Day After Thanksgiving at the Phoenix Zoo

  The day after Thanksgiving we went to the Phoenix Zoo.  On the way there my dad was complaining that he didn't have any sunglasses, so we stopped at a CVS to get him a cheap pair, then met everyone else at In-N-Out for lunch.  Here's a fun picture from lunch -

Jenny with Carter and Jon with Grayson.

 The zoo was pretty fun.  We saw lots of neat animals like an elephant, rhinoceros, monkeys, lions, tigers, and horses.  There was a petting zoo also and the kids like to pet the goats.  Here are a bunch of pictures -

Loaded the boys in the double stroller.

Whitney would scratch my beard and head with her tiny fingers and it felt way good!

Me... Just kidding, that's an elephant.

The girls liked to coast on the downward slopes.

Grayson and Carter tag team petting that goat.

Whitney loves animals.

Scarlett was tired of petting the goats and wanted to try and knock one out with that weight.  Just kidding, I don't know what she was doing with that.

Sierra loves animals too, and she's good at posing for pictures.  She's cute.

Me petting a goat.  I wanted to name him Billy-Goat or Mr. Goat T.

Caitlin looking good with the parrot.

Carter and Grayson climbing to get a better view.

Maybe horses aren't scary...

Nope, they are definitely scary!

Whitney and Sierra love horses though.

Whitney taking a break resting on Auntie Caitlin.

Carter pointing at the monkeys.

This was the kind of monkey he was pointing at.

Kara and Jon

Me... Just kidding, that's a rhinoceros.

This is one of my favorite photos from the zoo.  What a great action shot!

  Afterwards, we went to eat at Joe's BBQ.  It was pretty good and a good way to end the day's activities.  Here's some pictures -

Sierra likes her orange soda.

Thanksgiving

  This year's Thanksgiving was pretty fun.  We started out by doing a Turkey Trot run.  We didn't do an official race because they were super expensive, so Caitlin and I just decided to do our own run.  We did a new loop that we've never tried before and we totally guessed wrong on the distance.  We thought it would be about 4 miles, but it was 6!  It was way funny because during the run we thought it was 4 miles the entire time and were talking about how Caitlin used to run 6 miles easily when she was running a lot in Provo.  Then when we got home, I mapped out the run and found out it was 6 miles!  So, it turns out she still can run 6 miles easily.  No one was home when we got back from our run, so I set up the camera on the bumper of the Lincoln and set the timer for these awesome Turkey Trot photos -

Here we are after our 6 mile run.

Running pose.

Posing like turkeys in case you couldn't tell.

  While we were running, my dad took the grandkids, Jenny and Jon to McDonald's for breakfast since it's just down the street so we wouldn't have to worry about making breakfast and so the kids could play in the play place.

Whitney, Dad, and Sierra.

Carter, Sierra, and Grayson

Eating some pancakes.  Carter likes to use the fork by himself.

  We ran over there (well, drove) to eat breakfast with them, but unfortunately breakfast had ended about 15 minutes before we arrived.  So I got some kind of chicken sandwich thing and Caitlin got a vanilla ice cream cone.  Awesome breakfast right?
  Thanksgiving dinner was pretty good!  We went to Uncle Paul and Aunt Jayne's house.  It was pretty sunny in the backyard, so we were moving the tables into the shade of the house.  After dinner, lots of people went on a walk down the wash.  The kids were riding bikes, razor scooters, roller blades, and just running.  My cousin Kayci's little boy, Merrick, was having trouble riding the scooter, so he stood toward the front of it and I got on the back and did all the pushing.  He was saying really funny stuff, like when we were looking at animal prints off the path in the dirt, he said they were from Velociraptors.  He also informed me that he knows everything about dinosaurs.  I guess you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.  After dinner, we just hung out inside chatting with family.  Here are some pictures of dinner -

Bryan, Kaitlin, Jason, and then Caitlin and me on the other side of the table.

Grayson just driving around after chowing down.

Sierra, Carter and Grayson.

Jon and Scarlett playing around.

  After Thanksgiving dinner, Caitlin and I went to Walmart for Black Friday shopping.  We missed the guaranteed time for the iPad Mini, so Caitlin waited in line there in case she was able to get one, and I ran to Target to wait in line there.  Caitlin's line stopped completely, but my line at Target was moving okay.  I started way behind the store to get in, and then the Apple products line was crazy long too.  I took a picture of the line behind Target and the line close to the front of the Apple products line.

  I got the iPad Mini at Target and then picked up Caitlin and Walmart and headed home.  When we got home, we played Catch Phrase with my parents, Jen, Jason, Jon and Kara.  It was pretty fun.

Scarlett's 3 Year-old Birthday Party

  Jon and Jenny and their families were in Arizona for Thanksgiving and Scarlett's birthday was the day before Thanksgiving so we all got to go to her Princess Party.  It was pretty fun and it was at a really big park.  Scarlett, Sierra and Whitney were wearing princess dresses and the kids all had fun playing at the park.  Here are some pictures.

Kara's mom was doing face painting for the kids.

Scarlett really liked how she looked with the face paint.  She was looking in the mirror for a long time!

Sierra had a nice butterfly painted on her face.

Grayson wasn't really into sitting still for a face painting, but he got a pretty cool dragon!

Grayson and Carter sliding.

Cousins!

Scarlett hitting the tiara piñata.

All the cupcakes.  Scarlett liked to pull the princess rigs off, lick the frosting and then put the ring back on the cupcake.

Carter and Uncle Jon.

I really like this sequence of Grayson taking Carter's light saber.

Scarlett was pretty excited about a lot of her gifts.

This is the gift Caitlin and I got for her and she was excited about it!  She loves Thomas!

Here's a good photo of Jon and Grayson.

This is what most of the present opening was like - Whitney and Sierra crowding in from both sides and helping.  Scarlett didn't seem to mind the help though.  It was pretty funny.