Goals! Goals! Goals!

"Snow, snow go away. 

Come again some other day. 

If you don't, I don't care, 

I'll still be here in my underwear."

This is the song being yodeled around our place by some boys, not-to-be-named,  in their underwear as they are doing the "Snow Day" dance. I joined in the first day or two (fully clothed mind you) but after that I was over it. So. Over. It. 

I am a summer girl anyway and in my opinion all is not right with the world when the weather is so cold, snowy, freezy, and icy. I'm all about cuddling up with a warm blanket, hot chocolate, and a book in my hand but I like that best when I've simply turned my A.C. down really low. 

Feeding cows in the winter is rough. But that's nothing compared to when the frost-free hydrant goes on strike and refuses to fill the water trough any more which then leads to us having to pack water to the cows a couple times a day. Not fun packing water to the cows.

The chickens are giving all kinds of new meaning to the words "cooped up". As in, they don't leave their coop if there is snow on the ground. As in, the coop is ripe with chicken body odor and The Pecker (a.k.a. our rooster) is having a hay day standing on top of the waterer and crowing. Only problem with that is he poops up there which slides down into the water (the idiot) and so I am constantly having to kick him off and clean out the waterer (in sub zero temperatures mind you). 

Things are so bad my grandma has not been able to go to Bingo in weeks now. No bingo is a bad thing. A bad thing indeed. Her lucky bingo blood needs an outlet because when it doesn't get used, bad things start to happen. Owen loses his voice. Caleb grows another inch right after I bought him new pants. Mark slips and falls in the driveway and threatens to kill any who might have laughed at him. You know, bad stuff. 

I'm pretty sure it's why the Seahawks lost yesterday. 

All this snow time has given us a chance to work on this year's goals though and I guess that's a good thing. 

Goals are what this family does - no resolutions around this place. We like to look forward to new things and opportunities rather than reflect on things we want to "fix" about ourselves. Where's the fun in that?!

As the year goes on, we also learn a lot about ourselves. For example, last year a goal we had was to go on more bike rides as a family . When we looked back over our goals, we realized that we had went on exactly zero bike rides as a family. Hmmm... we are obviously a family that doesn't like to ride bikes together. Time to sell some bikes! 

We also had on there that we were going to participate in 4 races as a family. The boys and I signed up for a Valentine's Day 5k and we were all looking forward to it. Before the end of it, I swore it was the last race I was ever going to do with my children. Throughout the three miles I had to pretend I was a zombie chasing them, a Halo soldier trying to capture aliens, and at one point, a mother chasing her children so she can beat them with a stick (not too far from the truth on that one!). The boys complained the whole time and gave an entire new meaning to "Are we there yet" in reference to the finish line. As soon as we were done, they were off RUNNING around with their friends! Seriously! So our goal ended at 1 race for the family for the year. 

This year we have some new goals! We will hopefully accomplish most of them but we will possibly toss some over our shoulders and never look back. Goals are fun!

So without further ado, here are our 2017 goals: 

Faith: 

       *  Read through Romans together as a family inductively 

       *  Encourage one another in our faith walks by praying for each other as a family (we do this by drawing names each week and writing down prayer requests for that person)

       *  Write down prayer requests and reflect back on them to see how God has moved

Family: 

       *  Family dinners once a month again with extended family members

       *  Choose a service project together 4 times a year (once every 3 months)

Finances: 

       *  Save 3,500 - 4,000 for Disneyland trip

       *  Stay within budget and not give in to wants  (Hardest for me, not gonna lie!) 

Health: 

      *  Be aware of sugar intake - dinner desserts only on weekends or special occasions

      *  Begin to teach meal planning to the boys and have them cook 2 times a month

Home: 

     *  Finish the shed - insulating, wiring, painting, cabinets, porch

     *  Plant 3 more trees and landscape another are of the house

     *  Put in pavers on the dirt between the back porch and firepit area

     *  Look into building a hay shed and garden fence

Nothing major (except maybe the desserts) but I am excited to see what this year brings! We have been blessed in so many ways that we are always working at making sure we appreciate everything we have already. 

Even when it is cold, snowy, freezy, and icy and the rooster is pooping in his own water. 

Even then! 

       

Owen's Elk Hunting Adventure

Where to begin? Owen's elk hunting story honestly belongs to him but I feel like I had better help him get it set up...

Owen was unsuccessful this year in the buck hunting department and he was feeling pretty bummed about it. Mark took him out several times, we went out as a family a couple of times, and I even took him out by myself once. We spent a lot of time buck hunting. Owen had told everyone on his football team that he was going and they kept asking him and asking him if he had gotten anything. He kept having to tell them no. 

