To Minnesota

 It's that time of year again, and this year, vaccinations made it safer for us to travel to Minnesota to see our wonderful families!

My family has met during the third week in July each year for the past . . . 17 years! . . . to play in the water and enjoy each other's company.  Once my parents bought a lake cabin, that's where we meet (outside of the one year we went to a house on the ocean in California to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary!)  I love that lake and I love those people.  I was very excited to get to spend time with them.

It was overcast and actually rainy that morning!

(It turns out that it's been quite an active monsoon season this year, which is great!  It rained quite often while we were gone and it rained a bit more today.)  There were clouds on the hills.

I wore this:

top: A New Day (Target)

skirt: Rekucci (Amazon)

bag: Scarleton (Amazon)

shoes: Target

black denim jacket: Target

There's an inside bridge over the road, and the floor has pretty designs on it, so I like to take pictures of them when we go over.

Flying wasn't as uncomfortable and yucky as I had expected.  I did sweat for about 4 hours straight while we were getting ready to go (packing, cleaning, getting the fridge cleaned out, getting the cats set up, getting my travel food ready), but once we got on the plane and got going, I cooled off and enjoyed the ride.  They had individual screens for each seat, and I watched "The Martian," which I very much enjoyed.  I read the book a few times since having seen the movie the first time, so the changes between book and movie were interesting to me.  I had books along, too, but I didn't read much.

  

My lovely parents came to pick us up when we arrived.  

We went to Davanni's to get pizza and we were happy!

On the way to the airport in Arizona, Greg had gotten a special e-mail letting him know that he has been APPROVED for permanent remote work, meaning that our plans to move back to Minnesota are officially moving forward!  We have been discussing our desire to move back with our families and close friends for close to a year now.  I'll save the story of what started us thinking more seriously about it for a different time.  Greg decided to give my parents an "early anniversary gift" and let them read the e-mail.  They were happy and we started talking about moving plans and what we want in a house.  Of course, we love our little Arizona house and will be sad to leave it!

I was concerned about that day (Friday) and the next day (Saturday) because of all the activity.  Friday was the travel, but also I needed to go get groceries once I got there to be able to cook most of my food for the rest of our trip on Saturday.  

My Mom accompanied me to the grocery store, and we found everything I needed to make piles of tasty and (mostly) healthy food.  Thanks, Mom!

That night I made chocolate chip cookies, but I didn't make anything else.

The next day, I started my cooking marathon!

My parents' kitchen is well-organized (of course!), clean, and easy to cook in.  It's a happy kitchen.  I like the white cabinets, I like the many windows, and I like the company.

I made chili macaroni and potato corn chowder in these big pots.

Potato corn chowder:

The beginnings of chili macaroni:

Since the next day was my parents' anniversary, we took a break to take some pictures of them.

Aren't they the cutest?

Greg and I were both taking photos and he was using TWO phones!

Here are our feet in the grass (it's usually a bit lusher than this, but they've had a very dry summer and have to water only at specified times):

My parents headed to the cabin in the afternoon, and we joined them the next day!

"Ta-ta for now, Dad & Mom! See you tomorrow!"

There goes their car.

I had potato wedges and chili macaroni for lunch.

Greg had a grilled cheese and tomato soup!

I kept cooking!  I made black bean burgers:

Some cashew cheese (sadly, I did something wrong in my fatigue at the end of the day and it didn't turn out well):

I made lentil veggie shepherd's pie (turned out GREAT even though I had accidentally forgotten to bring the recipe and I'd only made this version one time. I'm proud of myself for remembering most of the ingredients and directions!)

Here's the filling:

And here is is assembled!

After baking for a long time.

Look at that nice crispy top!  I think I might need to make this tomorrow because it sounds and looks delicious!

I also made brownies.  Something went wrong with these, too . . . I made them in the evening after many hours in the kitche, and I must've forgotten an ingredient or something.  I can't figure out what I did wrong, but they didn't taste good and the texture was weird.  Happily, the cookies turned out great!

After cooking and cleaning up the kitchen!

Then I wrapped the Faux Birthday gifts we had shipped to my parents' house!

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for allowing us to use your bags, tissue paper, and wrapping paper!  Things looked pretty.

That was the most work I did any of the days of vacation, and it certainly paid off!  I had delicious food the rest of the trip with just a little heating in the microwave.  

It was a great day!