Thanksgiving 2012

Figured I'd better do a quick post about our Thanksgiving now that it's almost Christmas...yikes! We celebrated this year at Riley's parents house. What can I say other than we had tons of food, the whole family was there, and it was a good time. I've always thought that pictures told the story better than words, so here ya go. Later that night we went and saw Lincoln with my family. They have a tradition of going to a movie on Thanksgiving Day. I must say that I enjoyed this year's film better than last year's....we saw Hugo last year and I thought Riley and my dad were going to die of boredom. Ha! We also did a bit of Black Friday shopping this year. I'll be honest, it was nice to be in and out and DONE all before it actually turned into Friday. I had mixed feelings about the stores being open at 8 or 9 instead of midnight, but it was nice to be able to still get to sleep at a semi-decent hour. We hit up WalMart and Target that night. I don't know why we even bother at WalMart anymore. Every year we go just to see if there's anything good but always end up leaving after 15 minutes or so because things are just so out of control. We've never gone for any doorbusters, mainly we just like to find good deals on DVD's. For your enjoyment here are a few pictures of the only substantial snow we've gotten so far this season.

Camping at Washington Lake

Can you tell I'm playing a bit of catch up? About a month or so ago we went camping up in the Uintas with my sister-in-law Jessie and her boyfriend Tom. Washington lake (among a bunch of the other lakes up there) is one of my favorite places on Earth. I know I say this all the time, but we truly are BLESSED to live in such a BEAUTIFUL country. I didn't realize that I captured the eagle in this shot til I looked at it later. Pretty cool! The leaves had just started to change. So pretty!! We did some fishing... And by we, I mainly mean Tom and myself Riley did this: Benny did this: And Jessie did....well....we're not really sure what Jessie did.... But our hours of patience finally paid off! Tom and I each caught a fish. It's always a good feeling to not get completely skunked! Mine was bigger :) And apparently more cooperative for a picture Long story short, we just love camping and wish we could do it more often!

Jackson Hole

***WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD!!*** This post is WAAAYYY past due. For some reason I thought I had published it back in July but apparently I didn't. Oh well, here it is anyways... Over Riley's birthday this year we went up to Jackson Hole with his side of the family! We camped for a few nights and went white water rafting down the Snake River several times. We also went in and spent an evening in the actual town and had pizza and ice cream. It was toasty on poor Benny's feet, so he sat on my lap as we sat on a cliff and watched other rafters going down the river. This is how the nieces and nephews did bike rides during the trip...Neil is a good sport! Braxton, Coral, and Novali posing for a picture! Here is a picture of Kahuna from a few feet up. Doesn't look that intense, but yikes!! Braxton spent a lot of time riding his bike around the campsite. We had intentions to get lots of reading done... And it turned into more of this... This was one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Here we are just launching off on a "big kid" run. Everyone after the run! I had to take a picture of one of the statues in the town square. Pretty cool! One of the cool little restaurants with outdoor seating. Odin was too busy chewing on a ketchup packet to notice the mules next to him :) This was also one of my favorite shots of the trip. Novali sure loves her Uncle Riley :) We had such a fun time enjoying the beautiful scenery and eachother's company. Hopefully we can go again next year!

Grandpa Grose's 90th Birthday!

My cute grandpa turned 90 last week, and the family hosted an open house for him! How stinkin' cute is this man?! Seriously!! Tons of friends and family showed up to support my Grandpa. People drove hundreds of miles to make it, and he had a smile on his face the entire day. I think it was a little overwhelming to know that he has made such a positive impact on so many people. He is definitely one of my heroes! Here are some pictures from his special day: These are all my Grandpa's surviving children. The only one missing is my Uncle Alan who passed away several years ago.