Thanksgiving

We were in Milwaukee for Thanksgiving this year, and I think we were both excited to be fleeing the snow and ice and get to some place warm.  (No kidding---Milwaukee was about 20 degrees warmer than Seattle!).  Of course, being in Milwaukee also meant the opportunity to see family.  It had been a year since I was last in Milwaukee (Jon was there for a short visit in April), and it was amazing to see how much Jon's step brothers have grown!  We were very thankful to spend the holiday with family and eat delicious food and have great conversation.

Because we are either crazy or love good deals, we decided to brave the Black Friday sales and head out around 5:30AM.  We hit up Menards (for you non-Midwesternes, this is a cross between Home Depot and Walmart), Kohls, Best Buy, and the Boston Store (a big department store like Macy's).  When we got home at around 9:45AM we went straight to bed and didn't emerge until after 1:00PM.  We did find some pretty good deals, but Jon's mom scored the most loot with a $150 computer from Best Buy.

We ended up staying in Milwaukee until Tuesday, so we also had lots of time to relax, sleep in, and hang out with the family.  I also (finally!) got to take the Miller Tour this year, something I've been bugging Jon about for ages.  Although I'm not a big beer drinker at all, I couldn't wait to see the "Miller Caves," and I heard about some cheesy movie they play that starts off with a deep voice saying, "Since the dawn of time there has been Miller time" for far too long.  Unfortunately the movie has either been retired or was bypassed on our tour, but I did enjoy seeing the bottling, distillery, distribution center, caves, as well as enjoyed three samples of Miller beer and pretzels.  Since the tour is free, I was surprised to hear from Jon that he only went on it once in college, thus passing up multiple opportunities for free food and beer.  If I went to college in Milwaukee and liked beer, it would have been a very popular place for me!