Christmas and New Year's

I can't believe it's 2010 already! December and Christmas flew by. Keith only had Christmas and New Year's off from work so we hurried up to Idaho to spend as much time with his family as possible on those two weekends. I spent the month baking treats and Christmas shopping between work days. When we finally made it to the ranch we enjoyed many fun family activities.

On Christmas Eve we made it in time for the ward Christmas party, where we we able to join the family in singing some cowboy Christmas carols. It is so fun to hear Keith sing because he gets really into it and isn't afraid to sing loud. He even adds special touches like instead of the ring we had to repeat in one chorus he sang ring-a-ling-a-ling several times and actually made it sound good. He is funny. Christmas morning was filled with many great gifts and happy smiles. We had a delicious Christmas feast in the afternoon after playing with all the gifts (which with the Crandall family means shooting all your new guns). Keith and Clay couldn't have beamed more as they tried to show each other up with their shooting skills. At night we told stories and laughed with Keith's siblings. We also had a fun day of ice skating. Keith and I have perfected our paired skating skills and are now ready for competition. :) Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so we didn't get any pictures. We ate lots of food and treats and hot chocolate! It's not a holiday without the treats!

New Year's Day was again filled with shooting since Keith bought a couple boxes full of clay pigeons (which I learned are not actual birds, but are round fluorescent orange discs that can be flown in the air with a funny chair contraption). I found it was a little above my skill level to shoot something that is moving, but I had a better record than all the boys at shooting Keith's new 9mm gun (for those who are not from utah or idaho and no very little about guns this is the kind in the movies like oceans 11 that are small and scary guns people use to kill each other). So you could say I am adapting pretty well to the ranching lifestyle. We did some other activities other than shooting like playing card games and watching movies. Also it snowed so we played in it and Clay pulled Deseret and I around on a sled with the four-wheeler. It was pretty neat to watch Keith's dad use a big tractor to plow away the snow from the driveway all the way to the road. We went to the hot pots in Lava Hot Springs while it was snowing, which was way fun! As we were leaving to come home (literally in the car backing out of the driveway), Keith's dad saw a rat out by the barn and shouted to Clay and Keith to get a gun. You wouldn't believe how fast Keith and Clay ran out each with a gun in hand loading the bullets in crazy fast mode. It was a race. I don't know who shot it first, but I know they both shot it enough times that no one would doubt it was dead. It was hard to come home to regular life again, but we sure had a fun holiday time!

Thanksgiving to Christmas

Thanksgiving in San Diego was very fun! Keith and I enjoyed a little sun and warmth. My mom and aunts prepared a Thanksgiving feast that we ate for days. My mom made 9 dozen orange rolls, which is everyones favorite part and were gone by the end of the day. I guess you could say we ate a lot! We visited with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We played volleyball in the backyard and had an around the world ping-pong tournament. Keith's favorite activity is always sitting in the spa, which we did as many times as possible while there. My mom had her tables set up and decorated for weeks beforehand. They looked great of course. She is good at that stuff. We saw the Blind Side on Thanksgiving day and then the girls saw New Moon the next day while the boys golfed. We shopped and played games, unfortunately it rained on Saturday so we didn't get to go to the Zoo. So we will do that next time. Sunday came and it was so hard to think about leaving so Keith who had to be back for work on Monday left and let me stay without him for a couple more days. He was so nice! My mom and I were able to take all of Thanksgiving down and put up her Christmas before I left and still fit in some more shopping. It was amazing. After that I was excited to get home to Keith and put up our Christmas decorations!

Thanksgiving Pictures:










Christmas Decorations at my mom's house and me in my new red boots:







My Christmas decorations:






My mom made this sign for me and since we don't really have room for a tree and I can't find stockings that I like yet I hung some of my favorite ornaments from it. My favorites are the ones Keith's mom gave us of Keith's Christmas nursery pictures. He was such a cute squish!

Thanksgiving in San Diego!

I am so excited to have a break from the cold snow and to see my family again. We are driving to San Diego tonight, barely making it in time for Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. Each day has been pre-planned and packed with many fun activities, food, movies, hot tubbing and even a trip to the Zoo! The Zoo will be a new experience for Keith and I know he will love it. After all, it is world famous! Keith is also ready to practice his golf game some more. Bring on the fun! I'll update with pictures later. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Updates

Recently on the Life of Keith and Tricia:
(I'm sorry that is so cheesy, we have been watching Veronica Mars episodes a lot lately.)



