A Rigg Ranch Thanksgiving

We were very fortunate to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with Taber's family at their ranch near Grand Junction Colorado. Their property is just off the Colorado river and they have a little lake stocked with trout right in their back yard. Behind them stands the Colorado National Monument, a beautiful backdrop of plateaus and canyons. It is one of the most breathtaking and serene places to be. Before this trip we hadn't been back there in two years. It was so nice going back and introducing Teya and Brinley to such a beautiful part of the country.

For weeks before we went out all Teya talked about was riding Grandma's horsey Ben. It didn't take long before she was up in the saddle.

Brinley got to sit in Big Ben's saddle too and even took a brief little ride with Grandma. Her favorite thing though was just petting the horses and feeding them grass. She called the horse "buddy" because that's what she calls Monty and I guess horses and dogs are the same to her. Anyway, it was cute to hear her say, "Er-go Buddy," every time she fed him a bite.

Here are some more horse shots from a different day. You can see the monument in the background. Gorgeous. Teya and her cousin Sklya got to ride with Grandma this time.

Taber's brother Brett and his wife CJ came in from Arizona to be with us. They have 4 cute kids and Teya and Brinley loved being around their cousins. Here are some shots with Aunt CJ and River on Ben, and the 3 boys, Landon, Paker and River on Mindy.


Besides riding horses the other main attraction was fishing. I think I saw Taber out in that fishing boat more than anywhere else the entire trip. First thing in the morning and the last thing before the sun went down was fishing. He helped Teya catch her first fish and she was pretty proud of herself.

Here's Taber with the girls and his parents on one of their many fishing excursions.

Teya and Skyla getting ready to go out in the boat.

Some of our fine catches.
I even caught one once Taber let me use the lucky fishing pole.

And Brett and his boys on a walk down to the Colorado river.

At night we stayed busy too. One night we built a fire and sang songs and roasted s'mores. Another night we set off a pretty impressive display of fireworks. And one night we just jumped around and took funny airborne pictures. It doesn't really take much to keep us entertained : )

On Thanksgiving morning Taber and I went into town to run a Turkey Trot 5K. He beat me by 9 seconds but I set a new PR and finished 10th out of 77 in my age division so I was happy : ). It was a nice way to prepare for the feasting ahead!

For the big Thanksgiving dinner we went to Taber's older brother Jeff and Kathy's house. Kathy made an amazing meal and in true Thanksgiving fashion, we all ate way more than we should. My camera actually died at this point so here are some pics from Mama Rigg's camera of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins!

The rest of the vacation was filled with black Friday shopping, visit to the dinosaur museum, birthday celebration for Papa Rigg, game nights, tractor rides, and of course more fishing. On Thanksgiving there are so many things I am thankful for, but most of all I'm thankful for family. I only wish we lived closer so we could see them more! Here are a few more of my favorites with Teya's cousins.

Teya and Skyla. 4 years apart but total best buddies just the same.

Parker and Landon. Both as sweet as they are good looking.

All the Grandkids on Papa's tractor. We sure will miss seeing these cute faces!

10 Reasons why last week ROCKED!

Okay, really it all comes down to one reason, Grandma Karen came to stay for the week which means total awesomeness ensued! Here are some of the highlights of her stay with us.

She taught Teya how to play hopscotch and Teya loved it!

We got to go see the sculpture gardens by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Here are a bunch of pics of us by the famous spoon and cherry, one of the most eye popping sculptures in the garden.

Teya actually liked the sculptures and had a great time running around and asking us if the "vultures" were going to eat her stuffed animals.

We also took Grandma to the Mill city museum and learned all about the flour plants that made Minneapolis the largest flour milling city in the nation.

The biscuits just looked too good. : )

Here's the fam at the top of the flour plant.

And one of the biggest highlights was that Grandma watched the girls for 2 1/2 days while Taber and I took a weekend getaway in downtown Minneapolis! While we were gone Teya and Brinley had so much fun with Grandma they didn't even know we were gone.

Here are some pictures that Grandma took while we were away. Stickers, goggles, slides, parks, push toys, bubbles, books, coloring, and abc's are just a few of the things that Granmda used to entertain them .

Meanwhile Taber and I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing on the beaches of Lake Harriet, hitting some great restaurants downtown, bowling, going to the movies, staying up late, sleeping in late, and exploring downtown without a care in the world.

A million hugs and a millions thank yous to a wonderful Grandma for a wonderful week!

Adventures in Utah

We've still got three more days to go of our super packed trip to Utah but I thought I'd try to get up a post to summarize some of our adventures.

The flight was pretty successful. I flew out by myself with the girls a day early but it wasn't too bad thanks to movies on my iPod, lots of kids snacks, markers, crayons, stickers, and of course, Teya's cursed binky. Why is it that my baby doesn't need a binky on the airplane but my three year old does?

The next day we had a super Alaska Friends Rendezvous. Taber's brother Brett drove in from Arizona with his wife CJ and their 4 kids, his partner in crime and best buddy since 2nd grade Nathan came out from Michigan with his wife Laurel and their 3 kids, and his best man from our wedding Dave (another AK friend) and his wife Jodi who live in Utah all joined us for a night of Brazillian food at Tucanos. It was so much fun catching up with old friends. And Best of all, we had the night kid free thanks to my AMAZING sister who was kind enough to watch our TEN kids while we went out : ) She is a saint!

