the world of allie

This has been the weirdest christmas i've ever had. we woke up preaty early on christmas morning and opened up our gifts (everyone got stuff they liked, which was nice). after eating breakfast, we packed and hopped in the car to head to wabasha, minnesota; where my dad grew up and where my grandma lives. the whole clan was planned on being there for "christmas dinner" on sunday. When we got there my aunt jill (my dad's half sister/same mom), her husband james and their 16 month old son austin were already there from minnesapolis. We had a traditional mid-western dinner called a "boiled dinner". i know i know this doesn't sound to good, and it doesn't smell too good, and it didn't look too good but it was suprisingly good. basically it is cabbage, arrugla, carrots, green beans, potatoes, onions and beaf... boiled in a water/oily broth (kinda like a soup but not a soup). after playing a rousing couple of games of uno, we went to our hotel room. now this is funny, this is such a small town that my grandma picked up the keys to our rooms two days before we even got there because the owners didn't want to have to work on christmas. we ate some food from the kwik trip and watched how the grinch stole christmas on tv in our somewhat old hotel room trying to figure out if this was the wierdest hotel situation we've ever been in (staying in a hotel in pennsylvania for some reason one time right across the street from an amish farm won out).

the next day we headed back to grandmas. the house isn't the biggest in the world and there were way too many people there today. here's the rundown of the mixed family we had there today....
grandma (dad's mom)
grandpa (dad's step-father)
my family (mom, dad, ben, me, and taffy our 10 year old golden retriver)
aunt jill (dad's half sister/same mom), husband james and baby austin
uncle steve (dad's younger brother), wife barb (second wife), her daugter laura, laura's baby son ethan from some guy, and laura's boyfriend (not ethan's father)
stan (dad's step-brother/grandpa's son from his frist marrige) and his wife leanne.

we had a dinner that was... well.... a little scary. it was chicken cooked in the oven with cream of mushroom soup..... yeah i became a vegitarian today.

the only form of entertainment today were the two babies, mostly austin who is the cuttest little thing in the whole wide world (i wish i had the link to the website with all his pictures on it). and besides some minor things where i thought i a verbal fight would break out it was an ok day.

we accidently took the long way home and on the way i saw a piggly wiggly, and a amish horse and buggy pass us.

it was a very mid-western weekend..