And….we’re back.

Not that you had any inkling that we were away or anything.  I think I might have skipped over that part.

Having a host of folks for Thanksgiving dinner is always a challenge,  unless you rent a community hall or stake a claim at the local day use park.  We’ve done that, the local day use park that is,  and it turned out to be a lot of fun for both the kids and the adults.  Acres and acres where they could run and go crazy,  that kind of thing.

This past weekend,  there was a plan to descend on the cottage that we had visited back in the summer.  It’s on Sturgeon Lake.  The only slight consideration was,  there were just going to be too many bodies,  so our Hostess was kind enough to phone around and rent an additional cottage for the overflow crowd.  It was kind of awesome, truth be told.  Even though it was more along the lines of a house on the lake as opposed to some sort of rustic cottage,  but I was certainly OK with that.  It had things like, you know, central heat?  I also noticed that they had installed air conditioning.  No need to be uncomfortable.

 

This is my brother-in-law Rudy having just taken the cover off the thermostat. 

Of course,  I had to put my glasses on as well to try and figure the thing out,  but the first and most important step was to slide the little switch over to “heat”.    It got toasty in no time.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I show you the following picture of some other “guests” of ours,  you’d probably think it was cottage related.

These little guys were coming in our kitchen window some how,  and I eventually figured out they were getting in right where the weather stripping met up at the corner.   Buggers.

HOWEVER,  being well equipped for most any four or six legged invasion,  I had a bottle of that sticky stuff that you put down that they take it back to the queen.   Man oh man,  that stuff works. 

First of all they love it,  as you can see how they are all siphoning it up in that photo above there.  And then they take it back to the mother ship and….well, that’s that.

I had a couple spots outside the window as well for them to feed off of,  and by the time we came home Monday afternoon,  there was nary a sign of any ants.  

 

Anyway,  there were 25 of us that sat down to dinner on Sunday afternoon.  The turkey had been cooked on the BBQ,  and the list is too long of all the other stuff that we scarfed down.

I’m sure we had enough food for maybe twice as many mouths that we had to feed.  Oh lordy!

A tiny sample.   These were from the pumpkins that I bought last week for T.C.   I don’t think she’s made pumpkin pie from the can for a long, long time.  And now of course, I don’t think I’d like the taste of the canned stuff.  If you check the ingredients on the side of the can, there’s a few extra things in there that you really could do without, such as extra sugar.

 

This is my niece’s dog,  Elby.   She will sit in the car waiting to go (anywhere) for as long as it takes. 

That was the other thing that kind of worked for me when it came to renting an additional cottage.  We were “dog free” over there.   With the 25 bodies that sat down to dinner,  we also had four dogs and a cat.   Oh ya,  good times!  And no,  none of them were allowed to hang around the table,  so that was OK,  and they all mostly got along,  but it would have been just that much better if they could have romped outdoors.  

Because….it rained.   And rained.   Holy crap.

I think it cleared up Monday morning from about six a.m. until about seven thirty.  And let me think now….*thinks* yup,  that was about it.

 

Gave me the chance to get outside and take a picture. 

Seven of us stayed at this rented cottage,  and Daughter Number One declared that she and her buddies would be renting it for next summer.  It was truly a nice place.  I’d go back, that’s for sure.  Of course,  staying *for free* over at the other place would make it a tough choice,  but if you’re looking to rent a cottage for a week with a host of buddies,  it’s not quite fair to descend on the relations. 

In terms of the weather,  it did clear up and turn into a glorious day for the trip home.  So that was really awesome.

(slight touch of sarcasm there)

Of course,  the rain brings out the drivers who, how shall I say this?  Don’t quite have a grasp on the physics involved in keeping their car on the road?  

This was a one car accident.  That white car up there already on the hook had barrelled off the road into a sign post. 

 

When I mentioned this to our host, he regaled me with a number of examples where cars had simply been driven off the road up there in “cottage country”.  Nothing to do with “rush hour” or the weather.  Just….bad driving.

Maybe some sort of “Darwinian” thing? 

I got nothing.

 

 

I couldn’t help but make an observation as to how “cottage life” has changed over the years?  And I don’t just mean the out of control drivers.

Seems like everyone has a device of some sort that needs charging.

 

I didn’t even bring my phone in from the car.

Having said that,  I was quite happy that the rented cottage did have a multitude of TV channels,  and I could check the NFL scores.   This was late on Sunday night,  and we got back just in time for me to catch the final minutes of the ninth inning between the Red Sox and Tigers.    Admittedly I haven’t really been following baseball much this season,  but I did enjoy that little snippet. 

I wouldn’t want to hint that ball games could ever be long and boring, (what, really?) but sometimes I’m just as happy to cut to the chase.

 

Speaking of which,  I guess I’m done.

 

Sure hope everyone enjoyed the weekend, whether it involved Thanksgiving or not.

 

Keep those sticks on the ice.

 

Thanks for stopping in.