No Story

We just finished cleaning up and kicking out the last of our guests from this evening. We were feeling the holiday spirit so we decided to have a dessert night with some friends from the ward. We pretty much just invited whoever we bumped into at church and made sure to invite some of the newer people from the ward. We just told everyone to bring a dessert to share and we actually had to do very little work ourselves. So if you're looking for a fun holiday party idea that requires very little work there it is.
We got our tree up on Friday(I still feel a little weird buying it at Smiths but it's a nice tree and we did have to hunt through two Smith's stores to find it) with all of our other Christmas decorations. As Brant said we shot some pigeons on Saturday morning and looked at the temple square lights in the evening. Not much else in going on here. Kelly is counting down the days until her semester is over and we go to New York for Christmas. She is still 90% sure the BYU is hiring her to teach a graduate class during the winter semester. You can check the other blog for our thanksgiving news.

If you've ever wondered what Bear Lake looks like, here it is. My mental picture before I went there was way off.
Lacey - You've created a monster. Kelly loves the clothes on that website and already gave me a list just in case I wanted to buy her something.

We give up!!!!

The beginning of the fort, a.k.a. garbage can holder.

A pain in the ash.

Kevin, no way we can top that one. As Grandpa would say, "why in the (expletive deleted) would you take kids camping in the winter anyway". Sorry your trip had to end so soon. I'm sure there are others that would have loved to have been there.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. Matt and Kimbre came down Wednesday night and stayed until after dinner on Thursday - he had to be back to work by 7:00pm (something about chasing Nuns through a nunnery (is that the right word?). It was cold and overcast so we stayed inside all the time.

Mom and I went to Spokane yesterday to work in the cannery. We are trying hard to get up to speed on our food storage. Don't anyone come visit or you will starve to death. Our stake president says that all the students in the Student Stake should have enough money and food to get them home to their parents - Seth and Lacey, don't even think about it. Can you say, "Halloween candy"?

Joe bought a new (used) pickup. It is about a 1994 F-150 extended cab with a 351 and a blown transmission. He found another tranny for a couple of hundred and plans to put it in. When he gets it running he will sell the green 150 he has had for many years. He is now the proud owner of 4 pickups plus the fire department one he drive to work. It's just like screw drivers - you can never have too many.

The blog this evening is shaping up to be a classic. Check out the pictures I posted on the "cousins blog".

Hope you all have fun getting ready for Christmas. We love you all. Dad and Mom

Top-a-story

Yah, well, my story's better than yours Lacey. Friday, I had decided to take the boys camping, despite the cold and snow flurries. I should have known that it would be problem-riddled when I drove too far on the way to the park. As I entered Fort Collins I realized that I should have turned off I-25 at Loveland. So after half an hour of backtracking we were on our way again to Rocky Mountain Park. It would take too long to describe all of the details, but let me summarize.

First, as I put the tent up I realized we had a broken pole. As I was fixing that in sub-freezing weather Kanyon had a little "accident." I took him to the KYBO, where I stripped him naked and made him stand on the concrete floor while I got him some new under-roos. Later, as he was warming up in the car, he pinched is finger in the power window. I put a bandaid on that and then finished setting up the tent.

After the fire was going I made dinner. As Kanyon was eating in a chair next to the fire an ember popped out and landed down the back of his shirt, burning his shoulderblade. After dinner I put the boys back in the car to warm up. I tried to blow myself up when my camp stove would not turn off. I had to unscrew the propane canister to put it out.

The kids nearly froze as I stripped their boots and coats for bed. Once they were warm in their bags, and I had enbalmed myself in my mummy bag, Braxton said that his stomach hurt. I fumbled with the drawstring and made it out in time to stick Braxton out the door of the tent to throw up. False alarm, no vomit. But he was freezing and crying.

It was at this point that we decided to come home. I put the boys back in the car to warm up and broke camp, at 9:30. Before we left I gave Braxton a blessing. Five minutes after leaving the park he was asleep. That's happened before. Blessings work.

We made it home around 11:45. Thankfully, no vomit was involved in the production of this outing.

Anyone want to try camping next weekend?

Our Trip

We just got back from our trip to Utah for Thanksgiving. While we were there, Travis took us up shooting on Squaw Peak. (Yes, I went to Squaw peak with my father-in-law!) It was very cold-15 degrees- and the clay pigeons weren't flying so hot. Greg took a turn throwing and nearly took out Dennis with a pigeon. It knocked out his lens, cut up his face and gave him a little black eye. The rest of the story is that Dennis had a loaded shotgun at the time. It is a wonder that he didn't turn on Greg.
This is a shot of Tyler shooting Trav's .22 rifle. He had a hard time holding it too far in front of him, so I had him scrunch up a bit. It made for a unique shooting position, but he did fairly well. If you look carefully, you'll see the wild pumpkin sneaking up on him.

Our trip to Utah was fun. We managed to accomplish the following-
-travel in a new van with a newly potty trained two year old
-eat LOTS of food
-surprise Grandma Von Forell with a 50th birthday party
-shop (we have no stores in Denver)
-shoot up the hillside and not kill anyone
-listen to BYU beat Utah 17-10
-go swimming at the hotel pool
-see the lights at Temple Square with Travis and Kelly
-arrive home safe and sound

We'll recover in the next few days and then get ready to do it all over again in a few weeks.

Brant

Mr. Mastitis

It's been awhile since we've blogged, about two weeks actually. Basically our/my days consist of sleeping, feeding Koper, and convincing Seth that it's his turn to change Koper. There's no big news to report other than Mr. Mastitis showed up for Thanksgiving this year. All you nursing mothers who have never had mastitis be grateful and to those that have had it, I am so sorry. I'll spare you the details.
I am adjusting to having two children. This morning Seth had to go to PEC, which meant I had to get all of us to church on time. Around 7:15am I gave up on the idea of taking a shower. I had Seth get Weston ready for church, so the only thing I had to do was get Koper ready and then eventually myself ready. Well, I had just given Koper a bath and needed Weston to bring me my deodorant. He found Koper's baby shampoo instead. Next thing I saw and heard was, "Wash Weston's hair." Dressed in his Sunday clothes, Weston had a ton of soap in his hair and was rubbing it in. I tried to get it out with a wet wash cloth but that just made it worse. Luckily, we have a removable shower head so I took Weston to the tub, made him lean over and we washed his hair. And because I had yet to wash his new sweater, the water repelled right off of it. It was one of those things where you feel so defeated but then you just laugh. I didn't make it to church on time, but I was only five or so minutes late.
That's all for our adventures. There are only two more weeks of school for Seth and then finals!!! Hope you all enjoyed the Holidays.

-Lacey

P.S. Kelly, check out this website www.christa-taylor.com, I think you might enjoy her clothes.