Flying Turkeys

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend in Wisconsin; well, besides the cold, 10-inches of snowfall, and windchill. My Thanksgiving morning consisted of playing football in the snow with Dylan's friends and then preparing a sweet potato casserole, alongside Brooke and Dylan who were making a corn casserole and guacamole, to bring to the Strube's home. Cheyenne flew in that morning and helped her parent's prepare for the large feast and family gathering. 

All sixteen of us sat down to devour two kinds of turkey, traditional and deep-fried, stuffing, casseroles, and desserts. I won the "weight gain" competition, which measures the difference between the before and after dinner weights; I gained 4.2 pounds. I am equally proud and ashamed!

Throughout the long weekend, we saw plenty of new additions to our circle of friends: 

Alana Schoen

Kyle Watson-Johnston

Aveya Ziegler

Noah Lund

I was able to use my new baby, Nikon D300, with Dylan when we ventured to Milwaukee to take cityscape photos. Later that night, a group of us scarfed down the world's largest pizza while playing "Catch Phrase" and "Guitar Hero". 

Click here is you would like to view an assortment of photos.

On Sunday night, we all gathered at the Heltemes' residence to enjoy each other's company and eat some more food. There we learned Kathy Strube and Brooke Molitor excel at the game "Mad Gab". 

Monday night we left to head back to a moderately warm climate; but United Airlines decided to throw us a curveball:

Our flight was scheduled for 6pm; it was then delayed to 8:30pm, then 9:30pm, then 10:30pm (see a pattern?), then 11:30pm, and then finally 12:30am. The result of this delay was a lack of ground crew. We then sat on the plane for 50 minutes while they scrounged up crew to de-ice our plane. After arriving in Denver (and missing our connecting flight by 6 hours) we taxied on the runway for 20 minutes and walked about 3 miles to find luggage claim. Now, it is 2am. Our rescheduled flight from Denver to San Francisco is at 6am. We quickly set up camp in the ticketing section of the airport. Cheyenne was able to catch some Zzzzz's but I was so angry and uncomfortable I couldn't sleep for more than 2o minutes. I walked the airport and at 4:30am I saw that United had conveniently delayed our flight two additional hours. After getting our tickets at 5:30am, we sat down to breakfast and sat patiently at our gate. Our flight ended up leaving at 8:30am (2.5 hours late). Cheyenne had to call and have her work cancel her entire morning slate of patients. I, on the other hand, told my work I would not be in at all because I was exhausted, pissed off, and hadn't showered in over 24 hours. After finally arriving in San Francisco and obtaining our luggage (which we assumed would be lost, given our previous experiences with United) we took the shuttle to get our car from the parking garage (we had to pay an additional days worth of fees because of the flight delays). We drove home, opened the door, set down our bags, and I got a phone call. It was my mom...Grandpa Andrews (my mom's dad) just died that morning from pneumonia. Could it get any worse?

What a horrible way to end a great Thanksgiving trip home to see family and friends.