thanksgivingness

(Rebekah, Seth and Analee with the turkeys we made for Family Home Evening. Bekah helped to cut out the paper and choose the colors for the tail.)

For Thanksgiving we played musical families and visited with both sides of the family. First we started out the day with going to Grandma and Grandpa Scott's. We (Jessica, Tyson, Grandpa Wirkus, Grandma and Grandpa Scott, plus our family) ate a tremendous amount of food, thanks to Grandma. Bekah loved the ham. We took it easy for a while, and then we packed it up and drove to Great-Grandma Grover's house. There we ate more food and visited with Rachel, Justin, Kent, Grandma and Grandpa Grover and Old Nana (as Bekah calls Great-Grandma Grover).

The day after Thanksgiving was at least as eventful as the Big Turkey Day itself. We loaded up the truck with fifty layers of warm clothes apiece and met up with the Scotts to hunt for the elusive Perfect Christmas tree. It was actually warmer at Fall Creek than here in Idaho Falls, so I went easy on the layers so we wouldn't be sweating. Bekah tromped through the traces of snow on the ground, held hands with Daddy or Aunt Jessica or rode on shoulders. Analee was strapped on my stomach inside my coat. The Scotts and Grovers both found handsome trees, and then we ate lunch before packing back up and heading home.

After unloading the truck, taking a shower and changing clothes, our family set off to Rexburg to celebrate Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary at a family party at their church. All of Grandma and Grandpa's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were there (minus one grandkid who is serving a mission), and there was much merriment in eating, talking, looking at photo albums and successfully taking a monstrous group picture.

Today the girls and I are taking it easy at home (and trying to clean all of our messes up) while Seth tries one last time to get an elk this season. Hopefully we'll be eating elk steaks soon!

polish up the spanglish, we've got mission photos

For a while now I've wanted to scan all of the photos from my mission to the Rio Grande valley in South Texas, but many things stopped me from doing it. Okay, mostly it was one thing: being lazy. Aaron Burr told me to keep putting it off, so I did. But no more, Mr. Vice-President!

Over the last few days I've done a marathon of sorting, scanning, resizing, cropping, renaming, removing duplicates, and converting, and have come up with 431 photos which span the two years of my mission. Once they were digital, I thought, "Why not let Big Brother have a look?", so off to the inter-tubes they went.

I've arranged the photos into 5 albums:

• MTC


• Roma


• McAllen (part 1)


• McAllen (part 2)


• Laredo

I haven't got any captions on the photos (yet), but the filenames contain the date (for some I was only sure of the month, not the day) and the photos are in chronological order in their respective albums.

Anyway, I hope someone out there on the Endless Wire enjoys this glimpse into the happiest/saddest easiest/hardest years of my life. If you do, leave a comment or drop me a line.

-Ciao,

Seth

time for a sugar high

Rebekah got to really go trick-or-treating for the first time this year with her dad. After they made the rounds, Seth and Bekah ended up at Grandma Grover's house where Analee and I met up with them. We then drove to Grandma and Grandpa Scott's house, Great-Grandma Grover's house, and Great-Grandpa Wirkus' house. Bekah got to shake her tiny booty to show how she could wag her tail, and Analee was quite the complacent little leopard.

At our house we only had four sets of trick-or-treaters all night, so between Bekah's bounty and our leftover treats, all of us have had enough sugar to keep the dentist busy.

my sister can beat up your dad

I just have to mention that my sister is the toughest chick on the planet. My sister can beat up your sister. My sister can probably beat up your dad.

We (Dad, Rachel, Rachel's husband Justin, and I) loaded up yesterday morning to venture out in search of the monster buck which will become Rachel's first. Early in the morning, we parked the pickup and walked up on top of a ridge. There we saw a herd of a dozen or so deer, including a really nice buck.

Rach got lined up for the shot and took it. She just missed. I was watching the deer through the binoculars, and wondered, "Why isn't she reloading for a second shot?" Then I looked over at her and saw the blood...

The shooting stick monopod-thing she was using to steady herself had been set a little too short, so she had placed her face a little too close to the scope. The recoil of the gun had thrust the scope backwards into her face, cutting her and blackening her eye.

We got the bleeding stopped, got in the truck and sped down the road to try to cut the deer off over the next ridge. She ended up getting another shot, but the deer was running and quite a ways off, so it just wasn't in the cards for us just then.

To make a long story short, we hunted the rest of the day and Rachel didn't complain a bit. We saw 129 deer (but only two bucks worth shooting at). We got home well after dark, after which Rachel and Justin drove to the hospital where she got 11 stitches. Now that's a woman.

So, here's to Rachel, my tough, beautiful sister.

shootin' people

The other day I shot engagement pictures for a former student of mine, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with the world. We shot these at Sportsmans Park and Constitution Way in Idaho Falls. We chanced upon railroad cars while we were up on the bridge, so we decided to mosey on over there. I made sure there was no engine attached before we started climbing around on them ... I didn't want to end up on an unexpected train ride.