Thanksgiving Surprise

chuckle,chuckle*
It's a lot of fun to pull surprises on unsuspecting people, especially people that you love.
Marissa thinks we're at home with no definite plans for Thanksgiving. SO not true. ;D
As you can plainly see in the following four pictures, we are traveling somewhere far from home.
Hey! As a matter of fact, that kinda looks like Idaho.
Good guess!


One of our favorite rest stops just inside the Idaho border.
(notice the moon high above the Toaster?....probably because we didn't get away from home till midday). No worries since you're not expecting us anyway.

A beautiful view of the Snake River from the same rest stop.

Historical info about the river. I love this kind of stuff but rarely remember what it said.
This time I will. ;)


The Boise Temple
(looking out the car window on the freeway)



Woops! Seeing that Garth's up at the door getting ready to play a trick on our daughter, let's pause and rewind for a minute.......




You see- Marissa was invited to spend Thanksgiving with Garth's sister Andrea and her family in Utah since we hadn't planned to fly her home from college. Which was great. We were invited too but for those of you who live where we do, you know the odds are never good for crossing the Blue Mountains when there's snow and ice. Knowing this, we never seriously considered coming. Well, that is until it got closer to Thanksgiving and we realized the forecast was "phenomenal".
Should we do it?!! YES!!!!!!!!!
After a quick phone call to Andrea, it's a done deal.

Funniest thing was, Marissa kept calling Garth on the cell phone to chat as we were driving. Garth refuses to lie, so he was very careful in how he responded to her comments and questions.
Thank GOODNESS she didn't point blank ask him if we were coming down. He would have admitted it for sure.




Anywho, that about gets us back to the scene at the door.....

We noisily (as quiet as we could) crunched up through the snow to the front door.
Plan A
Garth was going to take a picture of the front room through the window and send it to Marissa's phone. Then he was going to ask her if she recognized it.
However, Andrea stepped out the door right about then, so we switched to
Plan B
Garth took a picture of the three of us standing on the front porch together and sent that to her.
We waited


and we waited




and then we waited some more.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It's really getting cold and with no response on Garth's cell phone, it is time for
Plan C
We slipped into the living room and Andrea called her out of her room to "help with something".
When she looked over and saw us, she had the funniest look on her face. Like, "What are YOU doing here?!!"

As for the picture Garth sent?
Marissa said she couldn't figure out why her dad sent her an "old" picture of the three of us.
Well, at least she was surprised to see us. And we were thrilled to see her! :)



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Thanksgiving Day.
Hanging out before dinner and trying to figure out the answers to some crazy list of clues.
Either we're dumb or some of these make NO sense at ALL.
We'll assume it's the latter.



Garth's youngest sister DaNae playing around in the craft room.







Rick and Garth "shootin the breeze" while they cook the potatoes.




Marissa working her magic on the cooked potatoes.


Andrea preparing to carve the turkey. Mmmmmm.
It was delicious and so was the cranberry salad in the corner of this picture.




The "children's" table




The "adults" table

The HOST and HOSTESS of this shindig....
Rick and Andrea

Neil, Garth's younger brother.

Brett and Britt

Ayeisha and Thomas

Rick ( just home from his mission) and Zach

McKenzie

Mother (Garth's Mom)

Marissa

A fast and FUN trip! (we had to start home the next morning). We had a great time and loved getting to see everyone.

Leaves and Lights

Fall is my favorite season of the year. Always has been. I love the cooler days, the beautiful changing colors of the trees, the sound of leaves crunching under my feet, the excitement of children starting back to school, and the anticipation of all the fun holidays coming up. I also love the incredible SEA of leaves that blanket our ground. Most fall from the 6 oak trees on our property, some from the neighbor's trees. These trees provide us with refreshing shade in the summer and are home to lots of cute (when they're not chewing the trampoline pad) squirrels, birds and a few "unwelcome" racoons. Add to that the dreamy sound of the wind blowing through the tree tops and you can plainly see why they are such a delight.

