The Thanksgiving Holiday

We had a nice relaxing holiday weekend at home.

On Thanksgiving day, we went to Brad and Donna's for lunch. There was only a small group of us this year. Neither of Ben's sisters were able to make it home. Ben says we had the best turkey he has ever had. We spent the rest of the day lounging and visiting with Ben's grandma and watching a little Tom&Jerry.

Friday and Saturday we stayed home and worked around the house. No I didn't go shopping on Friday. I am not crazy :) We did go to Best Buy on Saturday night to look at new TV's but there was no crowds of people.

Sunday we made our annual trip to the Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree for Christmas 2007. We did this last year too. It is something I really look forward too. We go as a family, pick out a tree and Ryan helps Ben cut it down. FUN!! Last year it took Ben hours of looking to find the perfect tree. It didn't take long to find a tree this year since there were lots of trees to chose from. It is funny how picky Ben is about a Christmas tree. He thoroughly looks over each tree before picking one. Donna joined us this year so that was a nice treat. She had her tree picked out within 20 minutes.

Ryan helped decorate the tree and all his ornaments ended up on the same branch which then fell to the floor

Ryan standing by his work of art. We need a few more ornaments. We must have a bigger tree this year because with all of our ornaments are on, it still looks bare.

We're Done!

The field work for 2007 is done just in time for our first snow. The crops have been done for a couple weeks but Ben has been finishing up with discing, ripping and putting anhydrous on while trying to get some trucking done. Now in their spare time, they are doing some "olden days farming" with the John Deere 4320 and the plow. I can't imagine how long it took farmers to do field work back in the day. Ben has spent hours and hours plowing with only about 10-15 acres of black soil to show for it.

Ryan spent quite a bit of time riding in the tractor with Ben this year. He enjoys being out in the fields and seeing all the animals that come out of the corn. This year they saw lots of pheasants, a couple deer, and a hawk hunting mice. To a 3 year old that is something spectular to see. Another fun thing for a 3 year old is SNOW!! We were in Ames when it started snowing heavily. That was the end of running errands, Ryan wanted to get home as fast as he could to play in the snow. When he woke up at 7:30 this morning the first thing he said was, "Can I go outside and play in the snow?"

Our weekend in Washington

Friday night was the annual Whitetails Forever banquet that my dad has helped coordinate for the last 11 or 12 years. My whole family (23 of us) attends this event so it was always pretty fun. We didn't have a babysitter this year so Ryan got to go with us. He really enjoyed it. I was prepared to leave as soon as he got antsy but he made it until the end which was 10:30pm. He liked playing the raffles and games. They have a live auction after the meal so the auctioneer really kept Ry's attention. Loud, fast talking is right up Ryan's alley. Ben had an enjoyable evening. For some reason, my dad and brother kept buying him drinks. We never did figure out why they were doing that but Ben was not feeling good when we got back to Dad's. We had to sleep with a bowl beside the bed. Ben is funny when he has drank too much.
Gun winners in our family this year were ME, dad, my step-brother Doug (won 2 guns), and my uncle. Ben and dad purchased a fishing trip to Northern MN during the live auction. So they have their annual trip planned for 2008 already. The resort looks nice and is family friendly so Ry and I might get to go this time...that is a big MIGHT.
Saturday night we had our Thanksgiving gathering while everyone was in Washington for the weekend. Great food, great family, quality time, and lots of fun pretty much sums it up. Ryan on the other hand was a little pistol. We were out late Friday night, no nap Saturday afternoon combined with LOTS of people packed into a house equalled an overwhelming environment for Ryan. He was frazzled, tired and kept throwing fits. We had to take him upstairs to the bedroom twice just to get him calmed down. He fell asleep while watching a movie and slept from 6:30 to 8 then went to bed at 9:30. On Sunday we got back to SC around 11:30am, Ryan asked to go bed! He slept for 3 hours. Then he went to bed at 8pm and slept until 8am this morning. He was one tired little boy. He is not used to so much excitement or so many people.
We had a great weekend. No pictures because I forgot my camera. This was the first time that I have forgotten it when going to Washington:(

The new tractor arrived

What is the greatest gift you can give a 3 year old (or a 29 year old) farm boy? A new tractor! It isn't a brand new tractor but it is new to us. Ben traded in the 1996 John Deere 8100 for a 2004 New Holland TG285. I know, I am as surprised as you are about the choice of New Holland since we are a John Deere farm. As Ben says, "you gotta go with who will give you the biggest bang for your buck." I think Ben and Ryan are enjoying the new tractor even though the tractor had a few little kinks.

Like father like son!

Fueling it up so we can go see how much power it has

Hookin it up to the disc...let's go dad!

Bye, 8100