And my personal favorite...trying to fight the effects of rigor mortis while attempting to move in a humiliating quilted, puffy, pink coat. Pooooor Gizzzzmo.

Xmas With the Kids

Because we have no real children of our own, we take great pride in fawning over, and yes...even occasionally dressing our dogs in humiliating outfits. This year's new low...making them open Christmas presents. Not only do we look completely insane documenting their every move on Christmas, but we get to dress them in silly outfits as well. This year I bought them new coats, because the myriad of sweaters and little pink t-shirts wasn't preventing the harsh bite of the winter cold. They hate them. As you will see below. And P.S. after 6 years of begging and pleading, I finally got my stand mixer and the best part is, it's pink! Stay tuned for this week's nail biting adventure in the new year, where two old fogies try to stay up past 10:30 to hopefully await the dawning of a new era. Excitement around every corner. :)

A Gathering of the Minds

Had our annual pre-Christmas get together with the friends last night. Ate a lot of Mexican and played a lot of Guitar Hero.

Ayda trying very hard to pretend that she's not tired.

Merry Christmas to Us (a tad early)

Last week we had a very pleasant early Christmas delivery. We bought a new 50 inch plasma tv online the day after Thanksgiving and it finally arrived. We also bought a new Playstation 3, surround sound, and my personal favorite, Guitar Hero World Tour. Comes with the drums and vocals, the whole nine yards. Pretty much we have been playing with our new toys nonstop for a week. We are obviously quite finished with Christmas.

Here is Kelly trying to sort through all of our new devices. Amazingly enough, he was able to get it all set up with time to spare to watch Wall-E. Gooood Huuuusband. :)

The lighting of a tree

After all is said and done, this is the final product.

The Cutting of a Tree

Yesterday, as tradition would have it, we cut down our Christmas tree. Kelly and I, Kathy and Dennis, Shauna and John, Jay and Joy, Sheryl and Jeff, Alaina, Taylee, Matthew and Parker, all drove up to Heber to cut down our trees this year. It was pretty snowy up there and the freezing rain didn't help driving conditions very much either. We enjoyed a very interesting and at times frightening ride home. Also, as tradition would have it, Kelly found the tallest tree in the forest and we decided that had to be the one...minus 20 or so feet. The tree started out looking pretty big, but we had to cut a bunch off the bottom to keep the top from dragging on the ground all the way home. Also, one side of the tree broke to peices when it landed so it ended up looking smaller in the end. Still, a nice looking tree and as always, a fun filled Grizwold Christmas experience!

Our house, in the middle of our street

Today officially marks the first day of holiday decorating. Fortunately, I begged Kelly to put lights on the house weeks ago before it got cold. Because he's such a WONDERFUL husband, he climbed up on our very scary roof over the driveway and put lights on the house. He says he will never do this again, buuuut...I bet he will. We put up the small Christmas tree in the formal room last night and tomorrow we're getting up at the butt crack of dawn to cut down a Christmas tree for the living room. We figure we can get away with just under a 12 footer this year. (We still have scuff marks on the ceiling from attempting a bigger tree last year). Although it is very dark, and you cannot decipher the colors of the lights too well...behold the holiday spectacle!

Even More of NYC

...And more that I couldn't fit on the second post, as I have yet to master the formatting of this silly program.

More of NYC

Here's more pix that I couldn't fit on the first post.

New York City

As promised, here are some pix of our recent trip to New York. Kelly had to go to New York for work this past week to become the expert on capillary electrophoresis for Cephalon, Salt Lake City. He left on Monday and I decided to meet up with him on Wednesday since I have never been to New York. We stayed on the Jersey City side, in an immensely overpriced hotel with a grand view of the Manhattan skyline. We had a ton of fun when Kelly wasn't working. On Thursday, I maneuvered my way through the subway system to find my way to the three hour river cruise around Manhattan that I had booked for myself. It was really cold, but really worth it. I got to cruise past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, under 20 something bridges, past Yankee Stadium and around the Palasades. On Friday, we went to see Wicked at the Gershwin Theater, which was really great. The sets and costumes were gorgeous and the music wasn't bad either. :)

We also went atop The Empire State building to steal a great view. (Even colder up there) Ice skating at Rockafeller Center has begun already and there are signs of the much anticipated Christmas season around every corner...on Halloween night.

We also got to see Grand Central Station, Wall Street, Tiffany's, Saks 5th Ave, Central Park, Battery Park, Ground Zero, The Chrysler Building, Times Square, Little Italy, China Town, The Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum with a final stop at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, among other places I'm sure I forgot to mention.

My cell phone has a pedometer inside and after every day, we found that we were averaging somewhere between 15 - 18 miles of walking every day. We are very tired. And sore. I suppose that explains why the majority of people in New York are in pretty good shape.

Goin' a Huntin'

This year Kelly and I both got deer tags. Kelly was kind enough to buy me a .270 Winchester Short Mag for Christmas a couple of years ago, the instrument by which we have filled our freezer with loads of ven. I also took hunters safety with my friend Leslie and a number of small children. This year has been extremely un-fruitful, because the harsh winter last year killed off a lot of the deer. Between the two of us this entire month, we have gotten nothing. We've been up to Bear lake, where we saw a ton of doe, China Meadows, Blacks Fork Canyon, and Red Rock, to name a few. Every night after work we've gone up Farmington Canyon in hopes of catching a glimpse of something, but if nothing else, the hiking has afforded us numerous gorgeous views. Kelly has drawn out for the cow elk hunt this November, so hopefully we'll be grillin' up elk burgers sometime soon! Stay tuned for adventures in NYC!

7/20/08 Dinosaur Museum

Yesterday we took Alaina and Taylee to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. Although they would be reluctant to tell you so, they really did enjoy themselves. Alaina enjoyed touching the petrified dinosaur poo and Taylee really liked the movie about "fissees" that we got to watch through some pretty retro 3-D glasses.

After the dinosaur musem, we all went to Cabelas to see some more "fissees" that Alaina very matter-of-factly pointed out were either dead or looked nearly dead. All in all, a very fun Saturday.

New Truck

Well we bought a new old truck! The prices have dropped so low because of the recent gas prices so we decided to take advantage and upgrade from our beater 1976 Ford. I'm really sad to see the nice upholstery work that we did on the Ford go to someone else, so we'll have to see what happens with that. So here is a picture of the 1998 Dodge Ram we just bought. Also here is a picture of the cool seat that Dad helped us make for the old Ford. Well maybe we won't sell the Ford for a while, and maybe we'll just hold onto the seat if we do sell it.

The dog days of summer

Here is a compilation of random summer activites. Please note that our lack of swimming pool forces us to the next best thing...SLIP'N SLIDE! More to follow, so much to catch up on!

Timpanogos Cave 9/7/08

Today we went visit Timpanogos Cave since neither of us has been there since we were kids. The hike up was fun. We did the 1.5 miles and 1000' elevation climb in 18 minutes. I guess we're not in as bad of shape as we thought. The cave was a nice Sunday morning activity.