Hiking with Grandma

Grandma took the grandkids on a nature hike on the hill behind her house. The kids had quite the adventure!

Playing Girly Games

Aunt Mary had fun playing the finger nail game with her niece and nephew. Bekah felt very pretty with her "long" fingernails after the game was over. Unfortunately for Benjamin, we now have blackmail pictures of him wearing pink and purple fingernails, but since them seem to double as tiger claws we'll let him get away with it.

Shooting

The field in front of my parents' house is good for lots of things. Another thing that it was used for over the Thanksgiving holiday was a shooting range. Dad took David, Denise, Mary, Gary, Michael, Benjamin, and Bekah out in the field to shoot empty milk jugs and clay pigeons. Benjamin and Bekah had fun standing in the back of the truck and watching all of the big people do the shooting. Benjamin even got in on the action by pulling the string to fling the clay pigeons for the marksmen.

Faster, Daddy, Faster

Our kiddos are just like their Daddy when it comes to thrills, faster is better, which is good because then Michael will have someone to ride roller coasters when they get bigger. Needless to say, they loved riding the four wheeler with their Dad around the field in front of my parents' house.

Grandpa and the "Grand-puppy"

My sister, Kristina, has wanted a dog for a very long time. Just before school started this year she finally acquired one. Even though my dad won't admit it, I think he loves the dog as much as my sister does. So here is Grandpa with his "Grand-puppy," Panda.

Repelling out by the Lake

David, Denise, and Michael went repelling out by the lake while Kristina helped supervise and Gary played photographer.

The Michael "dot" descending.

David part way down. Can you see the green dot?

Now who's the alpha male?

Or are they just a couple of monkeys?

Hiking up

Hiking

Reading the "writing on the wall." Apparently you are no longer allowed to add your signature to the ones already on the wall, Michael asked.

Smelling the trees. Kristina claims they smell like strawberries.

David said they smelled like trees.

Picking on little sister. I guess you never "grow out" of some things.

According to Facebook, David is declaring that he is the alpha male.

I told him Benjamin would probably argue the point with him.

Denise getting a different perspective from David's shoulders.

old Native American ruins

The stairs they climbed to the top of the monument.

In this picture, you can see Gary's favorite pohtography subject, his wife.

Posing for the camera . . . . on the edge of the cliff.

Michael taking pictures.

Mary, Gary, David, Denise (David's girlfriend), Michael, and Kristina went hiking at a local monument and Gary took all of these awesome pictures.

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving in New Mexico this year and it was hopefully our last trip during the holidays. It is much more fun to visit family without the stress of the holidays, but we had a lot of fun this trip. I think Michael had the most fun of all of us because he had people to go do things with besides just us girls. Everyone was very busy and the kiddos let someone else take care of them so I could get better from being horribly sick. Thanks, Mom and Gary, for the pictures because I didn't get a chance to take any.

Windows 7 Update

My sweet husband confinscated my computer a couple of weeks ago and provided me with the Windows 7 operating system. It has some interesting features and runs faster than Vista. What can I say, I like it. However, since Michael still has yet to load Adobe Photoshop back on my computer I cannot compress my pictures to upload them here. So as soon as I have that program I will start posting pictures. Until then, you can find me on Facebook for brief updates and chatting.

I Survived Swine Flu

Last week I caught the strain of Swine Flu that has been going around our neighborhood, just in time to travel to New Mexico for Thanksgiving. It started with chills and aches with a small sore throat. Then I it switched over to a fever that alternated between sweating and shaking, and of course fatigue. After that my sore throat worsened to the point that it was extremely painful to swallow. And last, but not least, I had a headache that felt like I had barbed wire wrapped around my brain inside my skull. It was painful to say the least, but thankfully I am better now.

I am grateful to my family for taking care of my children and helping my husband have fun over Thanksgiving while I spent the better part of three days in bed, in pain. I am also thankful for the power of the Priesthood that has been restored to this earth because I truly believe that without the blessing I received through my husband and brother the pain would have last much longer and I would have ended up in the hospital. I am glad that I survived and hope I can now recover my strength so as not to have a relapse.