Family Outing Takes One and Two and Playing with Rocks...

Due to the long weekend given to us (thank you Martin Luther King Jr.), Peter, Lisa, and I wanted to do something fun that we normally don't do every weekend.  Peter and I haven't gone shooting together in...well...Peter and I haven't gone shooting together ever so we thought that it would be great fun to blow the dust off both Peter's gun and his Grandpa Frank's old gun and hit some targets of our choice, the main one being my old math book that I kept for some odd reason.

The first time we tried...and failed.  Turns out the pin on the gun popped out therefore jammed up the gun.  So, I grabbed my math book, disappointed I couldn't release my .22 fury on it, and decided to head home before we went to dinner.  Although we weren't too thrilled that the guns didn't work, the evening didn't completely go to waste.  We got to enjoy the amazing scenery that Idaho had to offer and Peter had an excuse to tinker with his toys and tried to fix them.  

The next day was a bit more successful.  We went out to try again on our guns and were successful! If it weren't so cold out, Peter would've been out shooting longer without me and Lisa sitting in the car complaining about our freezing fingers and toes.  But while Peter and Lisa were getting some awesome shots with the guns, I was getting some awesome shots with my camera.

I'm going to be completely honest here.  It felt REALLY good shooting this thing!

Random animal jaw we found when we went to look at our targets. 

After the random animal jaw, we got distracted again and Lisa and Peter raced up a hill...

Once we were done shooting, we came across some awesome rocks that we wanted to climb.  At this point, our feet were numb enough that we didn't mind hanging around to take a few more pictures.  

We had a lot of fun with this "mini cave" we found.

I don't think any small animal wants to wake up in their little cave to this...

After thawing out in our apartment afterwards, we all concluded that it was quite a fun day!  We've been having a lot of fun having Lisa here and we can't wait for many more memories with her while she's here.  In the meantime, it's more school for Peter and more job searching for me.  

Wish us luck!

One Holly Jolly Christmas!

These past few weeks have been unforgettable.  Too much detail will drive me to homesickness so I will simply let the photos do the talking (please excuse the poor quality of some of these pictures). 

 These past few weeks have been full of...

Christmas decorations and parties...

 

Watching our first real snowfall of the Christmas season...

Hanging out with longtime friends...

Enjoying good food with family...

Entertaining little ones...

Sledding in the freshly new-fallen snow...

Reliving old memories and creating new traditions...

"Playing" with a defenseless kitty...

Putting bows on a distracted baby and relaxing on Christmas...

Laughing with funny people at a funny show...

(most of these next photos I, once again, stole from Jessica's blog.  Thanks Jessica!)

Walking in historic Temple Square...

 Becoming acquainted with City Creek...

and reliving memories of first dates at The Spaghetti Factory...

Christmas this year was a tad different for me.  It was the first Christmas that I spent away from my family.  I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't really hard for me because it was.  But if I had to pick another family to spend the holidays with, I would definitely choose this one!  I feel so blessed to have wonderful in-laws that welcomed me as one of their own and I couldn't help but tear up when I had to leave them along with my own family.  But, as much as I hate leaving family, it was good to come back and relax in my own little home with just Peter and me.