Christmas Overview

Christmas this year was great, in so many ways. Since it is currently past Valentine's Day, I will just show you some of the highlights.

*Hayride, bonfire, dinner with family and friends at the Wheelers. When you are cold like this. . .
You need a hot chocolate mustache like this to make you feel better.
*Progressive dinner with the Ellsworths (sorry no pics)
*Santa at Bass Pro Shop (He was terrific, singing carols and talking with the kids forever, although as the pics show, the boys are a bunch of Santa scaredy cats. Keane is standing outside of the frame most of the time. . .clutching his hat)A boy can dream can't he? Sorry Cash, you weren't THAT good this year.
*Christmas Eve movie (Tale of Despereaux) with Ellsworths
*Luminarias--yes we are in short sleeves and flip flops, it wasn't that cold!
*Getting in our footsie pajamas and sleeping on the "magic" (hide-a) bed so that we can see out the front window and wait for Santaand putting out some swag for our visitors.
***Christmas Morning!!!Seriously, can't the dang reindeer finish one carrot before starting another one??? Don't they know there are starving reindeer in Africa!!!
And then check the nerve of these arctic mammals. Yes that's right, POOP. In. my. yard. Eeeeew.On the way from one party to the next. A little tired don't ya think?A memorable day, with fabulous family and three little angels that made it so much fun. My favorite is watching them cling to their new treasures. I mean I have always dreamed of having a son and watching him doze off into a Christmas slumber while snuggling his CHAINSAW. Okay but this one is frealz. Lucy got a cabbage patch from my parents named Lyndia, (mom's name is Linda, coincidence? I think not!) I love watching her play with it and tuck it in and all that stuff. It brings back all the good years I had with my cabbage patch doll, Amy.
I love Lucy. The End.

Wheeler Wash

After you drive through the mountains and snow, and your car looks like this:
you must visit the posh Wheeler Car Wash. Where you can dine at our oreos and milk cafe (courtesy of Lucy)See wild animals, this is the rare miniature schnauzer, don't worry she is behind a protective screen and is no danger to small children, only spare socks and food scraps.All of your seats and car seats will be detailed by this guy who was holding a "will vaccuum for oreos" sign at the corner. He seems harmless.Then, drive off into the beautiful Arizona sunset. Thank you for your patronage.

Hunt For A Christmas Tree 2008

The day after Thanksgiving we went up with all of the Wheelers to do some tree huntin'. Armed with Ty's chainsaw, an empty trailer, and a bunch of anxious children we headed North.

It was a blast! Although we made the sad discovery that no matter how many layers the kids had on, nothing we had was very waterproof. Which means that they got cold very quickly. (note the tear on the left cheek--we had been out of the car for 5 minutes--no joke)
Nothing some goldfish can't cure.
They hurriedly picked this tree and demanded we go back to the car.
Anyhow, after the qualified hunters did their job, we all ended up going home with some great trees. Although they didn't all live up to expectations when they got home (ahem--the Teeles), we did our part to thin the forest and prevent forest fires.

A fantastic tradition.

PS-Evidence that bigfoot is alive and well.
The next few photos were all taken on the way home and are a few of the reasons I love Arizona!
More chainsaw massacre. . .Beautiful.

Thanksgiving Recap?????

I know, I know. This is really bad but we have gotta start where we left off.

The morning began with a lovely run with the Matt and Nikkii.
And when the sky looks like this,the worms begin their annual Thanksgiving exodus to the bountiful land of Gutterville,which can lead to early morning Thanksgiving smiles like this:Which help distract him from waiting to ride these:While they are being repaired by these two, who can pretty much fix anything.
The car ride looked like this:
Notice that we've got smiles on 2 outta 3. Mr. Grey Skies on the right was so upset that we made his hair look "handsome". Every time with this kid! He refuses to let us put any kind of product in his hair unless we reassure him endlessly that is will not result in any degree of handsomeness in any way, shape or form. We have to tell him over and over that he looks fuzzy. And then he is ok. Seriously.

Onto dinner, which was some fabulous food to say the least at Aunt Shawna and Uncle Paul's house. Fun to skype with a few missing cousins (Katie and Sarah!), watch some football, and let the kid's play.

THE END

Oops I Did It Again. . .

OH. MY.

Do I have some catching up to do.

Better late than never I suppose,

So here goes!

Christmas Down Der…….on da San Juan…..

Two weekends ago Christmas came early for me! (By the way this is Ty! I am hijacking my wifes blog...) I chose to fish the San Juan River in New Mexico with my brother Damon and brother in-laws Chris and Tyson. We found a weekend that would work for all…and put it on the calendar. Thus the planning began this included travel arrangements, fly tying and endless reading of forums to get the low down on what was happening on the Juan. The last time I fished this river I went three days with only three fish, my dad went three days with no fish so YES to say the least this was a very intimidating river for me. With the plans in place and the endless notes taken we were ready!

(Fish Eating Midges on top of the Water)

We were ready until the night before when the dreaded phone call came from Chris, he was stuck in Scranton Pennsylvania because of freezing rain. (Chris is a pilot) We weren’t sure if he was going to get out of there…. best case scenario was he would be able to fly into Durango Colorado Friday morning the worst case was that he wouldn’t make it at all. We hoped for the best and went forward with the plans. All day Thursday we weren’t sure what was going to happen and then finally after sitting on the plane for over two hours I get this text from Chris “Later Scranton” from then on I knew we were going to have a great weekend.( Who said that singing “I have Sunshine in my soul today…”) wouldn’t work?
We definitely made it a fun filled two days packed with fishing, traveling, comedy and just a “good ol time!” We left Thursday after work for a seven hour journey that quickly turned into eight and a half hours since we stopped at the Gallup Wal-Mart. With a grocery cart full of food diet Pepsi and fishing license we were on our way to Farmington New Mexico and the San Juan. We arrived at 2:30 a.m and just as we hit the sack Chris was getting up and flying to Denver. After a few hours of sleep and a good breakfast we found our way to Durango Colorado to pick up Chris at the airport and shortly after we were off to river.
Everything was falling into place, not as planned but it all came together. The first day offered up few fish but the ones that were caught were nice fish that were worth the effort that we put in. We finished the evening with all of us catching fish Chris and I hooked into two very nice fish as Damon held his own. I think Tyson spent most of his time tying up his fly’s for some reason he kept loosing them somewhere along the way of our travels. Hungry and cold (From sitting in 40 degree water all day) we thought we would drive the 45 min. to eat at Costa Vita’s. This was well worth the drive in and so was our trip to Wal-Mart for some hand warmers. On our three minute drive to the Farmington Walmart Chis was telling us about a time when he was in the checkout aisle there. There was a Navajo man he started talking to and he asked him where he lived...he said "Kayenta". He asked what he was buying...he said "Dog food"....I asked if he had driven all the way from Kayenta (130 miles away) to purchase dog food only....he answered, "They don't have big bags of dog food in Kayenta"....So it was upon entering Walmart that it all came together. Right in front of us, an old Navajo was man pushing a shopping cart with nothing in it but 1 large bag of dog food....Classic

The next day we had success and a lot of fun we all had caught fish and had some great laughs. I have to mention that on the trip home we hit some bad snow and winds on the rim. After sometime Damon couldn’t handle the snow in the headlights and became deathly sick. After three stops we were able to get him to sleep so we could get home. Thanks to Damon, Tyson and Chris for a great weekend I am still recovering after getting home at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.

(Lucky Catch!)

(When all goes well you catch ....)

(This And these lead to....)

(This....)

(And this........)

(Not sure what he's measuring......)

(This guy must be endorsed by Orvis or maybe he is just rich!)