, I can read a map, but this gave us the flexibility to do something at a whim instead of having to plan out the whole trip. I did have the hotels booked for on the way out before we left, but didn't book them for the way back. Garmin along with the Marriott 800 number got us places to stay on the way back. Another thing that I'm glad we got before we left was the iPass/EZPass for tolls. We only found one state that we had to actually pickup a ticket and pay at the end for tolls. The rest of the states we used the iPass. It was so much easier than having to stop and pay someone. We also packed Josie's little porta-potty thing. That saved us a few times. Her bladder really is as small as she is.

All in all, we had a great time and trip. The kids were great and Kim had lots of activities planned for them to do in the van.  She's so organized. We wouldn't have been able to do it had she not had everything setup the way she did. Now we just have to figure out where we're going next summer!

The complete set of pictures can be seen here.

Getting Caught Up

Okay, so i'm not a steady blogger. I'm not really sure what the reasons are, but some of them are just being busy being a dad, Twitter, and Facebook. It seems that I've done more micro-blogging if you want to call it that using Twitter.

So, what's been going on? Well, we had  a great Christmas and 2009 started out pretty well inspite of The Great Depression II. I'm very fortunate that the Ag industry is holding strong.

Jayden has been learning all the time and is becoming the little man.  He loves to figure out how everything works. He also loves talking your ear off once he gets going. He also knows how to use pause on the DVR. It's sad he won't even know what a VCR was. (Actually, it's a good thing the VCR is dead. :) ) Jayden got to make a pirate box to put his pull-ups into and have the pirates visit with a bunch of treasure. We're so glad that he's doing pretty well in making it through the night without a pull-up. He still wakes up wet occasionally, but he's getting there.

Josie is a daddy's girl. It's not uncommon to hear her tell me, "I need you" and then proceed to try and get you to drop whatever you were doing and pick her up. I don't mind. She's my little Princess, Tinkerbell or Cinderella depending on the day. One day we tried to straighten her hair, but I told Kim that I never wanted it straighted again...unless Josie does it herself when she's a teenager. She did not look like our little Josie at all.

Kim has been feeding her facebook "addication" and has hooked up with quite a few people from her past. It's pretty cool to think we can reconnect with people in such an easy method.

Well, there you have it.  The start to 2009.

Is it Luck?

Wow, time has gone by like you wouldn't believe and with it have quite a few events. We had a garage sale on the 3rd and ended up selling quite a bit of stuff. It's really amazing how much "stuff" everyone has in the U.S. Just look at all the people giving to Good Will on weekends (after garage sales).

Around the same time period, Jayden and Josie got pink-eye and then gave me the pleasure of experiencing it too. Needless to say Josie ended up getting it twice and Jayden three times before it was all said and done.

Kim's Mom had surgery back on the 19th so I watched the kids (I took last week and this next week off from work) while Kim went and waited with the rest of her family. We took the kids to see Grandma Pat that afternoon and then went back again that night to help Kim's Dad get back to our place to stay the night.

This memorial weekend was rather interesting to say the least. On Friday Kim came back from shopping with a friend and said that she had some interesting news for me. As soon as she said it was about her Dad, my heart sank as his health has been questionable as of late. The good news is no health problems that he currently has was the issue. The bad news was that he had been struck by lightning while sleeping Friday morning. Dale was sleeping when he felt the lightning bolt start up his feet and continued up through his spine and ending at his head. He especially felt it when it hit his back as he has metal rods in his spine from previous back surgeries. He told Pat that he thought his legs had blown off when it initially happened. It's odd that he even drove himself to breakfast that morning as he was pretty incoherent later that morning. The lightning knocked the picture off the wall and left a mark on the white paint (see larger image from link above).

So we decided we'd head down to Creston on Saturday after attending a couple of graduation parties. It's always an eery feeling going somewhere when you're not sure what to expect. Yesterday Dale feel asleep a lot (he fell asleep with his breakfast in his lap). He also slept through Dinner. Fortunately he was doing a lot better today. He even drove himself to the restaurant for breakfast this morning.

It's amazing that more damage hadn't occurred and I consider it a miracle that Dale even survived. So all in all, quite an eventful month.
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Single Parenting

This past Friday and weekend Kim and her Mom, Sister, and Niece took a shopping trip to Minneapolis, MN. That means I got to take care of the kids for the weekend. I did have planned to go to Humboldt to help my Brother and buddy, Scott, put in some cabinets that Scott had ordered from my Brother's business. But, Tasha, one of our friends that was going to take care of the kids while I was gone ended up getting the flu. I wasn't quite sure if I should even attempt to take the kids for an hour and a half drive by my self. I ended up taking them and managed to stay sane. Josie cried for at least a half an hour on the way up and both of them had their moments on the way back, but I managed.

