So Nathan and I woke up super early the day after Christmas and started our long day journey to Minnesota for his brothers wedding. The first few hours of the trip were a little sketchy as we drove through some snow storms (which are a lot more sketchy when its super dark outside and the snow is blowing everywhere... you can't see very well...), but once the sun came out and we made it to the other side of Michigan we had clear skies and dry-ish roads for the rest of the drive!
We arrived in Minneapolis late afternoon and after we made lots of wrong turns, went the wrong direction on one way streets, and got super lost in downtown Minneapolis we finally found our hotel and family!! Man, that city is confusing! Even Siri couldn't figure it out! ;)
When we got there we met up with mom and dad Brooksby and Lisa (Nathan's sister) and her family. Then on Friday two more Brooksby brothers joined us, Jay and Ben. Sadly Joel was unable to join us and also Jay's wife and their kids couldn't join us, they have a newborn at home and didn't want to take him out in the bitter cold weather! (I don't blame them!) Thank goodness for FaceTime tho! We were able to FaceTime with Joel everyday and keep him updated with all the happenings going on! So fun!
Later on that night we got together with the soon to be bride and groom (Aaron and Chelsea) and her family! We all had a great time getting to know everyone, eating yummy desserts and opening christmas presents and wedding gifts!
Sadly the inevitable tummy bug hit me that night, and then hit Nathan later on in the early morning hours... :/ bummer. So Nathan and I spent most of Friday in bed at our hotel, taking turns using the bathroom and sleeping. By Friday night we were feeling a lot better! I was still pretty queasy for most of the trip and wasn't able to eat much... I was able to eat a couple pieces of bread most days! Nathan recovered much quicker and was able to eat actual meals!
Saturday was the wedding... and what a wonderful day it was! (It was so fabulous that it gets it's own post... so it will be up soon!)
Sunday, we were all so exhausted from the day before, that we all slept in and then just took it easy for the rest of the day. We did try to go to church for sacrament meeting, and when we got there we found out that that ward got canceled because of the cold weather...?.. or something? So we just went to the last hour of the other ward that meets there. We still got some sort of church in! :)
It was so cold there that the windows in the skybridge froze on the inside. So of course we had to stop and leave a picture!
On Monday we all went to the Mall of America for the day!! WHOA is it huge! So so cool... I wish I could have had more energy to truly appreciate its greatness and explore it all! But we still had lots of fun!!
I think Nathan and I stood in front of the Lego store for like 20 mins just starring at all the huge lego statues! SO so cool!
Little miss Kenzie... so adorable!
These two girlies are so fun! Loved spending the weekend with them!
This little man is so stinkin' cute!
We had SO much fun playing with him... he is so funny and always so happy!
We have some pretty dang cute nieces and nephews! This is only 3 out of 8 and they all are this cute!
I don't think our car battery liked the bitter coldness too much... but no worries.. it just needed some assistance and then it started just fine!
Our drive home was pretty uneventful with clear roads and sky.... .for the first 3 hours... then the snow started.....
and kept going...
and going...
and going...
and going till we got home! We were planning on getting home around 10 ish or so.... but we ended up spending New Years in the car and getting home around 12:30. So needless to say it was a very long trip back, and we were very happy to be home! At least we got to see some fireworks to help celebrate the New Year while in the car!
What a wonderful weekend we had! We loved being able to spend so much time with some family! :)
