Brother's Trip 2016

The Palmer Brothers (the ones that don't farm, yodel, or even live near each other)

Inside the Pepsi Center waiting for the Utah vs Fresno St. game.  You know those guys that support their school, even though that school has no relevance in the event they are attending?  Mat is one of those guys...

It's a few months late, but here it is at last.  The report on our brother's trip.  We've been trying to get together for a few years, and decided to make it happen.  Some of my friends would always hang out with their brothers while we were growing up, and I would always lament that we have never really had much of a chance to get together.  The toughest thing was figuring out what to do.  We don't have dirt bikes, we aren't very successful hunters or fisherman, and Jeff is getting too old to do a lot of things so we were very limited.  We settled on sports (our most common denominator besides church), and picked the NCAA tournament.  Travis knew a guy who knew a guy that used to be a patient of a guy Travis knew that had this great idea to get tickets real cheap!  Well, cheap sounded good so how bad could the idea be?  It was a cheap idea. The ticket prices kept going up and up, while we patiently waited for this idea to take effect...anyway, I sweated a lot, bought the tickets and felt nauseous for a while, but it all worked out.  We all met at the Denver Airport where I picked the other 3 up.  Mat lost his luggage, Jeff was grumbling about having to pay for his (don't fly Frontier if you have any luggage), and Travis' wife is a travel agent so he was reading her directions and did just fine.  Jeff was mostly paying for the corn nuts and snacks that mom sent him with.
The hotel...going back to being cheap, was okay.  Got a ride in the free shuttle service to downtown Denver.  There we enjoyed the chilly weather, some bum took my corn nuts that mom sent with Jeff, and we got a little lost.  Being St. Patty's day, it was only appropriate we eat in a pub and send a picture to mom.

I think it says Hot Liquor in Back, there was also a beer of the day sign there. heheheh, so exciting for us Mormon boys

We turned down alcohol a few times that night, and got a lot of confused looks.  The pub was great food, and it was fun just to catch up, laugh, and find out things we all have in common.  It was kind of nice to be distracted by a basketball game on the TV and not get reprimanded for not being engaged in the conversation(we all had that in common), but we did have great conversation.
Some bag-pipers came in to play a tune, and we stomped out into the snow with a little spring in our step.

the bag-pipers

The game before ours was in overtime, so we couldn't get into the arena yet, so we joined the drunken revelry in the Shock Top and got all the Bud Light t-shirts, beads, basketballs, and drink holders we could get.  Just no Bud Light.

When we finally got in, the games were fun, but neither one was very intense by any means so we were disappointed by that and had to wait outside in the snow for the Free Shuttle from the hotel.  When it finally showed, there were about 18 people for a 12 seat van.  We scrunched in as best as we could, and listened to all the black guys laugh and chat about our cramped situation.
The snow storm turned out to be fairly impressive and Denver was a mess the next morning when we woke up, but luckily most of the traffic was coming into Denver and we headed north to Laramie to surprise Krissy!

we snuck into the house to scare her but couldn't find her anywhere.  We thought she might be hiding under the bed thinking we were intruders, so Travis played Blueberry Hill and she still didn't come out

It was a great stay with Travis and Kristin. Nerf gun wars, ping pong battles (I whooped 'em all), lazer tag (Preston whooped us all) for Cooper's birthday, great Mexican food, and of course movie night in the theater!  The next morning we went to the shooting range and got to try out a couple of Travis' guns. I must say, Kristin and 'Ol Blue were a sight to behold.  All we could do was say "oh she's a dead eye, ain't she!"  Poor Mat felt terrible while we were in Laramie, but he was a good sport and held a stiff upper lip.
Per Kristin's request, Jeff blew up Mckenna's nose, and I blew up Preston's (he was a fighter, and a biter).

It was a great weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time together.  We visited about our families, our church callings, people that we know, sports, and anything else that came up.  Mat swore in the car.  It was funny to see how much we have in common, and such a blessing that we can enjoy being together.  We have our problems for sure, but overall we are so blessed to have everyone active in the church, and to all get along.  It was a great trip, and hope we can do it again soon!

Love you all, Shawn

PS  I didn't really proofread this, its late, and it needs to be done.