"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"!!

You guessed it.... Christmas post!!

I opted to work Christmas this year so I could take Thanksgiving off (see previous post)! But that's ok because we were going to be staying in town anyways and Tommy's family does their big party on Christmas Eve, which I had off :)

We started the season with putting our tree up, I mean I, I started the season with putting the tree up ;)

And attended our annual Christmas party

 In which Tommy won the ugly sweater contest!

And we attempted another family photo this year... fail haha (dang cats!!)

Christmas Eve we went out to the Grandparents house in Jerome and had dinner, exchanged gifts, and played 31!

When we got home we opened our presents to each other since I had to work Christmas, but don't worry, Santa still came Christmas morning before I went to work and filled the stockings! :)

And Tommy was able to go to Gooding and spend Christmas with his parents!

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!! We were blessed with a great Christmas, me especially thanks to my wonderful husband! So greatful for this time of year!

Turkey Day '16!

This year I took Thanksgiving off and was SOOO excited about it!! Tommy worked (or was scheduled to) so I did feel bad leaving him and going to Bear Lake myself for Thanksgiving, but frankly I missed being with my family for a holiday! The last time we were in BL for a holiday was 5 years ago when we were just engaged-we went down for Thanksgiving. So it was time!! And lucky for Tommy they told him he didn't have to work Thanksgiving so he got to come down too!

So we went down late Wednesday night after getting off work and then spent Thanksgiving in Dingle with my parents and little sisters, and a couple aunts, uncles, and lots of cousins! It was the perfect day! I then spent the night at my parents with my sisters, since I haven't stayed with them for a VERY long time and spent the next day with them too! That day also happened to be Kyla's birthday so we made cakes for a birthday party that night! It was such a fun stay!! We had lots of fun and laughs!

We then spent Saturday and Sunday in Montpelier with my older siblings! So much fun having a 4 day weekend in Bear Lake! We filled our time with coyote hunting, craft fairs, studebakers pizza, Cafe Sabor and lots of family!

Can't wait for next year!! (I'm taking next Thanksgiving off too to come back to Bear Lake!)

~Halloween 2016~

We celebrated Halloween on Saturday this year since we all worked on Halloween on Monday. But really we started celebrating on Friday! 

My sister came up with her 3 boys and Friday night we showed them the ways of Albion! Along with our best friends Jake and Blaike! <3

It was so fun to have Carrie and the boys come up and stay with us and just hang out for the weekend!

Saturday night we went out to Gooding for our Halloween party and had another great time there!!

 

 We had quite the crew there and it was so much fun!! Eating yummy food and treats and playing games!


The next day was Blaike's birthday so we surprised her with the famous McMurdie Costco cake birthday!!

Oh my gosh isn't she just the freaking cutest!

 We had some fun on the way out the the party too! Always a fun time with these guys!!

 Care and the boys stayed until Sunday and then had to go back home :( As we were giving hugs good bye I noticed how large Briston was to me! I moved in with these two when they were just little and now look at them! Never felt shorter haha

And that was our fun Halloween weekend!!

Baby Blessing

Our nephew was blessed on the 16th and it was fun to have the family all together for the weekend!

Tommy's brother and sister from Utah came down and spent the Saturday and Sunday with us! Saturday night we had a fire and roasted hotdogs and marshmallows!

That night we watched the Boise State game together and played cards!

It was an intense game! Boise didn't play their best

 
Sunday we went to the baby blessing and lunch afterward!

Ted and his kids

Eating pictures are great! Haha

It was a great weekend spent as a family!

One Day Bear Lake Visit

Last weekend we were able to go to Bear Lake for my nieces baptism! We were planning on going to Frightmares at Lagoon on Friday but they were only open from 5-11 and for the same price that we could be there from 11-11 on a Saturday! So we decided it was too far of a drive to pay the same price for only half a day when we could go for a full 12 hours! So I let Tommy go hunting on Saturday morning since it was the opening day of sage hen hunting before we headed down to Bear Lake that afternoon.

Spent a good 2 days down in Bear Lake, or like 1 day since it was 2 half days... but it is always worth the drive! No matter how long the stay!

We LOVE These Girls!! <3

My goal is to post at least one post every month... so the last two posts are my pathetic efforts for September! :/

Fair Time

I don't have much to say about these pictures except we went to the Gooding and Twin fair with these two and it was an absolute blast!!

Although we didn't get a good picture!
*The night these two broke the exciting news to us!!! Woohoo!!*

And my photography skills at the Gooding Rodeo!

And at the Twin Rodeo... We had some beautiful sunsets!!

Party All Night and Day!

Yesterday Tommy and I had a pretty fun packed day! We started the day off with, well the real party actually started Friday night with dinner and a late movie with Jake and Blaike! (We're getting too old to stay out that late!! 😉)

And then Saturday morning the party continued at the Idaho Army National Guard Battle Buddy Run at Dierkes Lake! Woop woop! This was an obstacle filled 5k put on by the national guard, and it was so much fun!! It took some convincing to get Tommy to sign up with me but you had to have a buddy so I wasn't giving up on him ;) so we started off riding in the back of an army tuck thing- the kind you see in the movies where you just sit on the sides and it's covered with canvas, and it's a good thing we didn't ride very far in that thing cuz we only went maybe 50 yards and I was getting sick!

