Thanksgiving trip to the ranch

For Thanksgiving every year, we go down to our family's ranch in Llano to deer hunt and hang out with Nana and PawPaw. This year was a blast because Emily was old enough to go to the deer stand with us, go fishing with us, shoot her bow and arrow and just really appreciate how wonderful it is down there. Alli was a bit of a challenge, and we are so grateful that Nana and PawPaw were willing to keep an eye on Alli and Emmy while we got to hunt! So here goes...a recap of our Thanksgiving weekend in pictures...

The ranch house (aka: one of our favorite places in the world)

Alli terrified of the cat...which she later warmed up to

The girls in our pink and camo

My hunting buddy (who was bored out of her mind at the time of this picture)

Ahhhh...much better!

Sweet Alli

Nana and Emmy reading a book

PawPaw and Alli going for a walk (yes, I am aware that she looks like a little boy...she won't wear bows and I don't even try anymore)

Trying some dirt...her pediatrician asked us if she was part billy-goat...now you see why!

On the way to ride around the ranch with her daddy

Daddy and Emmy shooting her pink bow. He scored big on this one, she LOVED it!

Fishing

Attempting to let Emily shoot a .22 for the first time, all to find out she is just not big enough yet. Maybe next year!

Jarrod being "tortilla face man" to entertain Alli

Emily's stylish pink camo boots

Llano Christmas lights on the river. This is a walk-through park, and feels quite lengthy when it's cold outside...so we walked about 10 yards into the tunnel and decided that was a bad idea...so we went back to the ranch. The girls did enjoy the lights and their location is BEAUTIFUL right on the Llano River.

I killed two does the last night we were there, so Jarrod and I had our work cut out for us. I wasn't sure how Emily would react to the dead deer, but she LOVED everything about it. She actually stayed outside the whole time Jarrod and I cleaned the deer and just asked lots of quesitons and stuff. I was very surprised!

So then, as we were putting stuff up after finishing the deer, this guy was in the a room in the outside garage down there. These are some mean lookin' little dudes!

But have no fear, my husband has a crow-bar and he's not afraid to use it! Really, this was the closest thing around us that would work to kill the little dude :)

Much better!