Star Date 2009 - Thanksgiving in Des Moines

Tom’s log:
For the first time ever, we spent Thanksgiving in Des Moines with my side of our family. 35 Boughers in the same party room – we were at least 23 Boughers over the Limit. West Des Moines has restrictions on “Too much laughter in one room”. West Des Moines Officer Bill Jess was there to make sure we didn’t exceed 90 decibels. I’m sure that the folks who live near the party room had a tough time believing that no one had added any extra oomph to our punch! (FYI: Boughers don’t need any chemicals to enhance our craziness.)


Monday:
Todd and Jen were able to come up from Huntsville to Nixa.

Tuesday: We all drove up together in their Toyota SUV. Jan, me, Tiff, Lyssie, Jen & Todd along with Sophie the black poodle and Ellie the blond poodle were all piled in the same car for a 6 hour COLD journey.
Tuesday evening: We arrived in West DSM and unloaded our stuff, some staying at HK and Rachel’s and others at Aunt Barbs.
Supper: We all ate at Jason’s Deli - Jason’s now has set a Bougher Limit too.

Wednesday:
Breakfast with Uncle Steve and his Iowa buddies at Dahl’s. They hash over what could have happened if Ferentz would have let Vandenberg pass down the sidelines with 40 seconds left in the Ohio State game and who will Iowa play in the BCS bowl.
Lunch with the whole gang at Urbandale Café - including Kirk’s bunch from Eagle Grove and Wisconsin. Most of us ate fried tenderloin sandwiches, yumm! It’s a great Iowa treat that the US has not caught onto … yet.
Supper at HK and Rachel’s – Pizza with 35 Boughers and the Gamedingers. The Gamedingers are Rachel’s folks from Wisconsin. Pray for them, they spent 2 days with an overdose of Boughers.

Thursday:
As you can imagine there was so much going on. Early AM we all start carrying stuff down to the party room to get it set up. The ladies were trying to organize the hams, turkeys and buffet in a party room kitchen, about 10’ X 6’.

Here is a little T-Giving Day window: The food was organized in the kitchen, the football game was on the big screen, jokes were told and played, memories of the past were all around, songs were sung, pictures were shared, cousins played football outside and Uncle Dave slept. He has learned to cope with his in-laws. It’s kind of like Uncle Neal did with Aunt Dar – just sleep your way through the whole thing. Jan has learned to just jump in and roll with it. She played a borrowed keyboard and we sang Christmas carols – she had to play without a sustain peddle, a pianist’s nightmare. That of course happened after we ate too much. (The Klingons never showed.)

Friday:
We returned home to Nixa and tried to find NORMAL once again.

To the Future and Beyond:
Jan is planning a trip to Alabama to pick up her folks for Christmas in Nixa!