Thanksgiving Day was spent at Van and Judy's. Judy's younger brother, Jonathan, came down from Gordon, Wisconsin (
way north, by Superior) with his wife, Laura, and their 2 children, Aaron and Jacob. Pictured here are Laura and Judy accompanied by Sam.
Yet another Packer game was played that day. I think they won. Here, Renee and Greg get cozy as Van and Mark chime in about a play.
Lizzy loves it when her dog cousins come over... but they all get pooped from the excitement.
Renee lending a helping hand in the kitchen.
Although the guys did toss the football around, the BIG entertainment were the multiple games of Jenga. Here, Laura contemplates her next move as Aaron looks on.
Mark planning his next move in this precarious game. Greg and Renee hold their breath with anticipation....
Laura balances her block on the top.
Opening a little vino as Abby and Mingo look around, wondering when they will get some Thanksgiving treats.
Van does the honor of carving the turkey.
Judy stategically supplied bones filled with tasty treats for each of the dogs so that we humans could dine in peace.
Life is good.
The guys threw a football around for awhile.
Lily planning a sneaky assault on Lizzy.
Greg throwing the football.
Stink
Lizzy
You snooze, you lose! Sam the oportunist loved the fact that her cousins didn't finish their bones and went outside to romp around. She was thrilled to stay inside and finish any remnants...
Judy, Van and Renee
The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we went to Summer's Christmas Tree Farm which is located just a mile down the road from us. They always have the most beautiful trees located on a piece of land that is just breathtaking AND they have a really fun little Christmas shop with all sorts of little goodies. Mark is about to cut the twine that is wrapped around the tree.
Ta-Da!
Mark is a man who likes A LOT of lights on his tree. Last year we switched to the LED bulbs and Mark made simple but very organized and effective storage units out of particle board and nails. Each strand of lights is wrapped tightly around nails and then the units are stored in our garage attic. Here, Miss Fanny monitors Mark as he unravels and tests lights.
Have you seen "Christmas Vacation" with Chevy Chase? Here, Mark was just double-checking all of the light strands to make sure they were working, but I had to chuckle at the multiple plug-ins latched onto each other and the strands themselves getting twisted together, all over a power strip that was balancing on a plastic bag filled with various paper products. Christmas, here we come!
Someday I'll get caught-up with the Blog, though it probably won't happen until school is out in June! Mark and I began the month of December determined to make lots of Christmas cookies. Our first batch to tackle was the fun and traditional sugar cookie cut-outs. We had a lot of fun with these (the snow globe pictured above was my personal favorite that I did-- I was inspired by good ol' Martha Stewart!) and brother Bob and his girlfriend, Deb, helped.
Lots of candies and frosting!
Hodag snowglobe
This is our Mingo ornament, directly facing you above the pinecones.
This goes without saying.
The thin wooden bird ornament is 1 of 2 that I have that were made by my grandfather Bragg.
Britches and Fanny both LOVE Christmas, as they think the tree is just another big gift for them to run and hide in and to knock down various low-hanging ornaments. Britches paused here to take a little break from shenanigans.
Britches also thought it good fun to lay and nap in the middle of the pile of unwrapped gifts. Here, he does sit-up to pose for the camera. 
Fanny wishes holiday cheer!
I believe it was the 9th of December that it snowed 16+ inches in 36 hours! We had a snow day from school, but what should have been a fun cookie-making day turned out to be a nightmare, as Mingo and Lily went off a 3 hour "adventure" and ran from our house. In this picture, you can see them plowing through about 12 inches of snow, but this was taken before they actually did run-off.
Thankfully, we were able to locate our dogs which were found by a woman in a development almost 2 miles and 2 bluffs from our house! We think they got spooked by the snowblower and took off up the hill behind our house and then became distracted by something and disoriented from all of the snow that had fallen. We are so thankful that there are people out there that do the right thing and help others out....this lady really did a great thing for us, as did Mark's family who came out to our house--during this blizzard--to help us find our beloved dogs.
After spending hours searching for our hounds, there was no time for cookie-baking that day as the snow did need to get removed from our driveway and our porch and, guess what? The snowblower broke, so we had to do most of the work by hand! In this picture, I am on the deck and Mark is shoveling the driveway. That large mass of snow to the left is not an iceberg, but some of what was left on the railing of the deck after I swiped some away.
We certainly love our deck that surronds the 2nd level of the house, but it is essential that we shovel it and watch the snow accumulation after snow and ice drop from the sharp pitch of our A-frame. Ice dams form easily (a hard lesson we learned after our first winter living here). In this photo, you can see how snow and ice just falls from the roof onto the deck.
And, voila, a HUGE mess! Poor Mark had to deal with our steep driveway, but poor me had to deal with our deck that was filled with snow. You can see the top of the back door in the upper right-hand corner.
December 11 was Mark's birthday and we celebrated on the 13th at his parent's house. Here, Mark and his brother Greg are enjoying a High Life.
Mark's mom always makes his favorite meal, chicken and/or pheasant goulash with a salad and rhine wine with seltzer and a divine, homemade 3 -layer German chocolate cake. Look at thing! It tastes just as good as it looks, too!
As we spent Christmas in Rhinelander this year with my family, we celebrated Christmas with the Valaskey family earlier, on the 20th. We had quite a special meal: Beef wellington with a green peppercorn cognac sauce. Here, Mark is flambees' the sauce.
This was a gorgeous 3 lb. centercut of tenderloin wrapped in a mushroom duxelle and proscuitto which is then wrapped in puff pastry. The little stars adorning the top are actually supposed to be little snowflakes from a miniature cookie cutter I have--but they really looked like starfish when baked. 
Am I going a little overboard by showing a picture of the sauce as it bubbles? Perhaps...but this sauce was soooo good and it just looks beautiful in this photo with the wooden spoon....
Need I say more? Judy made the stunning little veggies which graced the plates with the wellington. Topping the beef are a few little black truffles.
Abby's favorite holiday is Christmas; she is very skilled at opening presents.
Renee and Van
Judy and her two boys, Mark and Greg.
Lovely ornaments on the Valaskey tree.
Lily and Mingo hang-out with Mark and their new Christmas loot on the couch.
Abby is ready to open more gifts!
