Family Christmas!

I was so glad to see everyone! Apples to Apples was lots of fun and so was snowmobilin'- even if I only went around the loop once! I miss you all lots already and I can't wait for our next family gathering!

Who do they look better on? :)

Remember the kid from A Christmas Story?

New Years

ok im gonna be the first this time. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I will see you all within a 4 days

0ne week

No not the song. i mean i got one week until i come home. just counting down the days until i can rest and relax, and see family, and friends, and all that other stuff

The First One to say....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

i hope you all enjoy your day!
can't wait to see you guys this weekend!!

wellll...

I haven't posted in a while....because there hasn't been much going on. I donated blood last week....I saved THREE lives doing so...makes me feel oh so good. Here's a picture of my battle wounds afterwards.

I lost a whole pound of blood....but gained it back. lol. ANyways....here's some pictures of friday night when Aunt Kathy, Karen, Grandma, and Kyle came over to bake cookies and eat pizza! Thats all.... Merry Christmas EvE to everyone!

Our tree adventure!

the final product
Ruth decorating
kinda blurry but the tree lit up
a different angle

So we got our tree on friday. we set it up on friday. this took hours...

the trunk was too small for the stand so we had to make adaptations. We ended up with some wierd mixture of boards, newspaper, and fastfood cups. We thought we were done...

So Saturday morning we decorated the tree. As Mom was putting the final touches on it, the tree tipped and almost came out of the stand!

So..... she had to go pick up Nana for her birthday lunch and left Dad, Brian and I to deal with the tree (nice right). Anyhoo, we fill the stand with sand which meant going outside, digging throught the snow and the frozen ground until we found usable sand. The tree still isn't perfect but it's either we leave it or we all give up on it.

so This year we have a tilting tree but that's okay because Christmas isn't about having a perfect tree is it?

So... um.....

HI!!!

2 weeks

alright boils and ghouls, i figure that i should say to have a merry christmas. if i do not call you, it is not intentional, i just wont have time. i also wanna say i got two weeks until i come home.....

now for some more serious things. yesterday i went to see my command career counsler because i am up for orders. when he showed me what i have available, i figured i would turn to you guys and tell you. there were, orders for me to stay in japan for another 2-3 years, i could go to guam and be deployed to iraq, i could also go to san diego and be deployed to iraq, or i could go to norfolk(and be deployed to iraq). now comes the dilema, what do i do. i seethose and i could be either away from family for a long time, go to iraq and possibly be killed due to me most likly being in a convoy as a .50 cal gunner(we all have heard the stories about convoys, or i could wait and see what orders are availible for me next month, which could very well be the same as this months. just figured i would let you all know.

Karen's lucky day

As you all probably know, Karen had surgery yesterday to "reduce her assets". She is doing fine! Today I took this photo and had to share it! If I haven't called or e-mailed you, it hasn't been intentional. Just busy!

Since this is a family blog and well, we are in "mixed company", I'll just say that what has always been a dream for Karen, is now a dream come true.

Hi

Ooo, drywall!

Casey and I went to see our condo this weekend and the drywall is up. It was neat to see our place with walls- now hopefully things will move more quickly, ya know, cabinets and countertops and such. Haha. Anyways, I though I'd share a few pictures- be imaginative, it looks very bare!

The outside.

Casey already arranging furniture. Haha.

Kitchen.

The view from our balcony.

The master bathroom.

Big scary fire heater in the hall... it looks less menacing in pictures.

How They are Hatching

I don't know what the heck happened with my paperwhite project this year, but they simply haven't "hatched" in their usual way! You can see one bulb has shot up and promises to bloom in the next few days. The rest? Maybe they will bloom by New Years!

Big Kitties 2

so, today i went out on a hike in the state forest, cutting through my grandpa's property to get there. i was on a trail going around a hill, when i came upon some ledges. i got the sudden feeling that i shouldn't be where i was, but decided to stay anyways. i walked up around the ledges to see if i could find any tracks, a coyote den, anything. when i came down, i walked back down the trail to where i left it so that my tracks would meet up, and i would know where i was if i were to get turned around and find my tracks. When i did this, i heard the same noise i heard the last time and, hopped down to look at some other ledges. A few minutes late, i looked up in the general direction that i had heard the noise to be sure nothing was coming, when, a good distance away, the Mountain lion crossed a small clearing in the trees. At this point, i decided that was enough and continued down the trail and around the hill back to the house. Needless to say, if i hike in this area again, i will carry more than just a knife on me, and not hike alone.

CHRISTMAS PARTY

so last friday was my christmas party. i had jenn as my date. it was at the fireside inn from 6-11. it was alot of fun. dinner was at 7 and we had prime beef. it was really good then dancing started at 8. i didnt really want to dance but jenn and chris (a girl i work with) pulled me onto the dance floor. we did the chicken dance it was only me jenn chris and monica(another girl i work with) then we just keeped on dancing for 2 hours strait and it was a blast!!! im glad jenn was my date i dont think i would of had as much fun without her!

this is just one of many gunnersmate posters. i think i am going to try to make a tshirt out of it.

the story behind "And then there were two"

When i shot my doe, I kept her bladder and what was left in it. you know cause why spend 12$ to get doe in heat urine when I can get it for free? Anyhoo, i put it in a little baggie then and yesterday when i went out, i put it on the ground and covered it with leaves. i walked my normal loop which takes about a half hour(it's now 4-ish) and decided to stand in my tree stand. i blew my call a few times, and waited. just as i was getting to the point where i was ready to call it a night, do one last little loop, and head in, I heard something moving in the area that i had put the bag. so, i waited and listened. a couple minutes later, I heard more movement, now much closer. i turned to look on the other side of the tree, and there he was, walking down one of the many deer trails. I waited for him to get into a more open area, and shot. He dropped right where he was and was unfortunatly, not quite dead. i walked up on him and saw this (not a very pleasant feeling, in fact, rather upsetting) and snapped his neck, killing him instantly (I'm telling you this for Jenn so she knows that i DO have a soul). i came home, made a couple of calls and then after finding that noody was available to help, went out and got him myself. After some pictures(below), i hung and gutted him. Now I have to go skin and butcher him so that the meat doesn't go bad.
Take Care and Talk to you soon!