How does a single parent manage to handle two kids? All I can say is I don't know how. Take the simple thing as having Jayden needing to go to the bathroom. We stopped near Ft. Dodge on the way back and had some McDonalds (I know, I usually dislike eating there, but it's quick and the kids usually eat something there). Well, about half way through our lunch, Jayden needed to go use the bathroom. Not a big deal if Kim and I were both there. Obviously, I took Josie (with chicken nugget in hand) in with Jayden and I. Everything worked out okay, but still, it's not fun having to deal with both of them at the same time...making sure Josie doesn't touch something she shouldn't and keeping her chicken nugget off the floor.

All in all, the kids were pretty good for the whole weekend. But, it sure is nice having Kim back home. :)

Having Some Fun

Well, we're in the new year. Christmas was great and we all got lots of goods from everyone. The kids are finally over their colds/flu and all that jazz so we're moving along with some fun times. Josie is getting more teeth in all the time so that makes her a little crabby at times to say the least. Today Josie even told us potty when she went in her diaper and walked into the bathroom...so who knows, maybe she'll be potty trained before Spring. :) One could only hope. Jayden's been playing full time with his toys and loves to play with his train sets on his train table in the basement.

Josie started making some funny tongue noises the other day so I thought I'd share them with you. Enjoy the video.


Funny Tongue Noises from Kevin Minnis on Vimeo.

Till next time...

Sick Kids

Well, it happened last week with Josie. She threw up twice and had well...let's just say problems at the other end too. Wouldn't you know a week later and now Jayden has it. :( Sucky! At least he can use the pot. He hasn't had any regurgitation out of his mouth so hopefully he can bypass that part. So, that means another weekend at home not able to go out. As it was last weekend, Kim and I took turns getting out of the house so we didn't go crazy. At least the weather won't be a part of the frustration this weekend. When Jayden is healthy, he's been up to playing more with his teddy bear and using his imagination quite a bit. Everything has been about sharing with his Teddy and Teddy wanting to do something. He's also coming up with some memorable phrases. Last week Kim gave him a snack down in the living room. He tends to make a mess as most kids do when they're his age while eating it so Kim told him to be careful and not make a mess. His response, "It's okay Mom (he doesn't say Mommy any more), you can clean it up."

On a brighter note, Josie's all better now and constantly grazes the cereal boxes whenever she can. She's also trying to talk more. You can kind of understand somethings that she says. She'll make the sound a cow, sheep, monkey and horse make. And she's also said tractor. She does play with Jayden's toys quite a bit.

Only 9 days till Christmas!

Mastering the smallest things

Well, the time is finally here. Jayden has mastered potty training and only wears his pull-up at night and when taking a nap, otherwise, he wants his "scibbies" and won't let us put on a pull-up. It's something how we grown-ups can think of it as a small thing to use the bathroom. In Jayden's case, it's like a horse and water. Jayden did it on his own time. You can't just force a kid to use it no matter how hard you want them to. At any rate, we're extremely happy that he is using it.

Yesterday we took our annual trip to Howell's Tree Farm to get the kids their pumpkins and to have some fun playing with all the stuff they have setup. While there we also saw Amy and Zach Larson so that was cool. It had rained the night before and it was pretty muddy, but we had a good time anyway and washed our shoes when we got home.

More pictures can be seen at the Halloween 2007 Picture Set.

Such a Fruit Cake

"Josie, you're such a fruit cake." Those are the words coming out of Jayden's mouth as we were eating supper one night. A lot has happened since my last blog entry. Sorry, life got busy so I didn't have time to get this updated. As you can see from the picture to the left, Jayden turned three in August.

Karrie, my sister, made a surprise visit to my Parent's home and it happened to fall on the same weekend that we had Jayden's B-Day party so she was able to make it too.

Jayden wasn't the only one to have fun during his birthday weekend. Josie likes wearing his hat and does a pretty good job modeling it. :)

They also both had fun with shaving cream in the bath tub. If you're ever looking for something fun for the kids during bath time, shaving cream is another option.

And of course after a long day's work, you just gotta take a rest from it all. Jayden feel asleep on his pillow in the living room during the middle of the day. :)

We made the trek north to my Parent's home the first week of September and had a great time. My Aunt and Uncle, Iris and Gary Baxter had their 40th Wedding Anniversary party so we went and helped them celebrate.

