Thanksgiving with My Mama!

For the last 3 years, I have had the Thanksgiving tradition of being with S, making us a fabulously extravagant dinner, him doing the dishes, and us calling it a night. Its nothing big, but it became a tradition that I think we both enjoyed. So, this year..when we realized that S would not get any time off for Thanksgiving now that he is a real doctor and I wouldn't have enough time off to go to California, we realized our Thanksgiving tradition had come to an end. I was upset for a while, especially since this was usually a time that we could break our long distance and be together for a while, but I accepted it and moved on to come up with new plans.

My mom suggested that she could come up for Thanksgiving. Since I ALSO hadn't seen my mom since June and even that was only for a few days, I loved the idea. What was even better was that my retired mom is a HUGE planner..so she quickly scheduled us a huge fun packed weekend.

My mom arrived on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the week before Thanksgiving, I was on nights. So, she arrived to my apartment at 4:15 PM and I had to be out of my apartment by 4:30 PM. While it was great that my night shift meant she could sleep in my bed during the night and then, when I came home, I would sleep in my bed during the day...this did mean I really didn't see her or speak to her at all until my night shifts were up on Thursday/Thanksgiving morning. Luckily, since I had nights that week, my clerkship directors gave me the whole weekend off. So, we thanksfully had a lot of time to hang out and explore all of the things she had planned.

THURSDAY: On Thanksgiving, my mom and I had the most awesome day! One of the things on both of our bucket lists was to go to a GB Packers game. If you know anything about my mom and I, its probably that we are big Packers fans. She has loved GB for years and I grew up in that environment so I was raised to love them, but neither of us had ever been to Wisconsin and had never been to a GB game. So, it couldn't be more perfect that GB Packers were playing the Lions in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day! ...Well, it could have been more perfect, because Aaron Rodgers was injured, out of the game, and we lost 40-10 ...BUT, it was amazing and a dream come true, none the less.

Our ridiculously close seats!!! 

Fellow Cheeseheads! 

FRIDAY: We decided to venture off to Canada...which is a whole 5 miles outside of Detroit. We decided to go to a casino in Winsor. We ate at the nicest buffet in the world...they had every cuisine you could think of and everything was made to order (like omelet bars at breakfast buffets) and over 100 different types of desserts! It.Was.Amazing!!! After recovering from food coma, we went and played craps for a few hours. We did decently well....my mom had one streak where she rolled probably 15 times and won us LOTS OF MONEY...Sadely, we ended up giving it back to the casino and walked out collectively $50 in the hole. Not bad for all day craps play, I think!

SATURDAY: I took my mom to one of my favorite Michigan spots: Frankenmuth! I love love love this little Bavarian town! It is basically a real life Christmas village. Its just pure magic.

After a fun day of cheese shops, fudge shops, and Christmas shops...we drove back to East Lansing and went to a movie. I had been dying to see the movie Frozen and I thought my mom was the perfect person to see it with...since she is really a kid at heart just like me! The movie was even more amazing than I thought it would be and I would recommend it to anyone! :)

SUNDAY: Sadly, the day had arrived that my mom had to leave and head back to California. She contemplated staying a little longer, but with my crazy busy schedule, I would never really see her. So, we said our goodbyes and she left for the airport.

It was such a great Thanksgiving! I loved having my mom here and being able to spend a holiday with her! Even though I love Michigan, this trip kind of made me realize how nice it would be to live closer to home...which is another point in favor of me heading back to the West Coast for residency. We will see how that goes!