On the flip side of the coin we have what's known as "Leaf Disposal Day"...actually two of them every year. One, the Saturday before Thansgiving, the other, the first Saturday in December.
Out of the 21 years we've lived in this home, this is the FIRST year we haven't had any kids home to help with the leaves.
So we were both surprised and thrilled to have Danielle offer to come over and help us. Danielle, thank you, thank you, thank you for brightening our day. Not only are you a speedy raker/ bagger, you had us laughing most of the time you were here.
Yea for sweet daughters!!!! :)

Later, after Danielle had to leave, Ryan and Rebecca came over to help us with the Christmas lights. Ryan also helped haul most of the leaf bags from the basketball court to the garage.
Thanks Ryan!
Below are Rebecca and Ryan playing out back before we started the lights.

It goes without saying that no matter HOW good your lights worked the year before, you are guarenteed to have at least two or three strands that won't come on at all. True to form, I had to chase around to numerous stores looking for matching lights. Four of the eight didn't work and obviously the ones I found didn't match either. But hey, by the time I located these "similar enough" ones at Target I was about ready to kiss the poor boy that helped me...that or cry with joy. As picky as I am, I thought they were nothing short of PERFECT!
Ryan hanging the upper lights.

Just to keep things entertaining, a section on the lower roof (the older lights) decided to quit working after Ryan had them all finished. The solution? Bundle them up with twist ties and rubberbands and stuff them in the gutter.
But, wait a minute...would you look at that!!...........

........now that he has them all ready to hide, lo and behold, they're working again.
Stupid lights!
Untie them and spread them back out. Let's just hope they KEEP working.




Thanks Ryan, for your artistic eye for making things look just right and your patience in putting them up.
They look great!!!

Race Fever

Brandon, our oldest son, has been biking for a number of years. Until he bought a car, it was his main mode of transportation. Currently, he is a manager at Fat Tire Farm in the Pearl District, a high end mountain bike shop. Before that he worked for Performance Bike. Despite the fact that he has had multiple "close-calls" and several REAL accidents involving cars, he continues to love riding. In addition to an annual trip up to Whistler, Canada he enjoys competing in racing events locally.


I can't remember where this first picture was taken but it's one of my favorites.
I figure he MUST be going pretty fast since all the background is a blur (either that or it was the setting on the camera). No...definately his fast peddling. See, even his feet are blury.




The following five pictures were taken at a cyclecross race by Alpenrose Dairy.
The first thing I notice in these pictures is that there isn't any mud.
Murphey's Law: Pretty much ANY event we attend to support him is rainy and "boot sucking" muddy! ;D

Seeing him standing as he pedals in this picture reminds me of the story about the time his seat came off during the middle of a race. Unfortunately (or fortunately for him since I would have been cracking up), no one came to his aid. He said every time he passed the area where the race officials were, he would shout "TOOL"!!!!!
Amazingly, he DID finish the race and now I think he carries a tool with him for any future emergencies.
Looking on the bright side...I'm sure he kept his competition thoroughly entertained.



There are many spots along the way that look
this steep. No wonder he's all muscle.




Remember, when you are about to be passed, just start SWERVING all over the place!!
They'll be too afraid to go around you.




Hurdles.





The next three pictures were taken at Hood River.
Brandon is on the right of the race official wearing the black, red and white jersey.
Being at the front of the pack means that you have placed well in previous races.
Go get 'um Brandon!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Push on Brandon!!! You're doing good.
(Easy for me to say- hehe)




You've got to be kidding!?!!! Another hill?
Crazy thing is...most every course consists of multiple laps around the same trails.
Bet you're gonna hate THIS one before you're done.




This last event was held on November 8th. The Cross Crusade World Race out at PIR.
There were people competing from as far away as Moscow and Tokyo. A guy from Canada won. Brandon took 37th place. We couldn't be prouder.
Brandon had a blast.
Here are Elene and Marcy (Brandon's girlfriend) cheering him on from the sides.
Good times. :)

Brandon (center) overtaking the guy in first place at one point in the race.
SHOULD have been the LAST lap...then you would have WON!!!
Even so, you are still the "best looking" one out there.
(Mother's are entitled to be prejudiced!)

The "Egg beater"

Your stamina is AMAZING.

Maybe the wings have something to do with his speed?

A quick video of Brandon as he passes by.






Another season come and gone. Hopefully, you'll be back at it again next year.
We're proud of your "fightin spirit" for racing.
You'll always be #1 with us.