classic work in progress: Lovely Weekend in pictures

Nothing special. Just wanted to share some highlights of a nice and relaxing and fun Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I could do this every weekend.

We drove on up to the in-laws homestead in rural Wisconsin.
In tow was my small addition to the giant Thanksgiving feast. My MIL always goes all out in the food department. I rather enjoy it. My contribution was home made rolls and cranberry sauce.
We of course wandered the property, which I think believe to be heavenly, and snapped some pictures and chased some kitties.

Bill found a kitty he was rather concerned about. She was sickly, small and friendly. However somewhat secluded form the other kitties who snuggled together for warmth once the temperature plummeted. My sweet husband whispered to me that we may have to nurture this one back to health as he feared she would not last the winter in this state.

After dinner the family poured over the Black Friday adds in search of who knows what. This year no one really had anything big to be in search for. It was more the fun tradition of going. I have enjoyed doing this with the in-laws. We went and my main items I was searching for included gifts for our sponsored families and a Dutch oven for me (per ATK's recommendations.) Bill, his dad and Ben all hung out back at the homestead. 3 generations of boys. Love.

We drove home the next day after some bird watching, sewing and the guys dismantling a 100 year old piano that had never left the homestead. Apparantly is was unable to hold a tuning and was just rarely used.

My MIL was sweet enough to refresh my memory on the usage of a sewing machine. And with her help I actually followed a set of sewing directions. In an incredibly short amount of time, a several pulled out and restitched sections, we came out with something pretty cute, functional and that I am pretty proud of. I will still mess around with some other materials and ideas (I found the top cuff a little bulky). Here is the finished product. Just need to add someones name to it.

AND an inside with lining that I can show you without an ounce of embarrassment!

Finally we drove home and on the way called my vet for an appointment for the sickly kitty, whom we have named "Blackie". (For the record, Bill named her- I couldn't argue since the whole thing was his idea. He also has a track record of such names- i.e. he once had a gray stuffed animal he named "gray-ie". I wish I was making that up). we had in tow. She was able to get in the next morning. She currently resides in our basement as to not to spread anything to our current kitty. I can't wait to see them finally able to interact.

Saturday we took Blackie to the vet. She got some medicines. We then took Ben out to our little downtown area to do our Small Business Saturday shopping and just walked around. We have such an adorable little town with consignment shops, a music store, coffee shop, chocolate shop, bakery, wine bistro, pet shop, train/hobby shop, theatre, home accents shop, and lots of great restaurants. We added to our Christmas shopping for the weekend, stopped for a cup of coffee and could not leave town without something from here:

(Recently voted the best wedding cake in Chicagoland by The Knot. We enjoy the cupcakes)

And we visited Santa. Ben was unimpressed to say the least. I should have known better from when he freaked out a few weeks ago looking at a guy in line at Woodman's who looked just like Santa.