MI thanksgiving

Has it been a week already since Thanksgiving?  

Two things conspired to delay this post.  First, I took a work field trip to MO to visit a limestone mine and lime processing plant.  The mine was awesomely huge.  One of the 2 traffic lights in town is located in the mine.  The formation is 100 feet thick and has been mined for about 100 years.  Explosives are used to break up the rock.  Grinding happens inside the mine, and the small rocks are sent on conveyer belts to the kilns (ovens).  Lime processing involves cooking the rocks in 300 foot long, 11 ft diameter rotating kilns made of steel and ceramic tiles.

The second hiccup is that Janny is sick.  She has congestion and a runny nose.  She's also very tired, perhaps because she moaned from midnight to 3 am on Friday night.  In related news, Jill and I are also tired.

We got together with Jill's side of the family in Jackson, MI, for Thanksgiving.  

 The Smiths all drove up together from Nashville.  Clara really enjoyed playing with the big kids.

 Some of the northern Michiganders drove down for Thanksgiving day.  Here was the whole gang (minus photographer Jill) that was present for the meal.

 On Friday, we went to the childen's activity center/science museum in Albion.  Janny enjoyed the under 4 year old region.

 To no one's surprise, Clara enjoyed the mini-river.  Chad spent all morning here...

 ... and even allowed other kids to play as well.

 The artistic amongst us decorated cupcakes.  Jill worked hard on the simulated pie crusts.

 Not just for decoration, those cupcakes were super yummy.

Our Christmas tree is up.  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!