Thanksgiving

I'm very traditional and I love all of the traditional things that come with Thanksgiving. Family, turkey, rolls, football, naps....

This year my family gathered at my brothers' new house in Coeur d'Alene. We spent most of Thanksgiving day cooking, planning and preparing for the big Thanksgiving meal. Jared found a group of guys playing in a turkey bowl and managed to join their game, I think they were glad he did as he scored a couple touchdowns for them. We ate, laid around, ate some more, watched movies and played some games.

Here's the Thanksgiving Feast!
I can never seem to get "normal" pictures with Jared around.

Friday we went to a water slide park. Linsey really tore it up going on all the different slides and loving every minute of it. Hunter went once and that was enough for him. The dark scary tunnel wasn't his idea of fun, especially since the tube practically dumped him out at the bottom. It took almost 2 hours before he mustered up the courage to try again and then he opted for the slide that required no tube... you know, those awful ones where you just sit on your bum and feel every bump all the way down. He loved it and continued on that one the rest of the day. Emma was too small for the slides, but there was a great kiddie pool area for her to play in. It was the perfect place for adults as well as kids. We went home for turkey leftovers and naps and then headed off to see a parade followed by fireworks over the lake. My brother thought to bring the makings for hot chocolate and boy were we grateful. It was really cold, but bearable with the warm, yummy drink. Everyone had fun.

Saturday, all the girls went out for breakfast (kid free) while the guys watched football and mentally prepared for the BYU game. We got home just in time to watch BYU play U of U... Everyone was howling and cheering right down to the last minute. What a way to end a fun weekend.

We left shortly after the game and our ride home was pretty quiet. Hunter and Emma both came down with a cough and had fevers by Saturday... I guess we really wore them out. Our plan was to leave in time to be back for our niece Olivia's blessing Sunday morning. We made it home, but unfortunately Jared and Linsey had to leave without us this morning. I was tempted to come anyway and just sit on the back row with my sick kids but Jared advised me not to.... darn. So, I sent him with the camera and made him promise to take pictures of Olivia in her blessing dress afterwards. We are so happy for Mat and Bri.

The Fishing Gene

I'm thoroughly convinced that some people have a fishing gene. Some things are passed down from parent to child, tutor to pupil, but fishing seems to come from somewhere else entirely. It wells up from the deepest darkest parts of the soul flooding through your whole body until you cannot resist it. Do you know someone with this gene? They can’t drive by a river or lake without staring off into the distance a little too long. And yes, they are imagining what type of fish is lurking there waiting to be caught. They will often make some type of comment if they see someone else fishing it. “Oh look, someone’s out there fishing, huh” or “wow, fishing on a Thursday, must be nice”. What they are really saying is “hey, if he’s fishing there, shouldn’t I be? What does he know that I don’t? What the heck am I doing in this car, driving to my kids soccer practice when people are fishing, look, they are right there, they are going to catch all the fish, oh why don’t I have my pole!”

Of course there are some more obvious clues that someone is addicted to fishing such as having the same fishing lures in different colors, or having more than 5 poles in the house or getting really excited about the Cabellas opening in Lacey. However, these things are just material compared to clues like having anything to do with fishing on your Tivo, making decisions about where to live based on the quality of fishing and thinking about fishing to help you fall asleep at night. These are the mark of a true gene enhanced fisherman.

It turns out that two of my brothers and I have this gene. Over the years, since we haven’t lived close enough to fish together regularly, we’ve started a tradition we like to call The Man Trip. We even have a theme song; fishin, fishin, fishin (sing it to the tune of the Batman theme song). The original Man Trip was invented by Dustin Olsen and myself as a “don’t-tell-the-wives-where-we-are-going-fish-for-4-days-without-
food-water-or-sleep” trip. It has grown to include my brothers Zack and Mike. This year was Man Trip IV and we traveled to the Rocky Mountains of Utah to assault the rivers of the Provo valley. The cold clear waters of the Rockies are perfect for our favorite type of fishing, catch and release fly fishing. In November the Brown trout go into spawning mode and become even more aggressive than usual.

We hit a secret river that I dare not tell you it’s name. We caught fish in this river bigger and meatier than any I have ever seen before. All of us landed the biggest fish of our lifetime on a fly rod. It was truly amazing. Here are the pictures to prove it because, as someone once said, “I wouldn’t believe you if you were telling me you caught fish like this…”

This was the biggest fish of the day. Zack caught it on a bead that imitates a fish egg. It measured a little over 24 inches. You can see that it doesn't fit in his net.

Mike and I thoroughly worn out from fishing.

This fish is so old that the hook on it's lower jaw is starting to split his upper.

Three Brothers

Halloween Fun

Happy Halloween!

This year Linsey and Emma wanted to be cheer leaders. Hunter is a football player. Cousin Brody is a cowboy and Chase is a sailor.


Trick-or-Treating downtown Auburn

Here is the newest McInelly addition. Mat and Bri had their baby girl last Saturday so here is our 4 day old little carrot. Her name is Madison Olivia McInelly. We think she is so adorable!