It was a great weekend to go up as the weather was perfect. Jayden and Josie got to go outside and checkout the farm. Jayden helped Grandpa feed the calves and Josie got to play on the trampoline and other toys.

We also got to play with Great Grandpa's four wheeler.

And Jayden got to ride on Uncle Kelly's forklift with Brianna and Madison.

More recently, Jayden has started riding his bike. It's getting different going on walks now as he'd rather ride his bike over riding in the wagon with Josie. The next thing we need to work on with him is using his brakes. Instead of pushing back on the peddles, he puts his feet down only and his toes touch the ground. He's also trying to use the potty more. We're gaining ground which is good. Josie has been trying to say more words, "Belbo" for Elmo, baby, and "Daday" for Jayden, "Belba" for belly button and bubbles. She's cruising like none other and would climb up on anything if she were allowed. She got another tooth on her left side so she now has 6. We're hoping she'll get some more on her right side. :) We've also concluded that she's a Daddy's Girl. The minute I get home from work she's at my feet if she isn't eating.

More pictures of can be found under Jayden's Birthday and at our trip up north links.

Lots of Little Things

Okay, so the title may be a little misleading. There have been a lot of "little" things happening the past month or so.

Jayden now asks for a Dewski whenever Kim goes into Quicktrip or Kum & Go to get her fountain Dew. I'd say that's a pretty good accomplishment. :) He's almost there with using the peddles on his trike and bike. If only he were there with potty training. We're hoping that a switch will flip and he'll want to finally use his "big-boy scibbies". He talks about everyone else using the potty, but still no go. He still has the occasional melt down, but, knock on wood, they don't seem as frequent as before. He's also looking forward to his birthday and now asks for things for it.

Josie has started to walk on her own. She does mostly walking now instead of crawling. It's fun to watch her make her tiny steps. She's kind of wobbly at times, but is doing a pretty good job so far. She's also good at getting into trouble. It won't be uncommon to turn your back for a second and find her standing on top of the kid's picnic table. She is learning a lot fast. She's also good at being a Daddy's girl.

House painting is done for the most part. I painted the back last week so the "normal" areas to paint are done. I'll probably try and get the garage door and the concrete part of the foundation done sometime before it snows. I also have to make a cover for the sandbox. I'm tired of looking at the blue tarp that covers it now.

Crawling, American Idol, and Easter

What a busy month. This month has started out with Josie learning to crawl. She loves try and get into the entertainment center now and gets mad when we tell her she can't. She's also started to pull herself to stand next to furniture and even climbed her first step today. She loves watching Jayden and I'm sure is learning a great deal from him. It's been exciting to see her advancing.

Jayden's been learning his ABCs and numbers, as well as, preparing for the next American Idol. One day last week he was standing on the stairs and singing away. Then he said I sing like American Idol. haha. Speaking of which, American Idol and Ford have done an excellent job marketing. Everytime Jayden sees a Ford symbol he now associates it with American Idol. Sad isnt' it. :)

Yesterday we had fun watching the kids with their Easter stuff. The night before we told Jayden that the Easter bunny was coming and we needed to make sure things were picked up. In no time, he was running around cleaning up his toys and putting away shoes to make sure the place was clean for the Easter bunny. Talk about motivation!

Kim's been doing the best she can to not get too bored during this last spell of cold weather. I think she has everything ready for the garage sale that will be the first Friday of May (and maybe Saturday). So be sure to mark your calendars and come out and buy some good stuff. haha.

Work for me has been very busy. But, that keeps the time flying by. I keep thinking someday I'll get caught up, but I don't know about it now.

Check out Jayen and Josie's Easter Videos: , Video 1, Video 2, Video 3

Getting the Hang of Christmas

Sorry to all of my viewers for not updating for more than a month. It's been a busy time of year, between getting Christmas presents purchased and a project at work, I haven't had a lot of time to get this updated.

Last weekend we had Christmas on the Wagner side. We all had a good time and watched the normal movie, "Christmas Vacation". We all got some good presents and more presents.
Yesterday Kim and the kids hung out with Emily and Mady. The kids exchanged gifts and apparently Jayden wanted to keep opening gifts...even though there weren't anymore. So, I think Jayden is getting the hang of Christmas or at least the gift part. haha.

Josie has been growing a bit...not as fast as Jayden did at her age, but still growing. She had her 6 month checkup yesterday and was a whole 12 pounds. She's starting to sit up on her own now. She'll sit for about a minute then fall over.

Don't forget to good and if you need help tracking Santa be sure to visit the Santa Tracking Site.

Merry Christmas!

