Thanksgiving on Memorial Day

Hello again, it's Chris on the keyboard to tell you a little tale about our recent exciting trip to Minnesota that included a little adventure, a lot of fun, and a dead turkey. I'll get to that in a bit.

Like millions of Americans, the Studer family spent Memorial Day weekend on the open road. We headed to Minnesota for my niece Brianna's graduation party. She's 18, and that means I'm old.Bri's in the middle with Maguire. I can hardly stand it that she's graduated. Didn't I just graduate from high school? We had an awesome weekend hangin' with my big bro and his family. (My niece Alyssa's on the left, then my bro Tim, his wife Heidi, Bri, and my nephew T.J. who's taller than me now) We hadn't seen them in forever, so it was fun to go to Bri's party, and then enjoy a little bonfire, bright stars, and good company in the evening.This makes up pretty much my entire family, and it was great to see them all. We don't all get together very often, so it was nice to see everyone in one place again. My aunt and uncle even brought my grandma down from Hibbing. So it was awesome to get to see them.Uncle Tim and Alex got to hang out quite a bit too. The boys l-o-v-e-d playing outside at their house. And they were filthy when they were done... Alex ate his share of leaves and sticks and had a blast exploring Tim & Heidi's rock garden. Oh...and Alex got a kick out of my grandma's walker. He pushed that thing all over the driveway. Hilarious.Ellie spent the majority of the weekend on their tramp in the backyard. She did tricks for hours on that thing. Needless to say all three children were asleep before their heads hit the pillow that night.Carrie's mom (a.k.a. Grammie) came to Bri's party too, so Maguire got a little Carmex bath from all of Grammie's kisses. But you can never get enough of Grammie's smooches...So after spending the night at Tim & Heidi's...we decided to make a spontaneous trip to Brainerd. Here's Ellie with Papa's sleeping mask that he got on his European vacation. She loved that thing, and cried when we wouldn't let her actually sleep with it on. But she got a lot of pretend sleeping in.And here's Alex ticklin' the keys. He climbed up on the bench by himself and started playin' away.

So now to the whole dead turkey thing. This is all the evidence of that tragic moment left on our van's grill. Here's how it happened.

We were just driving along when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something running . I didn't think much of it because it was in a field off to the side of the road. It started getting closer though, so I slowed a bit. I thought it was a pheasant, and living in South Dakota for as long as I have now, it's not unusual to see one running along. People hit them now and then, but they're pretty good about flying away. But this was no pheasant...and we weren't in SoDak anymore.

All of a sudden, this massive bird runs right in front of the van. "Oh crap, that's a turkey..." I said, my heart pumping. Another car was coming in the other lane, so there was nowhere to swerve. That's when it happened. The turkey and my Honda Odessey were on a collision course that simply could not be avoided. His (or her, I didn't really see which) massive body slammed into the grill, flew up and hit the windshield, and flew over the van to the road below. It was over. Then from the backseat I hear a little girl's voice say, "Daddy, what just happened?"

Not knowing exactly what to say, or what Ellie saw, our conversation went something like this...

Chris: "Nothing honey, a bird just flew over the van."
Ellie: "Then what happened?"
Chris:"Then he flew away."
Ellie: "But then what?"
Carrie: "Well honey, what did you see?"
Ellie: "What I saw was that we hit that duck!"
Chris and Carrie: (Hysterical Laughter)
Chris: "It was actually a turkey, and Daddy couldn't get out of the way, so we accidentally hit it."

Moral of the story? Well, there are two. 1. Don't lie to your kid, she knew anyway. 2. Don't hit turkeys. Not that I tried to hit it, I truly couldn't get out of the way. So the turkey was at fault. I thought maybe we should've stopped and at least roasted the turkey that night. But Carrie declined. Then later in the trip Ellie says, "Daddy, next time when a turkey runs on the road, you should slow down and let him cross."

To that I said, "Next time I will honey, next time I will."