Karla's Cottage What I love about my Holiday Home

So, I posted to Karla's Cottage and invited everyone to my blog. Since there are almost 120 posts already, it will be days of visiting for me!

Come over and see. And say something nice. The things I'm trying to hatch need another few days before being exposed online, Jenn. I promise more photos to come!

a little treat....

So, as you may or may not know, The Lakota among other tribes would eat the raw heart of any animal that they killed, in belief that they would then gain the strength of the animal. Knowing this, Brian and I decided to partake in this part of our heritage, and ate a small amount of raw heart.

Brian and I getting ready to eat the heart.

Brian didn't really enjoy it, this amused me.

Okay, so I didn't really enjoy it either.

And then there were two...

Quote by DJ as he entered the house!

Proud Mama moment!

DJ made the best of his landowner tags, and brought home a buck!

With less than an hour of light left, the buck went down right where he was shot. He was near enough to the house that DJ was able to drive the truck out, and bring him in, all alone.

When we counted the intact antler there were no less than 5 points. Assuming the broken antler would have been the same or close to it, the trophy was at least 9 points.

The doe hung high of the ground, but this fella is so long that DJ is concerned about the animals that might be drawn in. We have him pulled all the way up, and you can see his nose is within 2 feet from the ground.

Oh and , No, Jenn, he shot it in the neck. :)

No Christmas Tree, No Christmas Tree........

But lots of other decorating! The men in our lives must loves these posts! Anyway.....Here are a couple of images from the work I have been doing. Beth scares me so I have decided to post for a blogger Holiday Open House tomorrow night with no apologies! I'll post here when I get all my photos up at Shocking Pink Thread. Visit me there and say nice things to me. LOL!

I also had company on Sunday and we wrote out a few Christmas cards, ate a bit of fruitcake and a WHOLE BATCH of Mammie's special Graham Cracker Cookies. Jenn! Sam! Next year, Cindy needs to host this get together. Just a thought......

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree....

Where the heck are you? Haha. So, Casey and I went and got our tree yesterday. It was quite the adventure... I think we went to four places, and then back to the second place. I don't know if anyone else was affected by this, but we had a bit of a sticker shock with the trees this year because down here there was a drought so the tree prices went up. But, Casey was the best and wouldn't give up on a real tree, so we went for a little drive, wandered through muck and mud... even a dirt road!... and finally chose the hanging trees- you'll see what I mean! :) I'll also use this post to share some decorations I've done, like Aunt Beth suggested.

Here is my nativity... not quite as full as Aunt Cindy's, but it will get there! (I also don't have all my pieces out, though it still isn't much once that happens, haha.)

Pretty dining room... with Lucy playing with the blinds.

Turtle tank decorating. :)

On our tree adventure, we actually found a dirt road... looks almost like a back road at home!

This one was at Ticonderoga Farms where you can pick from pre-cut Fraser Firs or you can cut your own of other kinds. We thought this one might be our tree, but we moved on. The big stick is for measuring tree size- they charge by the foot.

And here it is, the tree we came back to. You can't really tell, but this place had it's trees hanging from beams.

All ready to go on top of the Civ!

Finally, at the apartment and ready for decorating!

Casey will only hang the "us" ornaments, as in the ones that have our names on them. He hangs them next to each other. :)

I did the rest, haha.Voila!

And there were only three ornaments (that I've found so far) off the tree when I got up this morning. One remains off the tree because the hook is yet to be found. Ah, life with kitties.

I hope to see some other trees (and decorations) up on the blog, and I can't wait to see you all at Family Christmas! Love love!

The First Snow

We had our first bit of accumulated snow on Friday. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get Ruth excited. She had to "drag" the cat out to play. All she needed was Sammy, who loved the snow, and would make a good alarm if DJ's cat came around.

I took this photo of a bird's nest that is on my porch. I love to look at it, and the snow was so pretty resting on it.

The Big Play

Hey, we aren't are professional as Karen's circle of friends, but we have a lot of fun! This year the pageant was done in three acts.

The first act focused on Mary, the angel, and Joseph.

(Rosemary Harper as Mary, Liz Longacre as Gabriel)

The next act was a bunch of dancing shepherds, which led into Act three,

Herod and the Wise Men.

"Welcome to the magnificent Herod's Palace.

I am, of course, the magnificent King Herod!"

(one of my favorite lines)

(Here I am with Sam G. A great fellow from my Sunday School class that played my assistant.)

Enter the Wise men, or I should say "people".
There were 3 girls, and 1 boy as those that followed the star. It was Ruth's job to keep pointing them in that direction, even though the others wanted to stop and ask for directions. They get lost in the Grand Hall, as I approach.

Then,Ruth did a hilarious mirror scene with me, which included her and I doing things on totally opposite sides. :) As I was hula dancing to the left, she went to my right. It was a hoot!

(Danielle as Wise man 1, Sarah H as Wise man 2, and Ruth as Wise man 3)

It was a lot of fun, and the kids and adults seemed to have a great time.