Hello, December

Apparently November left the building yesterday while I was busy baking, er eating, cookies instead of blogging -- and December sneaked in overnight. Just not mentally accepting that we are wrapping up 2013 already. I must say, though, it was a pretty good weekend to usher in this final month.

Carter and I hit the road shortly after 7 a.m. yesterday as planned. I drove the first 3 hours Up North and he drove the last 40 minutes when it was no longer "freeway" and 65 mph. It was the longest amount of time so far that he has driven at once. He did fine. I did not mind riding "shotgun." Is it legal to say that during deer season if I am not wearing blaze orange??

Family arrived over the next hour or so for lunch, followed by visiting and games and eating and laughing and eating...

And while this is billed as a Cookie BAKE, our hostess Raylene was the only one who did any actually baking this year. The rest of us surprisingly had our act together and all brought our goodies ready to go. That left more time for the aforementioned games and visiting and eating and laughing and eating...

My clever mother created a game with scrambled words specifically related to our annual Cookie Bake.

Here Rachel tries to give Romey a clue about one of the words -- that all looked German or Scandi-hoovian to us!

That moment Romey realizes the "obvious" answer!

Other games included a wicked battle of Sequence. My nephew Tony looks puzzled about how Grandma always seems to win!

The other young competitors: my niece Beth (left), nephew David and his wife, Sara.

A big group of us played Apples to Apples and an endless game of 3 to 13 that I honestly can't recall who finally won. I know it wasn't me.

The sophomore boys -- Carter and his cousin Anthony and Anthony's friend Jared -- amused themselves indoors and outdoors. There is actually ice on the lakes up there. In fact, my brother-in-law Rick was so frustrated with not getting a deer this week, he went ice fishing yesterday instead of hunting! True story.

Glad it was mild enough for the "boys" to be outside.

But not too mild to melt the ice on Raylene's teeny pond. At least while Carter and the others were "walking on water."

As usual, I can say a good time was had by all! Carter and I spent the night there and hit the road by 10 this morning. He drove the first 30-some miles to Spooner, then I drove us to Eau Claire, where we shopped at Oakwood Mall for some good deals. Found a few. Not as many as we hoped. Hit the road and stopped in Osseo for a Candy Cane Blizzard at DQ (hey, it's December now!!), then switched drivers in Pittsville and Carter got us home just in time to see the Vikings get a rare win.

What a great way to wrap up the weekend. SKOL!

After unpacking the car and our clothes, Carter did homework, I caught up with hubby, then vegged on the couch watching a Hallmark Christmas movie. Have to get a jump start on that movie marathon I plan for Monday!

I should say "tentatively" plan... I could skip my Hallmark fix and actually get the tree up or maybe organize my office or tackle a handful of other projects. We'll see what speaks to me.

Ha. I'm sure you can guess.