This was so much quicker than pumpkin carving!

Now, what to do with all this candy! Isn't Halloween great!

One Year Older!

Happy Birthday Jared!
(this picture was taken when he was 4 years old).

Yesterday Jared celebrated his 34th birthday ! He admitted that this year he was especially feeling old. Saturday, Jared organized a group of buddies to go play paintball and unfortunately only 2 games into the fun he went for a slide and hit something hard that dug a chunk right out of his knee. (Beware, I posted a picture below so DON'T scroll too far down if you would rather not see.) After 11 stitches, he came home thinking he'd be heading to church in the morning only to wake up and realize he could barely walk. It's been REALLY painful and has had him pretty laid up. He spent most of his birthday working from the bed or laying on the couch with his foot elevated. Today he managed to hobble down to his office to try out his new XBOX game. We love him and even though this birthday didn't go quite as we'd planned, he is the best husband and father to our family and we love him very much!

I didn't post the before picture because that one is way too gross. Here are the stitches.

My favorite Sunday

Today was the Primary Program. In preparation, Linsey had her part memorized perfectly. Hunter is just learning to read and with lots of practice he was able to read his part all by himself. He was very proud and practiced over and over all morning long. On the way to church I had Linsey spout off her memorized lines, and Hunter read his part one last time. They did it perfectly and I felt confident that they would do well. I looked forward to a great Primary program, one of my favorite Sundays of the year!

It’s always fun to watch the kids up on the stand working so hard to please their parents. Hunter sang his little heart out and even when he didn’t know all the words, he worked hard to make his mouth move. I need to teach him to mouth the word watermelon …. whatever he was doing was too obvious.

At the last minute, Linsey must have been nervous and instead of saying her memorized lines, she read her part, but she did a great job reading loud and clear with confidence…. :)

When it was Hunter’s turn to go up to the microphone he turned to the teacher and whispered (RIGHT INTO THE MICROPHONE) “I can do it all by myself”. She took a step back and he started off in that beginners reading style, “Jesus… Christ…created… this… beautiful… (pause…) and then from the audience Emma who was sitting on my lap said “EARTH”. The families seated near me chuckled. I was surprised that she not only knew his part, but also that she was listening enough to know when to pipe in and help out.

The Greatest Pumpkin Patch

Hunter's preschool class took a field trip to the greatest pumpkin patch ever! It was so much more than just a pumpkin patch... Here they are having a short orientation.

They got to play at a little playground, this tractor was just the right size for the kids to climb on and pretend to drive. Hunter thought that was pretty cool.

Next, they got to pump water down a little shoot to race rubber duckies.

Emma patiently waited for all the big kids to finish and then took her turn. She'd been carefully watching and knew just what to do.

"How can I smile when the sun is in my eyes???"

The MOO train.

Then, the kids got to jump around in a barn filled with corn. They had five minutes to see how many rubber duckies they could unburry. You can imagine the excitement! Hunter went right for the digger.... who cares about rubber duckies anyway?

Next, we got to go inside a corn maze. As you can see, the kids were a little hesitant. I've always hated those things and still felt nervous about going in until a nice lady told the parents that if you take all right turns you won't get lost. Phew.

I thought the goat walk was pretty cool. The kids pulled on a rope which sent a small bucket of food up to a goat who seemed very happy to chow down the moment it dumped out.

There were also animals for the kids to see and a bunny they could pet. None of those pictures turned out, but I got this great one of Emma with her finger in her nose. (We have a lot of those lately... ugh.)Last, we got to pick out pumpkins. Hunter found one tiny one and also one very large one. Emma felt she had to do the same.


Here's Emma with her little friend Sienna. They've got the same red curly hair and people often mistake them for twins. Neither of them wanted to look at the camera but I think they are both adorable anyway.Thank goodness for the hayride back because our pumpkins were pretty heavy.


By the end we were all tired. I think the kids all had a great time, I know I had a lot of fun and Emma was thrilled to be included. Who knew a pumpkin patch could be so much fun?!

Cruisin’

I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise. All the food you can eat, movies all day and sleeping in till the afternoon all sounded so appealing. So, we decided to try it out on a short weekend getaway that left on Friday back on Monday. We had a really good time. Here are some of the highlights.

The Food thing is true. In fact it’s so true that you end up walking around in a constant state of full, trying to figure out how to make some room in your stomach for the delicious looking sushi you just walked by. Dinner is a five course meal. It’s tough when you aren’t hungry for course one! But it all tastes so good and you know you aren’t going to be able to read Calamity Jane’s blog till Monday so you go ahead and order two portions of the main course. Some of us even got a side of New York Steak with our Prime Rib. Yeah, you know who you are.

You know it’s going to be a serious feast when you sit down to more knives and forks than you have in your drawer at home. Outside in, just remember, outside in…but...then...there's...the...ones on top. What do I use those for? Oh, I'm so confused.

