A Pictureless Thanksgiving

That's right, no pictures. We were too busy having fun to document it with photos.

We flew to Boise late Wednesday night, just in time to go to bed. On Thanksgiving day we went to my Grandparent's house for an early dinner. Not sure why but they always do a Thanksgiving lunch instead of a dinner. There was lots of food and family. It was really nice to see so much of my mom's family. I saw some cousins that I haven't seen in years. Love them.

On Friday we played volleyball for 4 hours in the morning, ate at Roe Ann's (a must when visiting Emmett), saw my Grandpa Mendenhall and listened to some of his memories from his service in WWII.

Saturday started the same way Friday had, with volleyball. That is one thing I love about my family. Enough of us play volleyball that when we go to Emmett, it is a guaranteed activity. After volleyball we rode the four-wheelers up into the foothills and went shooting. We shot a .22, an M1-.30, a 357 magnum, and a 30-6. I always forget how fun shooting is. I'm not an awesome shot but it is still fun.

On Sunday we went to church. After church we went to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Walker. It is very strange to talk with someone who knows that their life is coming to an end. But it was wonderful to spend that time with my grandpa. Just to be with him and listen as he shared stories and life lessons. I am so very grateful that we got to spend a few more days with him.

Josh's favorite day was Monday. We woke up early (4:30am) to go elk hunting. My dad had an elk tag and he let us come along to help look for game. We started hiking just before sunrise and we didn't see anything on four legs for at least 1.5 hours. We finally heard something and my dad took off after the sound. My dad seems to have endless stamina, especially when hunting (as any number of hunting partners). So he and Josh took off and I had no choice but to follow. They did end up seeing the source of the noise, but they were deer and not elk. We ended up hiking around for another 2 hours or so and we saw a lot more deer, but no elk. After getting back to the truck my dad suggested that we take a more scenic route back home. His guess was that it would add about 3o minutes to our 2 hour drive. 4 hours later we were back at my parent's house. It was a fun drive though, definitely worth the time. We had to put on chains because of all the snow and saw some really beautiful country. It was a fun day.

On Tuesday we went swimming at a local pool/hot spring, watched "The Help", and headed to the airport. We had a wonderful time. Thanks family for an awesome Thanksgiving.

Note 1: I lied. Our trip wasn't entirely pictureless, we have one. While we were hunting Josh took a picture of what we think is a wolf print. However the print in a pile of poo and is not clearly visible in the photo. I was not going to have the sole picture in this post be crap.

Note 2: The only thing missing from our Thanksgiving was Josh's family. We missed spending time with them but thanks to Cyber Monday airline tickets we will be a seeing them soon. Love you Conleys!