THANKSGIVING

We went to Park City for Thanksgiving this year. We spent 3 days together as a family and everyone had fun!! We did puzzles, played board games, watched movies, ate good food, got in the hot tub. We had a talent show and all of the kids were soo cute. (Even Brad Sr. played his harmonica) This is definitley a Thanksgiving to remember.

Halloween

Bradley & Brian went to a halloween party on Friday, They dressed up like Mario, Luigi and Wario. Brookelyn had a couple of parties and dressed like a witch and a pumpkin. Bubba didn't dress up he just walked around with his friends.

Brandon's 1st deer

We went deer hunting at Bear Lake this past weekend. Brad and all 3 boys have deer tags. Brandon shot his first deer! How exciting, he took 3 shots and finally on the third shot he hit it.

We now have an elk and a deer to fill up our freezer. We'll see if Brad, Bradley or Brian get one this year, This will be Bradley's last hunt for 2 years so I'd like to see him get one, or at least go out hunting a couple of more times before the hunt is over. So over the last 3 years all 3 of my boys have gotten their 1st deer. We are so proud of them.

Brian's Cast

Well Brian cut his cast off of his arm last night, He couldn't wait to get it off. I told him 2 more weeks and he was pretty mad at me. He had his friend Jordan help him, I had no idea they were out in the garage doing this. Well they cut on it for along time and finally gave up, They'd made a big mess of it (I should have made him wear it to school like that ha,ha)When Brad got home from his meetings I asked him if he would help Brian get it off, It only took Brad a few minutes to cut it off with the right tools. Hopefully we won't be at the ER with him for a broken wrist any time soon!

ELK HUNTING

We went hunting at Elk Ridge this past week and a half. Brad had a limited entry bull elk tag and Bradley had a spike or cow elk tag. They got up at 4:00 in the morning every day and stalked the elk. They saw some nice ones on the opening day but they didn't want it to end so quickly and hoped to see bigger elk so they let them go. They hiked for hours each day, They saw a few bears and alot of bear foot prints(that made me and Brookie a little nervous at night)Brad shot a 6 point Bull elk On Saturday morning, it took 7 hours to get it quartered and packed back to camp. He's gonna have the head mounted ( I haven't seen him this excited in a long time) He shot it with his bow and arrow.

Bradley shot a spike right before dark on Saturday evening, ( He was sooo excited) they went and looked for it for a couple of hours but couldn't find it, they got up early on Sunday and could only find 2 drops of blood, they found the bloody arrow,they looked for a while then had to give up because we had an 8 hour drive home. Bradley is really bummed about leaving it but we really didn't have a choice. He can still hunt for elk for a few more weeks so hopefully he can get one.

We camped in the dirt for 11 days and 10 nights (except for the one night I drove with the kids for 2 hours into town to get a hotel room, take a shower do laundry and sleep in a real bed) We have never camped that long before, it was dirty but we had alot of fun, Hopefully the kids will always have good memories of this trip. We were really excited to have lyman come up for a few days. He has a tag like Bradley so he got to hunt too, Maybe him and Bradley can hunt together .

Brian's cast

Brian went bridge jumping about 3 weeks ago (after I told him I didn't think he should go because I had a feeling he would get hurt)He climbed on the bridge then up the steel beams above the bridge and got attacked by bee's, he lost his footing and fell on the bridge instead of in the water. He came home with a fat lip, bruises, and cuts, he complained about his wrist for a couple of days but didn't want me to take him to the doctor. I called the doctor and they didn't want to see him for at least 5 days so the swelling would be gone, They found 2 fractures and decided they better cast it because he's so active. He can't go to the skate park or get it wet. They are only gonna make him wear it for 4 weeks. Hopefully next time I have a bad feeling he'll listen to me. They go bridge jumping alot, but I just didn't feel good about it that day. It's hard to give your kids advice then watch them make mistakes when they don't listen. We are thankful that he didn't get more hurt, It could have been alot worse!

Bear Lake

Brad & the kids had fun burying Austin in the sand

We went to Bear Lake for a few days with the Coles. As always we had a blast! we thought we'd get some 4 wheeling, sun and boating in before the kids start school. (Brandon & Brookelyn started on Tues.)

Happy Birthday Brookie!!

Brookelyn turned 11 on Wed. we had a little family party for her. On Sat. she had a party with her friends. She had alot of fun. See her blog for more pictures of her birthday.

http://brookelud.blogspot.com