This picture is just proof that I have been supporting Keith in his new golfing endeavors at the golfing range. Though what I should be posting is a picture of the black bruise/goose egg on Keith's shin from his last golfing range experience between two cement walls, where he slightly nicked the ball and it bounced off the wall back to his leg. I must also mention he did this twice on the same spot. Too bad we didn't take a picture. When I first felt it I was sure a bone was poking through.

A week ago Keith and I hiked Ensign Peak in Salt Lake and it was a beautiful, warm day. It was really neat to see what Brigham Young and the apostles saw and envisioned for the future overlooking the Salt Lake Valley.








Last Friday evening I drove up to Park City to meet Keith after work for a fun date. I went early of course to check out the fun outlet mall before Keith was done with work. Then we drove to Main Street and walked around to see all the shops. The first store Keith spotted was a cowboy boots store. Surprised? Keith was in Heaven! I must admit it was the coolest boot store i have ever been in, too. We had a lot of fun looking at all the custom made and designed boots. Keith would tell me all the different animals used to make them like crocodile, rattlesnake, lizard, ostrich, shark and alligator. I even saw some be-dazzled ones with lots of sparkle. We picked out which ones we would get if we had a couple thousand dollars. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of the boots so you'll just have to imagine their greatness. After browsing around we went to a Mexican restaurant with a salsa bar, where you can get whatever you want (I am still not sure you were allowed to have as many as you wanted). But Keith had our table arrayed with cups of every different salsa and he had to constantly wipe the sweat dripping from his face as he tried them all! And yes we didn't feel so great after, but it was a fun adventure.




For family night on Monday we met up with some friends in Provo and had a fun Halloween dinner and then carved pumpkins. Keith did all the carving since he is good at that kind of stuff and I was in charge of pulling out all of the guts. It was a lot of fun! I told him to do something unique and creative so since he has been obsessed with the Phantom of the Opera lately and has made us watch it several times, he decided to make a phantom pumpkin with a mask. He used his skinning skills for the mask, but don't ask where he got those skills. It did turn out pretty cool though.

Keith's Birthday

Saturday was Keith's 24th Birthday. His presents were really easy this year because he got them himself. He needed winter tires for his car and got them for a good deal online. He has been trying out golf lately and found a set of clubs online for a good deal also. And he needed some new jeans for winter, which we also ordered online. I am surprised we ever need to leave our house anymore since everything can be purchased online.

My dad came for a visit this weekend too. He made a sort of golf trip out of it, which Keith was so excited for now that he has his own clubs to try out. (Keith practiced at the golfing range all week to prepare for golfing with my dad). So Keith went golfing on his birthday with my dad, his friend Mike, and cousin Wes. They had a fun time. When they got home Keith's mom and family stopped by for a quick visit, then we went to dinner at Keith's favorite restaurant, Ruby River. Of course! A steakhouse is always appropriate for Keith's Birthday.

After dinner, Keith's brother Reed and sister Stephanie came up from Provo for some cake, ice cream, and games. Overall I think Keith enjoyed the day.

Labor Day Weekend in Yellowstone

We had a really fun trip with Keith's family to Yellowstone this weekend. We camped at a really nice camp site with bathrooms, cabins (we slept in tents and Keith and I had our own tipi tent), grass, picnic tables and really it was as good as I can imagine camping to be. We went swimming in the fire hole (keith said it was called that because it was warm, but it was not warm), which is a natural slide area in a river, and we saw old faithful spray though it has become less faithful on it's eruption time. We saw the hot mud springs which are pretty blue and orange colors, but are stinky from the thermophiles (which we read are microscopic living organisms that can thrive in boiling hot water). Oh and as for wildlife we saw tons of buffalo and two elk with collars on. As Keith's family is from a ranch with these animals living in their backyard, they were very unimpressed and frustrated with the traffic caused by cars of people who have never seen wildlife (like me before marrying Keith) who stopped instantly right in the middle of the one lane road. (Keith's family wanted to see real stuff like bears.) The landscape was very beautiful with so much water and trees though. We really had a fun time and of course ate way too much because Keith's mom makes a lot of good food! And we all know good food is the only requirement for a great vacation. Keith's sister, Deanna, took many more pictures than me, but I'll post some that I took to give you an idea.

Update

BYU Graduation



Keith's brother Reed returned from his mission in Cambodia



Keith took me to the Spaghetti Factory for my Birthday. It was really fun and I hadn't seen him for a week. I had just come back from my San Diego trip, which was so fun, but I did miss him!






And now I have been looking for a job/trying not to spend too much money decorating our new apartment. Keith got this cute table from a store in Idaho that we had credit from and I only have Halloween decorations so far.