Movies all day

So, this isn’t quite as true as I thought. They do play a movie a couple of times each day but most were rated R. I told everyone that if we just waited until we crossed the US/Canada border we could go see it because they have a different rating system in Canada and they don’t use R. Everyone just laughed and quit talking about it. I guess it's because the bishop was there.

As it turned out, there were way too many things to do than sit and watch movies all day. We spent that days traveling around Vancouver and the bustling hub of Naniamo. I must admit that the caramel apples looked and tasted amazing.

We played Scum till after 1AM every night. Although I took more than my fair share of rounds as the Scum, I finished the final game as President. So I’ve requested that my loyal subjects address me as such until I am dethroned. So far they haven’t listened so I’m going to increase taxes soon.

Sleeping in till the afternoon.

Yeah, this didn’t really happen either. I wondered why our tickets were so cheap until the first morning. Turns out we were right next to the engine room and our schedule had us docking in port every morning starting at 6AM. I swear they must have been breaking in the new guy that first morning because it took the guy over an hour of back and forth, start and stop driving to get us secured. When he’d press on the gas, our whole room would shake like I’ve never experienced before.

The nice thing about the rooms though is they were nice and dark and when the ship was on cruise control, there was a gentle hum that lulled you to sleep.

Overall we had a good time and laughed a lot. I’m back (mostly) on my diet and we’ve got around 400 pictures to prove we went. Some of them are of questionable origin and owned by questionable people who might do questionable things with them. So be prepared.

Tent City

A couple of weekends ago we were supposed to spend the weekend in Cour D Alene but it got canceled at the last minute. Camille was sick and spent the weekend in bed. So, that left me to play mister Mom all weekend and entertain the kids. I must admit that it was actually really fun. I had nothing that I had to get done that weekend since I’d planned to be gone so there was no pressure to make progress on “the list”. Plus, I’ve always felt that kids are an excuse to do things you are too grown up to do on your own. So, the weekend became one big kid party.

I’ve felt bad that we didn’t get to go camping much this summer so I told the kids that we’d go camping in the house on Saturday. Hunter came into our room Saturday morning asking if we could build the tent now. Just a tad bit excited. My dad used to build elaborate structures with us when I was growing up. He’d use couch cushions, chairs, blankets, etc. and we’d play all day in our own little house. Now that I’m a Dad, I get to follow his example. We took over the living room and incorporated the TV and fireplace into the design. The kids set up beds inside and brought half their toys down from upstairs just in case they wanted to play with them. I made smore tacos on the stove and they watched Sky High for the fourteenth time.

You can see the tent in the background.

Mmmm, smore tacos. Spread out chocolate chips and marshmallows on a tortilla, heat it up, fold it over and eat.

Here is a shot of the inside of the tent. Looks like fun, eh?

It's baby time!

About a year and a half ago Jared's brother Mat and his wife Bri moved to Auburn and into our very own ward. They introduced themselved as the McInelly's version II... new and improved. I guess with both Jared and I officially in our 30's now, a house, three kids, and a minivan later, they probably do seem younger and more hip that us... maybe. Mat and Bri have become regulars at our house. We love it and our kids have especially grown fond of them. Emma usually preferrs Aunt Bri over mom. It's been wonderful having family so close and we are so thrilled to see them become parents to their own baby girl due October 29th, (Jared's birthday).

Stephanie, Tara, and I threw a baby shower for Bri on Saturday.

It all started with this invitation and then we went a little craft crazy.

We rented our neighborhood community center for the event! Here is the guest of honor. Bri is the one in the middle (doesn't she look great!)

Tara made this sign as part of our decorations. I thought it turned out really cute!

We had a chocolate fountain with lots of yummy things to dip. mmmm!

We played some fun games. One was a version of Would You Rather. We had a list of questions where everyone had to choose which of two situations they would rather be in. The idea was to see how many answers you could match to Bri's. For example, would you rather wear nylons your entire pregnancy, OR take a mom and tot swim class 7 months pregnant? Here's another, would you rather have your husband miss the delivery OR have your brother-in-law in the room while you delivered? Bri said she'd rather have her brother-in-law in the room so I guess Jared, maybe your invited??? .....just kidding.

I decorated these cans and filled them with candy for the different prizes.

Tradition says that the person who brought the gift opened 7th at a baby shower is the next to get pregnant. Stephanie was our winner. She got to wear this lovely badge that says, I'm Next!" We think it's great, hope Zeke is okay with it.


Check out all those gifts! Bri got lots of cute baby girl things. We can't wait to meet the little miss.

Stephanie and I spent Friday afternoon bagging these little cookies for the party favors and I wouldn't let my kids eat even ONE. I wanted to be sure there were enough for all the ladies... you never want to run out of something like that. Turns out we kind of forgot to pass them out and although a few people noticed them and grabbed one on the way out, we were left with a lot of leftovers. My kids were thrilled to each get their own bag.

We had so much fun doing this and can't wait to meet the newest McInelly baby!

Thanks for all the fun Bri!