Shooting with the Shaw's

This last year for Christmas I gave Daren a membership to the Issaac Walton Legue. They have a place here in Ames that has shooting ranges, a lake, and a camping area. Its kind of become our home away from home. We spend a lot of time out there shooting and hiking. A few weekends ago we took our friends the Shaw's out there camping and then woke up and spent the morning shooting. It was so much fun. Looking forward to deer and duck season this year.

Daren's Fishing Trip

While we were home Daren went ice fishing with my brother Jacob and his brother Sean. They had a great trip. Daren caught a ~22 inch fish and Jacob caught ~20 inch one. Daren was really excited to spend part of our trip home ice fishing. He was really excited to find out that an out of state day fishing pass is only twelve dollars. So

He'll be able to go fishing whenever we go home. Not that he doesn't get enough of it here with the river just a half a mile down the road.

Visit to Cassidy and Chris's

These are some of the pictures we took while we were visiting Chris and Cassidy's. We went down and spent the day in Pocatello. We went to Lava, ate at Butterburr's, visited with friends, and played DDR. We were also messing around with the smile setting on my camera. Nobody believed me that it would automatically take a picture when they smiled so they all had to give it a try.

It was a lot of fun to visit with them. We sure do miss them and are keeping our fingers crossed that Cassidy gets in here at Iowa.

Christmas Morning

We've been together for 5 or 6 Christmas's but this is the first time we had Christmas morning just the two of us. We were a little homesick not being able to go home over the holidays, but spending the morning together made up for it. We enjoyed just laying around in our pj's and watching movies. Our friend Anne came over for dinner, but other than that we just hung out. I got Daren a membership to the local shooting range, so all the gifts I got him had something to do with that. I made him bean bags to help sight in his guns. This was the first gift I had him open and he had no idea why I gave him bean bags. After he opened a few of his other gifts he figured it out. He was really excited about his membership. His key wouldn't become activated until the first of the year so we still haven't went out there. We're hoping to spend part of the weekend out there. Daren got me a sheep skin to use in my office. Its so soft and fits over the top of the bookcase just perfectly. I love it. Our friends Chris and Cassidy sent us some gifts from Pocatello. They got Daren the hat he is wearing and the mouse Echo is playing with. The mouse makes noise when you hit it. At first she was scared of it, but then all the sudden it was her favorite toy. It was a great Christmas! And we got to go home shortly afterwards to see friends and family.

Putting up Christmas Decorations

Here are some of the pictures we took while we were putting up our Christmas decorations.

Daren's First Iowa Deer

Here are the famous pictures of Daren's deer. Its the first one he's ever got with a bow and arrow. The other pictures is one of Daren trying on his new insulated camo pants my mom got him for his birthday this last June. He was so excited to use them this winter. But it stayed so warm here through November that he only ended up needing them for his late shotgun hunt in December. The picture of the two of us was during the shotgun season. The weekend after finals I got up with him and sat in the snow with him all morning. It was really cold and he owes me a movie for going with him. We did decide that it would be fun to get snow shoes and go snow shoeing through some of the parks around here.

Covered Bridges of Madison County

On our way home from Winterset we stopped by a couple of the covered bridges from the movie Covered Bridges of Madison County. They were really popular and a ton of people were there taking pictures of them. We decided next summer we're going to have to go find all seven of them. Daren really likes this picture of his Mustang. His car is one of his pride and joys and he was really bummed that we didn't have time to take it up in the mountains near Pocatello and take pictures of it. But this kind of made up for it. I also put in the pictures of his pick-up we took in Pocatello so you'd know what I'm talking about. The day that we went and did all this was one of the best days ever. The weather was perfect for a November day. It was about sixty degrees and was a great way to end Thanksgiving Break.