Jjjaaaaaaayyyydddeeennnn

The title of this entry reflects one of Jayden's books. We changed the name of the child the book was talking about to Jayden and go through the whole thing about why Jayyydddeeen, likes mud and mud likes him. It's been fun. He giggles all the time. Jayden has been getting smarter about lots of things. It's amazing how much he's been picking up. If you're not careful, he'll repeat stuff you don't want him to repeat. :) He now knows how to get out of his room and apparently yesterday morning when I opened the garage door, Jayden heard it and went down and watched me leave. Kim was sleeping yet, so when Kim came down, Jayden was playing with his cars. Yesterday he also found a screw in the computer desk drawers and went to another drawer where he knew a screw driver was and started playing with that. So, he knows about nuts and bolts and tools.

Josie's also been growing a lot too. She's starting to coo and is fascinated by her voice. She also has found her hands. She's been "eating" them like mad lately (No, she wasn't eating popcorn as seen in the picture :) ). We're not sure if it's just that she found them or if she's already getting teeth. She has a runny nose today so hopefully she isn't getting too sick. She loves to sit up and watch everything that's going on. It makes feeding her fun sometimes as she turns her head where ever Jayden is or to watch TV. Yes, I'm afraid she's already glued to the TV.

We went up to visit Tasha and Tony up in Nevada on Saturday to see their new little girl, Mataya. It's so cool to see them finally get another one adopted. They've been waiting for a long time. Notice how much bigger Josie is. She's already that much bigger. :)

Last night we carved Jayden's Pumpkin. Jayden thought it was fun this year and wasn't sad like he was last year. Wow, looking back on the pics, I can't believe how much Jayden has grown.

Kim also had fun trying to clean out the pumpkin as seen in the video below. hehe. :)

Hot Hot Hot!

Man, has it been hot. This weekend we decided to go to Creston to visit Kim's family. They were all camping out at Green Valley State Park. It was hot as anywhere else in the state. We were able to go to Kim's parents place to sleep at night so that made it a little more bearable. Thankfully there was a slight breeze on Sunday to help us out. It's hard to imagine what it would have been like 50+ years ago without any air conditioning.

Josie's growing everyday and eats non-stop. I don't remember Jayden ever eating that much, but I'm sure he did. Depending on the light you can see more blondish tint to Josie's hair. She seems to be more active than Jayden was as she likes to lift her head when you rest her on your shoulder and she also enjoys tummy time more. Who knows maybe we'll have a crawler at 9 months instead of the 18 with Jayden. :)

Jayden's loving life and we're enjoying watching him. Yes, he does on the occasion have a "terrible two" moment, but for the most part he's (we're) handling it pretty well. He's starting to get clearer on saying certain words. His favorite is probably peeezzzz (please). Hopefully he'll continue to be well mannered. hehe

Pleased to meet you, Josie Marie

Josie Marie Minnis was born on June 21, 2006 at 6:05 PM after nine hours of labor. She was 6 lbs. 8oz and 19 1/2 inches long. Her birth was quite a different experience than with Jayden as she didn't have any issues with meconium. Kim also had an easier time with Josie. She only had to push two times (one time was only to see if she was ready). This morning we changed Josie's first diaper. Man, talk about a load. haha. We had to change everything. :) Kim and I tried to sleep last night, but the bed she had and the "chair" bed that I had were not the same as a real bed. Hopefully we can get some naps today and sleep tonight. Both Mom and Josie are doing great and are hopefully sleeping right now. I'm going to sleep now. What a wonderful birthday it has been (except for spending it in the hospital)! :)

Pictures can be seen in the photo set, Birth and Prebirth.

Can't Sit Still

Let's see. Where to begin? Life has been busy. Kim's Mom, Pat, had surgery on her shoulder as a result of someone not cleaning up spilled water in the hall at the hospital she works at. We went down over the weekend (May 25-27th) to visit Kim's Mom and Dad and make sure that Pat wasn't doing anything she shouldn't. :) Then we headed back home to have some fun for the rest of Memorial weekend. We took Jayden out to Big Creek State Park so he could play in the sand and water. We took Jayden to the splash park when it was in the upper 80s a week ago or so and he didn't seem to like the water much. Instead, he liked to play in the grass and follow the fence around. Not sure what that's all about.

In spite of Jayden graduating to his "big boy chair" and gaining another 2 pounds (not much, but at least he's holding steady), he's managed to gain his terrible twos attitude a bit early. This past weekend we went up to Hope and Mike's wedding in Emmetsburg, IA. The wedding was short and sweet, but Jayden thought he should make a big deal out of it and wasn't the quiet little boy he usually is. So, I spent half of the wedding in the atrium of the church with Jayden. Next we went to the reception for about a half an hour. Jayden proceeded to want to run around. Kim and I decided we'd just leave early and head back to Rockwell City to visit with her brothers. I guess the lesson in all this is that I don't think we will be able to take Jayden to another wedding anytime soon. I don't blame him any, he's almost 2 and he had been riding in the car for about 2.5 hours.