When we stopped we were getting yelled at to get out so be bailed off the back while there were gunshots and fog going off and ran to the first spot where we grabbed  a "riffle" (play riffles) and ran down to the lake where we had to jump in! Just the shallow part-but up to like my thighs, and run through that while keeping our riffles up. And then we ran to the sandy area and had to low crawl through a maze under bobbed wire while holding our riffle up out of the sand-so we had to crawl on our elbows (owie!) And all the while they were yelling at us to get lower and hurry up and keep their guns out of the sand! Then we ran to the next station which was the drill sargaents! So more yelling at us to do push ups, low crawl some more, more push-ups and to get out of their face because we discussed them ;) next station was a little farther away but it was the gas mask station!! :( We had to put on a gas mask and run up the steepest part of the trail and back down....least favorite for sure! Those gas masks were horrible! You put them on and take one breath and they suction to your face and take away 30-40% of your oxygen.... ok moving on! Haha ran to the next station where we had to carry a 5 gallon bucket of water to the next point and back, not too bad. Next was throwing a three hook into 1 of 3 tires and dragging them to us then dragging them back, next was carrying a box full of something up some stairs and back down- then we had to run back up the stairs to the next station: throwing a grenade into a bunker, which we did in the first try...go us! ;) Next we shot paintballs at like 6 hidden targets, that was really fun! Next station we had to pick up like a 70lb log and put it on our shoulder and do 20 squats, run it down to the next point where there was a dummy down waiting for us to assess him and load him on a sled thing, strap him in, and drag him back to the starting point of that station all the while they are yelling that he is dying and that we are going to miss the chopper! And the dummy was heavy! Like 150-175 lbs, so not a light flimsy dummy-he was a real humans weight! Last station was repelling across a little canyon, pulling ourselves across the cable. And then we ran to the finish line where got our dog tags! And water! And that was the race! It was super fun though!! I'm really excited for next year, now that I kind of know what to expect! And our only battle wounds were our elbows and knees getting torn up from crawling on the sand... that really hurt! And my shoulder where I had the log setting is really sore, feels like it's bruised... so we didn't come out too bad!

Race Complete!

Not real..... ;)

Next on the agenda was to go get showered and ready for the day and hit some open houses!! Yay! We hit three open houses and then took a break for lunch out at Chobanis company party. 

My favorite thing on Chobani! <3

And then hit up two more open houses! So fun going to look at houses and find one that we like or get ideas for what we like and don't like!

And to top the night off we headed out to Gooding for a birthday party for Janice! Had a wonderful BBQ, cake and icecream, visiting, games, and good fun family time!

Camping 2016

On Friday, July 22 we headed down to Bear Lake for our camping trip with my family!! Camping all weekend with no interuptions! Just 3 days of family in the woods! :)

We got up to camp Friday afternoon and started our campout with elk tinfoil dinners for super! And of course roasted marshmallows and smore's! We also celebrated my nephews 22nd birthday so we had cheesecake too!

Saturday morning, after eating berry colossal crunch (my favorite cereal) with MARSHMALLOWS!! (Even Better!!) we spent the whole day chatting, laughing, playing games and just hanging out with everyone! So much fun! And then started helping out making dinner for the night-dutchoven ribs and potatoes! (Good job Er!) oh and cherry and peach cobbler (Good job babe!). So yummy! And of course more roasted marshmallows and smore's! (You can't go one night with out those!)

Sunday morning we did a big breakfast all together and had omletts... they turned out good, but were really hard and time consuming to make on a camp chef and kind of a fail! But the last two omletts we made, out of like 13, did turn out! (Good job again babe!) We just relaxed until about 2 or 3 and then started heading out :(

After getting cleaned up we went up to Jed and Tricia's for the twins and Tally's birthday parties! And celebrated with them until it was time for Tommy and I to head home since we had to work the next morning :( Dang work gets in the way of everything!

We didn't get any pictures of us all up camping :( I really sucked the whole trip getting any pictures! This was about all I got the whole 3 days :(

But it was such a fun weekend with everyone! We never want to go home after visiting!

Happy Independence!

Happy Independence Day!!

We kept this years 4th low key, but who says low key can't be fun!!

I started the day off with an hour and a half of Zumba!! While Tommy went golfing with Jake. We had planned to go out to Jake and Blaikes later that evening for dinner and fireworks, but Tommy called me around lunch time and said they were going to cook some hotdogs for lunch. So we actually went out for lunch, dinner and fireworks... never a bad thing!! Can't get enough of you guys! ;) But seriously we never get sick of spending so much time with you!!

So we ate "lunch" bacon wrapped, trager smoked hotdogs and jalapeno peppers, ended up being around 5! And then watched Ride Along 2... or more like Blaike and I watched Ride Along 2... Tommy was sleeping and I think Jake was dozing off too. And we also watched Sisters when Tommy and Jake went to get fireworks!

When they got back we ate dinner, delicious tritip that had been smoking on the trager! (We never skimp on food when we hang out!!) Oh and these cool drinks that didn't really turn out haha! (The blue kind of disappears in the red)

 And ended the night with a fire, fireworks and smore's!! 

Low key-but SO much fun!!