MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas everyone. After taking about 200 pictures over a period of a week (call me mom) I tried to narrow it down, it was a lot harder than I thought. We spent a day at Monte's mom house, so I would like to introduce the Griffin family to the Ross family.

Chanel with her heart necklace, and Michelle with her digital camera on Christmas morning after Monte got home from work.

Monte with his bear ornaments from my mom, he thinks they are awesome and after placemats last year for Christmas he can't help but wonder what she is going to do next year to top this year!! For those that haven't meet Monte's family, the other picture is Jameson (Monte's great nephew). You got to love bows on little kids, almost as cute as a baby taking a bath in the sink.

Last weekend Brad, Monte's brother came down and we went to their mom's house and celebrated Christmas. It was a ton of fun. After dinner we had some fun with the sled and four wheelers, and then we opened presents. Fun was had by all.

Michelle and Jameson having a blast sledding.


Devin (Monte's nephew, Jameson's dad), Jameson and Hannah (Monte's neice) taking a turn on the sled.

Hailey (Monte's other neice) giving Monte a ride?

Sarah (Devin's wife, Jameson's mom) trying to stay warm!


Monte's mom and stepdad with some of the grandkids!

Left to Right: Brad (Monte's brother) and his daughters Hannah and Hailey.


Sarah, Devin and Jameson.

It wouldn't be a complete story of our Christmas if I didn't include pictures of the snow. Snow, snow, snow and more snow is what we have in these parts. I am getting taller because of the snow, when I walk out the garage the branches hit my head. Yeah, I like being tall.

A snow drift in our backyard.


Another drift, the posts are the top of a retaining wall. The posts are five feet above the ground. I say that is alot of snow. Oh yes, and our redneck pool (see previous post) yes it is under there somewhere. Instead of the hot tubbing like Danielle, Monte went for a dip!!

GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS!!

With Christmas fast approaching the to-do list keeps on growing:

There is the decorating of the Christmas tree...



There is shopping, baking, wrapping of presents and parties to attend...

There is hanging the lights, both indoors and out....



There is singing, hot chocolate, and icing sugar cookies....

There is snow, playing in snow, snow keeping you from work and school and then once you get snow there is removing snow with a shovel or a new toy.....

There is taking your picture with Santa, or with ones you love...

And all of it means so much more if you are having fun and spending time with your family...

I included these last two pictures because the girls wanted to use my camera to take pictures of us decorating for Christmas. And those two pictures are a direct result of what happens when two teenage girls get a hold of a fancy camera. They look like regular pictures right? Wrong! Michelle was playing with my camera and discvored that if you hold the camera upside down and take a picture, the camera will recognize that and turn the image right side up. That little discovery provided much entertainment for the evening.

PARTY TIME

I started this mornings post with the grand idea of having my blog mimic the scene in Eastern Washington today. Ah, the first snow of the year, big fat flakes slowly falling from the sky. The wet heavy snow sticking to anything and everything. Wouldn't it have been cool to click on the website and see a pretty blue snowy background, with flakes floating down the screen and the Christmas classic of "Let is Snow" soflty playing the background. Well, after more time than I care to admit surfing the net looking for the perfect background and effect and then tyring to figure out who to rewrite the html code I gave up. So this is going to be an interactive post, you, my audience must use your imagination!!!!

Last weekend we had the WSU Police Department Christmas Party!

Bill (Monte's Chief), and Kelly (his co-worker)

sporting Santa hats.

Cory (Kelly's daughter) playing with the reindeer.

Chanel getting her present from Santa. It is

blurry becasue she is in such a big hurry to get

out of the embarrassing situation.

Michelle taking her turn with Santa. She wasn't

very happy because she thought she was getting

a travel Scrabble game. Ha, little did she know, she

was even there when we bought her present.

Needless to say she was pleasantly surprised.

The highlight of the party was the scratching

of the loto tickets that were given in the White

Elephant gift exchange.

Happy Turkey Day

Danielle and Lydia, her 2 mo old, came up from Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with us. We had a blast! Monte's mom and stepdad, Devin, Sarah and Jameson, and Tom and Connie came over to eat and hang out with us. Good times were had by all. I tried to add a video of everyone playing Wii after dinner, but I can't get it to load. It was very amusing. Everyone thought it was funny when we were playing Cranium and I had to get Danielle to guess "tofu" charades style. I did a good job making an idiot of myself, the runner up was Monte trying to act like Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor", I wish I had a video of that one.
Without a doubt the star of the show was Baby Bear Watson!

Mom was worried that Baby Baby would freeze,

so she made sure she was bundled up!!!!

So soft and cuddley, look at those baby fingers

peaking out!

The only thing more adorable than a picture of a baby

in the sink (see below), is a baby eating. The best part

was that I got to feed her!!!

Baby Bear posing with some of her co-stars!!

Baby Bear playing with Chanel!

Baby Bear playing with Michelle (she got a lot

of play time in)!

Group Hug Anyone (that is Danielle, my sister)?

The Three Stooges Again!

Uncle Gummy (Monte's great nephew is talking,

and that is how Uncle Monte comes out. It is cute!)

Introducing the Griffin (and a Ross) Family

Ah, finally we are able to join the rest of the world with internet that works faster than the United States Postal Service. The indoor plumbing that we put in last week out here in the boonies of Warshington is working nicely! So here are some pictures and videos from the past year of all of us. Enjoy!!!

This is the only picture that we have of all four of us. It was taken last year when we were camping after a long day of four wheeler riding!!

City folk idea of a pool!

Our idea of a pool. Water optional!

I think this is kind of a cool picture of Monte and I.

Michelle had a "camp out" for her birthday! She is wearing the pink shirt, second from the right.

Chanel driving her new "stick shift" car for the first time!

Tom and Monte after they went turkey hunting. Notice Tom has a turkey and Monte is empty handed!

Zach (my nephew) and I camping this summer.

GO COUGS!!!!

WSU 16 UW 13

The well known cougar emblem. It is actually the back

of the marching band uniform, I figured that since Monte

and I had to stare at it the whole game I might as well get a picture of it!

Butch the famous cougar mascot. Last year he won the

National Mascot of the Year Award. Go Cougs!

Monte and I were trying to get our famous take your own picture and a very nice

lady offered to take it for us. This is after

the game when the students stormed the field. Yes, we stormed

the field after beating a team that has a record of 0-11!!!

Only because the win improved our record to 2-9!

Proof of our VICTORY!