Holiday Fun!!

We have been so blessed and had such an awesome holiday. Christmas was great this year, as usual. It was pretty low key. We just spent time with the families, but that's how we like it. Christmas Eve we went to mom and dad's and celebrated mom's birthday. Then we went caroling and ended up at Kelly's family party. Christmas morning we opened presents from each other at home, and then went back up to dad and mom's to open presents with them, Cali, Travis, the babies, Hillary, Jake, and Ricky. I got spoiled this year, I got everything I asked for. ChiChi and Lola even got something. ChiChi's little boots don't fit. To bad, they would be cute. Kelly asked for an underwater fishing camera. When we opened presents at home it wasn't there so he didn't think he was getting it. Low and behold it was at mom and dad's. He was totally surprised. Kelly and I got Gideon a cowboy hat for Christmas. (He's really into Woody from Toy Story.) Despite the feet of snow outside he did not feel the need to wear clothes, until his mom told him he had to have pj's on to open presents. After presents and breakfast we went to the inlaw's. I don't have any pictures from there, but it was just as much fun. We had dinner, played games, and opened more presents. It was nice to have family in town, and we really enjoyed ourselves. We had a blast over the New Year weekend as well. They opened Henry's Lake in Island Park for ice fishing on Jan. 1st only. One of our friend's family has a beautiful cabin up there right on the lake. This is a view from the deck. There is a little pond and then the lake behind it. It isn't very far, but we still had some snow machines to help us haul stuff down. About 10 of us went up on Fri. and stayed until Sunday. It was gorgeous up there. We had so much fun. We played cards Fri. night until midnight and then, despite the -22 degrees outside, we went outside and started fishing. I didn't stay out there very long and then I came in to get some sleep. Kelly on the other hand stayed out there all night. He literally didn't go to bed. We fished all day on Sat. It was actually quite warm inside the ice huts. We had big propane heaters going. Kelly's camera he got for Christmas worked really well, it was neat to watch when the fish swam by. We came home with a couple of nice fish YUM!! Now everything is back to normal, and we are excited to see what 2011 will bring!

Steelhead Fishing

This last weekend we went steelhead fishing. For those of you who don't know, steelhead come from the ocean and swim up the river 800 miles to spawn. It is the same thing that salmon do except steelhead do not die after they spawn. That is what makes them different. We were north of Salmon, ID about a half hour in an area called Shoup. There used to be a mine there about a 100 years ago. There are still some old run down log cabins, they look pretty cool. It is amazing to think what it would be like to live there back then, because you are way up in the mountains. We saw lots of deer and even a decent buck, to bad it's not hunting season anymore. We also saw a bunch of big horn sheep. There was a pretty nice ram standing across the river from us once but I didn't have my camera on me. This other herd we saw as we were leaving and I was hoping the rams would fight, but no such luck. The fishing was a little slow, we only caught 2 fish. You can only keep certain ones so we had to let ours go, but it was still fun. They fight pretty good, my arms were on fire by the time I got it to the bank. It was still a fun day, and I can't wait to go again.

It's about Time

I finally shot my first deer!!! I was there when Kelly got a few of his deer, and I did get a cow elk once. After 4 years I finally got my first rack. Are you ready to see my trophy!!! (hehehe) Ok, so he's not very big. You might have to click on the picture to enlarge it enough to see he just has little forked horns on each side. Oh well I'm still excited. Plus it's meat in the freezer. Now to answer the next question, was it bigger than my husbands?..., (drum roll please........) YES!! Only because he didn't shoot anything, but still that makes mine bigger. We still had great time hunting this year even if it wasn't as successful as we would have liked. I have clients and friends who ask me all the time "Do you really like hunting, or do you just go for your husband?" To answer every one's question, I Love It! You can't imagine the incredible feeling you get when you are standing on top of a mountain at first light and you can see all this beautiful country that God has created. When you are sitting there with your spouse, your away from work, household chores,and worldly things. When the animals are moving around you, there is such a feeling of freedom and awe, also love and respect for the people your around, the country you live in, and the God you believe in. So that's my answer to all the people who just can't fathom why a girl like me would love to hunt. It's not always about the BIG deer, although this year I was ready. I've earned it. I've hiked up so many mountains, until my chest feels like it will explode and my feet feel like they will fall off. We rode horses a lot this year, and saw tons of new country you normally wouldn't see. Clear back into the thick timber (it's awesome back there), and High on the mountain. The weather has been unusually warm this year. That made it quite pleasant for us, but the deer weren't moving around near as much. It made it a little harder to find something to shoot. The last weekend the weather started to get bad. On the very last day it was raining and winnddyyy. After we got to the top and sat for a little bit we decided to go back home. We were wet, cold, and miserable. As we started back down I was a little disappointed thinking another year had gone by for me and no deer. Just then Shane (a friend who was with us) spotted a buck, I ran back up and took my shot. By the way I was a great shot. That was it for our hunting season, we had a blast as usual.
In other news last weekend at 1:30 a.m. my inlaw's haystack was light on fire. There was a young adult running around lighting peoples hay on fire. Yes, he was caught, but not before several thousand dollars of damage was done. We are counting our blessings though, no one was injured and it was only hay that burned(no buildings). Anyway that's it for us. Things should start slowing down until the Holidays. Happy Halloween!!

70's Party

Our friends had a 70's party this weekend. We had so much fun getting dressed up. Kelly got second in the costume contest. Roy won, I think it was his awesome shoes. Kelly and I were the cutest couple in my opinion. Kevin and Tina were the hosts and that's Roy on the left. Some random pictures of us with friends. We had a lot of fun and played lots of volleyball.

It's about Time!

OK I went ahead and said it for everyone, It's about time I posted. Here's what's been going on, it's always so busy for us this time of year. On the 4th of July we went camping with some friends. Yes I am wearing a jacket. I'm sure you are tired of hearing it, but our summer has sucked. It's not been very warm, it's been windy, and very short. Oh well we still had fun and stayed busy. After camping we stopped in Menan in went to the parade with my family. July 21 was our anniversary, 3 whole years WOW!!! It's even crazier to think we started dating 7 years ago. On the 26th Kelly celebrated his 31st birthday. We didn't do anything big. The first of August was the Island Park Rodeo. It's one we look forward to all year. It is so much fun.This is what happens to little dogs that roll in something that smells like a skunk the morning we are trying to leave. This is the creek right next to where we camp while we are there. They have a website now www.ipwhs.com Look it up sometime, especially if you have nothing to do the first of August next year. We just had the Grays Lake rodeo, which I didn't get any pictures of so refer to Cali's blog.
We go up to Grays Lake some weekends during the summer. It's beautiful up there. In between all of that we have been golfing as much as we possibly can
(that's a picture of Kelly's great shot off the tee box) and fishing a little bit. There has been lots of yard work to do. Our yard is coming in great, it's really starting to look good. Now I just have to keep the rabbit from eating my flowers. Well that's pretty much it for our summer fun. It's starting to turn into fall, but guess what that means, hunting season is just around the corner. I'm sad to see summer go, but excited about hunting season. Cami's been posting pictures of their mountains so here are a few pictures of ours. Trust me the pictures don't do it any justice. Now you are caught up on our life. I will try to be better about posting.