Thanksgiving and Black Friday

We headed north to Two Harbors for Thanksgiving.

We had mostly clear roads, but hit some small bands of snow after Duluth.

Parker opened his birthday present from Grandpa and Grandma Herrmann. It was a pizza t-shirt and lounge pants, just his style!

We had the full spread and it was tasty!

Of course a Herrmann holiday is not complete without chocolate pie!

We also dug up the first picture of Parker with Gus Gus.  They have both grown a lot.

Black Friday morning meant a trip to Fleet Farm with my dad. This year's giveaway was a moose! Ours is names Boulder and dad named his Browser.

I had some time to burn until Menards opened and decided to stop at Krispie Kreme. I was the first in line when they opened at 6 and Jimmy was happily suprised to wake up to this box.

Later in the day Jimmy and Parker went back to Menards and got this sweet heated blanket.  Parker is loving it and already tried taking it to his room.

Esme Gets Her Ears Pierced (and other pre-thanksgiving shenanigans)

After years of saying she would never get her ears pierced, Esme asked to do it!  I thought for sure she'd chicken out, but she didn't.  We made an appointment at Ulta for Saturday.  She was really nervous and has them do both ears at the same time.  She cried a little afterwards and said it hurt way more than I said it would.  

We got ice cream and everything was better within a few hours.

Beer Cheese dip for Green Bay. Parker had grabbed a broken bubble blower from my brother's house and really wanted a working one so we got one from Target.  He insists on keeping both of them still, haha!

I took advantage of the warmer weather last weekend and did a final garage clean before the weather turns.

Wednesday my work hosted their annual employee appreciation breakfast.  I was the lucky recipient of some leftovers and made some freezer breakfast burriots.

Jimmy was home with the kids. They got donuts and went for a snowy walk!

Then the garage door spring broke! I remember replacing it right after I started working from home in March 2020 and thought that seems like it didn't last long. After some googling it was likely a reasonable time frame, especially considering this is the primary point of entrance to the garage.

Luckily we have big doors and a small car so I was able to park the Trax inside still.  Good thing I did that clean out!

Christmastime is Coming (and other things)!

Esme is joining Math Masters at school and started by bringing home a math worksheet. I was able to help with all of them, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Parker has been talking about Christmas since Halloween so we decorated early this year.  He loves when we set up the village.

We added a garland in this opening last year and beefed it up with some free things I got over the summer.

I've been doing monthly trivia nights with the ladies group  at church and we got 2nd place this week!

We added a fun piece of decor to Jimmy's Man Cave. I made a collage of all the MN North Stars jerseys.

Desserts, Dips, Dinner with the Robideaus, and Marriage Retreat "Date Night"

Here is a rundown of the last few weeks. Jimmy continues to bake up a storm.  I don't remember what the things on the left is, but the the right is a Dubai chocolate inspired peanut butter brownie.

We stocked up on peppermint hot cocoa supplies.

NFL dips continues with Sloppy Joe Dip (Detroit), Hot Crab Dip (Baltimore), and Spinach and Artichoke Dip (Chicago).

Rick and Heidi came over for dinner on Friday the 7th. I used the opportunity to make Paella from scratch!  I did quite a bit of research to make sure I used the best methods.  I have a huge cast iron pan that rarely gets used, but this was perfect for it.  I was able to get just enough saffron for free from my local Buy Nothing group.

Rick was a little sketched out by the idea of mussels and that seems like a bit of a stretch for me, so we stuck with just shrimp.

It turned out great and I plan to make it again.  With the price of saffron I may have to do some substitutions for that.

Heidi made a tasty pumpkin roll for dessert and it was seasonal perfection!

Then this last weekend we participated in a marriage retreat at church. Friday included a date night dinner from Athens Cafe in Robbinsdale. Greek food is so tasty!  It was a great kick off to a wonderful weekend together focusing on us!

October Hodgepodge

Here's what else we've been up to this month.  Parker helping with some chores.

Esme finding "6-7" everywhere.

The lights in our garage are fully working again after a partial outage this summer (thanks dad)!

Parker's soccer season continued.  They didn't get any wins, but are getting better overall.

Grandma and Grandpa Herrmann came to watch in Shakopee.

A tasty chili cook-off at work landed me an award for "most creative"!

Tony won best overall!

Parker and I explored a new store, Lowe's, while Esme was attending a safe at home class.  He really loved the window treatments displays.

Gotta check out the appliances as always and he still asked to go to Menards when we left!

The NFL dips continued. Lawson's Chip Dip copycat with pierogis for Cleveland, cheesesteak dip for Philly, and sweet and sour dip for LA.