Sarah holding down the fort with all of our kids

The next day Taber's parents came in from Colorado and took us (and our many children) out to lunch where me, my sister in law CJ and my "sister friend" Laurel hooked it up with some awesome desserts! Then we herded the crew over to the Kangaroo Zoo. (bounce house haven) The kids went nuts and burned up a lot of energy.

Grandma Rigg ran around with the kids while Grandpa took advantage of the opportunity to catch up on some sleep. ; )On Sunday Taber's family and friends took off and we spent some time with the Uda family. My Mom made some Kaulua pig, Teriyaki Chicken, Chicken long rice and some awesome desserts (including her world famous fudge!) Between Tucanos and my mom's cooking I've probably eaten enough to feed a family of 10 for a month. So worth it though!

It's been especially fun seeing my youngest siblings Jake and Liz who are the only kids not married yet so I can relish all the juicy details of their dating lives. Liz's boyfriend was actually visiting from CA for the weekend so I got to meet him and see in person how head over heels he is for my sister. Ah young love! Jake also has some good prospects so I've been giving him all the tips an old married lady can give ; )

Yesterday we took the kids to Thanksgiving point to ride the ponies and feed the goats. Teya had a blast with her cousins and watching her a little piece of my heart ached knowing that in 3 days I have to take her away from them. : ( Thank goodness we have such great friends in MN to ease the pain of living far away from family!


Anyway, that's a little bit of what we've been up to in Utah. Stay tuned for more to come...

Girly Girl Initiation

When Grandma Karen comes to visit you know that everyone is going to get a little spoiled. This last week "Queen Grandma" (as Teya calls her) took "princess Teya" (her new preferred title since Grandma came to town) to get her very first pedicure. When we got there they told her to pick a color. We went to a wall with hundreds of bottles of nail polish, most of them varying shades of pink and red. Teya somehow found the blue one in that sea of red and couldn't wait to get her toes painted blue.
When she sat down her little legs could barely reach the water. I thought she would be scared but if Grandma was doing it than by golly she was going to do it too!
The guy who did her nails was so funny and cute with her. When he first touched her feet she flinched, but then declared, "I'M SO BRAVE!" He got such a kick out of that. Through out the whole pedicure he kept telling her, "you're so brave huh?"
The pedicure included some callous buffing and parafin wax dip, but after watching Grandma there was no way she was going to let them do that to her. So they painted her fingernails instead. When it was all over she was showing off her nails to anyone that would look and said, "I can't wait to show daddy, he's gonna lub it so much!"

Other highlights from Grandma's visit:

Visiting the Good Old Mall of America. For all the times we've been there I've still never made it past the first two floors. (There are 4)

Having an extra pair of hands to help out around the house. Seriously, it was pure bliss to be able to run errands, take a shower, cook dinner and work out without any interruptions.
Teya was in heaven having someone who was never too busy to play with her. They played with play dough, painted, colored, made foam creatures (above picture) played Queen and princess, put together puzzles and spent many hours playing with Teya's Dora memory game. By the end of the week Teya would wake up and go straight to Grandma's room without even bothering to say good morning to me. (who can blame her though, Grandmas are just too fun!)
And last but certainly not least, we got to eat at yummy restaurants, which means no cooking for me (yeah!) I love these last two pictures because Teya is just so happy in them. She really was overjoyed to have her Grandma in town.
Sadly Grandma left today and the house doesn't quite feel the same with her gone. We miss her so much but are so glad that she came. Thank you so much for being here Grandma Karen! We love you and can't wait for you to come out again!

Cabin Living

We spent the week after Christmas staying at this beautiful cabin in Flagstaff Arizona with all of Taber's family. There was plenty to do both indoors and out. Here's a little recap of our activities.

Snowshoeing was a popular past time. The cabin was right next to a national forest so there was plenty of land to explore. On one of the outings Taber and his brother snow shoed all the way to the top of that mountain/giant hill behind Taber in the picture on the left.

Papa Rigg even got into the snow shoeing action as well as little Landon.

Other favorite outdoor activities included sledding (see previous post) and snowman building.

Inside the cabin we kept busy too. Here are some fun pics from our talent show (hopefully I'll get some video of that up soon) We had some great performances including a dance number by the grand kids, some guitar playing and singing by Uncle Brett, and a couple old ballads from Papa Rigg. After the cameras were all put away Aunt CJ even busted out some of her old cheer dances from the college days. She still knows how to bust a move!

Uncle Brett made a volcano with the kids. It didn't quite explode as they hoped but they still had fun making a mess.

Grandma and Aunt CJ made sock puppets with the kids and they put on an adorable puppet show for us.

Uncle Brett's family got a Wii for Christmas and everybody had fun bowling, playing tennis, racing on Mario Cart, and rocking out with Guitar Hero.

We ate many delicious meals, thanks mostly to Grandma Karen and Great Grandma Louise who spent many hours working hard in the kitchen.

We also had fun ringing in the new year with party hats, noise makers, and a little bit of ice cream.

14 people, 7 days, dozens of memories we'll treasure forever! Thanks everyone for a wonderful Christmas vacation! We love and miss you all!