oh yeah, thanksgiving

"Yo, when do we eat?"

About a month ago now, many Americans - including a small group of us here in Glenview - celebrated a nice little holiday called "Thanksgiving." Maybe you've heard of it? This year, Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Alan came up from Atlanta and Cousins Danny and Elise came up from St. Louis. For us, that's a full house and it was an entertaining long weekend.

Here are a few highlights (with pictures):

One night, Grandma and Grandpa took us downtown to the Sears Tower for a hoighty-toighty dinner at the Metropolitan Club. We had a great meal and Mr. K enjoyed the view from up high and making goo-goo eyes at the waitresses.

"Wait, Mommy. I ordered the Lobster Bisque. That looks suspiciously like Mac n' Cheese."

Back home, Kenny got some quality playtime with his grandparents, and discovered that Grandpa Alan's head makes an outstanding place to put your toys.

"Don't move, Grandpa. This may hurt, but don't move."

Kenny also discovered that Grandpa Alan will belly laugh from time to time at both physical humor and biting political satire. He also has a fondness for anyone who will fall for the "pull my finger" routine. He is a man who enjoys the classics. And lucky for him, his grandson is easily amused as well.

Grandpa Alan guffaws at Kenny's standup routine.

When the big day rolled around, Overboard worked her culinary magic, conjuring up the traditional Thanksgiving day feast of Cornish Game Hens. Of course, this year, the hens were slightly bigger than in years gone by, and she bought six of them, so there was a lot of hen to go around. On the upside, they were "yum delish."

Overboard and Elise prepare the feast.

Kenny, Grandma, Danny and Grandpa wait patiently to inhale said feast.

Kenny and his headdress that he made at daycare.

Over the next few days, Kenny had fun carousing with all of the extra people in the house. The boy does love to play to a crowd.

Kenny shows Evenkeel how he placed toys on his Grandpa's head.

Danny and Elise had two main things they wanted to do while in Chicago. One was to go to a jazz or blues club. This we accomplished by dining over at Tanoshii with Sushi Mike and then hitting the Green Mill for some quality jazz and high-volume cigarette smoke inhalation. When they call that place a "smoky jazz club" they ain't kiddin'. The music was good tho'.

The second thing Danny and Elise wanted to do was get a true "Chicago Hot Dog." Since our usual standby, Hot Doug's, was closed on Sunday, we decided to try Glenview's own version, "fRedhots and Fries" instead. fRedhots is famous for the reindeer dogs, but they have a large selection of other sausages and regular hot dogs (or "fRedhots") as well.

Much meat was consumed and most everyone came away impressed. Grandma Jackie wasn't crazy about the reindeer dog, but that's a story for another time.

Danny and Elise enjoy their first-ever Chicago-style hot dog (or in this case, fRedhot).

We then took everyone to the Museum of Science and Industry for some fun and learning. Kenny was most impressed with the farming section (complete with a life-sized cow and a tractor he could "drive") and the ginormous train set. I was bummed that we couldn't get tickets to the "Star Wars" exhibit, but we had fun nonetheless. Heck, Mr. K even waited till we were on our way out of the building before he spit-up all over himself. Which was nice of him. To wait, that is.

The cow says, "MOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

To see all of the exciting Thanksgiving pictures (and not necessarily in chronological order), just click right here!

And to watch the exciting Thanksgiving week video highlight reel, well, just click the video player below.



And that's all I have to say about that.