Kim did okay on the long trip, but I think she's paying for it now. She (and I) can't wait to have the baby! We're not all that excited about the birthing process or the sleepless nights, but more for the comfort of Kim and getting back to normal.

So, yeah, that's almost all that's happened within the last month.

Lucky in the Wal-mart Parking Lot

Haha, catchy title huh? Last week after shopping at our Ankeny Wal-mart we were driving up the parking lot to leave and I saw some green stuff on the road so I pulled up by it and had Kim get it. Sure enough it was a dollar. Wow, we thought this is cool Kim will be able to get a dewski. Well, we continued up the lane and we couldn't believe it. We found another 4 dollars. haha. It was probably a funny thing to see us running around the parking lot picking up money. But, hey, I'm sure you'd do the same if you had the opportunity. Saturday night we went to Wal-mart again to get some food for when Kim's brother came to town. While there Kim was pushing the shopping cart and on a "blind" intersection (most intersections are blind corners in Wal-mart) this man in his 60s comes powering down the aisle. Kim stopped to see if anyone was coming and he almost ran into her. He proceeded to stare Kim down and if he could shoot flames from his eyes she would have been toast. We were all saying something to the extent of "What's your problem" to the guy. Needless to say we made it out alive. I really do hate shopping at Wal-mart. I always feel pissed off whenever I go there. I told Kim they should take your heart rate before and after visiting. I'm sure mine would indicate a heart attach coming on. Stupid cheap.

With this small fortune that we found at Wal-mart, we went to some garage sales with Kim's parents this weekend. I managed to find a computer for a dollar. It's not much of a computer but I thought I'd play around with it. Jayden was all excited he got to ride in Grandma's Avalanche. We'd ask him if he wanted to ride in the car, but he'd shake his head and say in his little voice, "No."

Baby number two is making Kim's life miserable. It seems that it's already started to drop some as Kim was feeling less then great over the weekend. Hopefully it stays in the oven at least another 2-4 weeks so it's not born too early.

Oh yeah, and I still have a job and haven't been "re-assigned". Hopefully it'll continue that way. We'll all find out more after another meeting this morning.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you all. Jayden just wanted you to know that he's been a good boy and likes to get presents. :) We've had fun with the Wagner side, now it's time to have some fun with the Minnis side. Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas.

More pictures can be found in the Christmas 2005 Set

 
 
 

Round Two

Well, it's time. Time to let you all know that Jayden's going to be a big brother. Isn't that something! :) Kim, Jayden, and I went for her first Doctor's visit today and everything is going smooth. The new lime (that's the size of it right now) had a heart rate of 160 which is great! Kim's been doing pretty well this week as prior weeks she's been feeling nauseated. But, she still is pretty tired...she could go to bed at 9 and some nights before that. She likes snack time too. Our due date is June 28, 2006, so mark your calendars.

Jayden's been practicing being a big brother these past two months. Kim's watching her cousin's baby, Kellen, two days a week. At first Jayden couldn't figure out what the deal was, but he's getting better at it now. In fact, now he knows how to get Kim's attention. As soon as she starts to feed Kellen, Jayden makes a mad dash for the stairs. Now, that would be fine and all, but he still hasn't mastered the last step yet, so Kim has to go stop him before he goes up. Jayden's getting almost there with walking. If we start walking with him holding his hand and then let go as he's walking towards the couch, he'll sprint for the couch or love seat. Maybe by Christmas? He likes to keep us guessing.

Ooooh, The Weather Outside is...

The weather is pretty snowy considering all the weather people predicting a warmer and drier winter. I can live with snow, even though it takes 40 minutes to get 12 miles (honestly, I can't believe people can't drive in snow), but I hate the cold.

In other news, Jayden's been rocking the house. He's warmed up to the singing/dancing "snowpeople" (snowmen). He's crawling up the stairs now with a little help at the top. He hasn't quite figured out how to get to the top and crawl farther from the steps to sit up. Most of the times he's got his collection of pots and pans strewn across the floor.

Let's see what else...oh. Thanksgiving was good. We traveled both up North and South to visit both sides. It was good to see my Mom and Dad. Especially after Mom being in the hospital for 4 days. She was/is having problems with her gall bladder. Next week she's having surgery to get it removed. Hopefully that will help her feel better.