One of his football coaches told Owen that if he didn't get anything by the end of the season, one of his parents (Mark or I) could turn in their unused tags and get a damage control tag for his property. It would be a late season elk tag - for a cow - but it would be another opportunity for him to hunt. Well, Owen was thrilled with idea!

December rolled around and Owen's football coach, Michael, got a hold of Mark and the two of them worked everything out so that Owen could go hunting. Since it was my tag that was turned in, I had to go along. I wasn't too thrilled at first because it was FREEZING outside but I knew that I had to do it or Owen would be so disapointed I wouldn't be able to stand it. 

The morning finally arrived and Owen, Mark and I were up before 5 am so that we could get all bundled up and have everything loaded up and in the truck by 5:30. We were meeting Micheal and his son Easton (who was also on Owen's football team) and heading up to some property in the hills. Now before I go any further, I do have to mention here that Michael's family have a lot of property. Think bazillions of acres all over Eastern Oregon and I'm not even sure that begins to cover it. We were headed up to a specific area where his cousin just starting a hunting/guiding business called Hunt Oregon. It has a house, out buildings set up to where you can easily hang and gut your animals, etc. Plus, the land has tons and tons of elk on it. Tons. As in I have never seen that many elk except at Yellowstone. 

So, Owen got pretty lucky to be able to hunt this property to say the least. This was a hunt that other people have to pay a lot of money for. Each family member gets to have two guests a year and Owen was one of Michael's this year. Now, I'll turn the story over to Owen...

So there I was . . .

     Dad and I plus mom went in the truck with my football coach Mr. Corey, we all went in trucks and started to go up a big hill then down. Then we got to a gate and parked the trucks. Me, dad, and mom went and saw elk behind us, in front of us, and to the left of us. Me and my parents decided to go after the elk in front of us. so we started to go up the road and we spooked those so we kept going to see if they went into some draws up ahead. Eventually it turned into just a few more and then a few more later. Dad spotted this cow elk all by herself and she was coming down the hill across the field. We saw a big herd of about two hundred, so we stopped worrying about that one lonely cow. We passed a big finger and there was a cow inside so we backed up and she took off. We saw this herd had some elk still crossing the field and road. Then we saw a broken, old barn. We made quick feet to it because it would give us some sort of cover. I set up the gun and asked dad how far they where and he said over 400 yards. So we [me and dad] went to the right to see if we could catch them on there way up the hill when all of a sudden dad turns and he says that there are elk still crossing the road. So then we turned and went to them and got the gun set up and we are 170 yards from the elk and dad asked me if I could kill one and I said I will try. 

Then dad says " No you have to kill it, not try to kill it."

Then I get a little mad and said "Fine, I'll kill it!" but dad stopped me because he said I will miss if I shoot when I am angry. Then out of no where elk come at like 75 yards so then I try to shoot but the safety is on. By now the elk are gone. Me and dad wait then we get up and start to walk to where the elk were crossing and then a calf runs right in front of us. I get really excited and ask dad is I can shoot it.  He says no but it was big enough that I could shoot its mom, so we went to where it ran and dad saw about 20 cows so we start up the hill and I thought they were in the draw but no they were at the top of the hill. 

So we hiked and hiked and hiked some more when dad suddenly stopped  and said that there was a cow coming so I got the gun ready. Then I saw her through the scope but only her head. She never took a step closer, then she turned and left.

Dad's phone went off so he said I could go ahead and try to stalk them. When I saw them there where more than 40. I got the gun ready and dad caught up with me and said to get a little closer so we did. Then one saw us and started to jog. I had my scope on her and dad said the 2nd one was bigger and he was right she had at least a 100 pounds on all of the others. Then he said the 3rd stopped and so I swung the gun on her and BAM I shot. All of the others ran and if you looked through the scope you could see the hole in her body. After all of the other elk ran by, dad said I could shoot her again so I did and did again then she fell. By the time we got there she was dead. My first shot hit her heart then my next shot hit her lungs and my last shot hit her leg. 

That is my hunting story. 

Not bad Owen, not bad. I asked him if he wanted to add some more details or talk about what it was like afterwards with the gutting of it and dragging it down the humongous hill but he said "People just want the juicy stuff, mom". 

Hmm...The juicy stuff. 

Ok. 

I'll tell you the boring un-juicy stuff I guess. Owen was so excited it was hard to get him to stop grinning. He was pretty excited to help Mark gut it out until he realized that having blood on your hands is a good thing only while your hands are still in the blood. Once you remove them from the animal, the blood quickly freezes when it's about 5 degrees outside! Also, since he is so short, he couldn't reach pass the rib cage of the elk (to the heart and lungs) so Mark had to take over from there. 

A lot of this elk meat will be going in our freezer but Owen is also giving some to his grandma and great-grandma. He's pretty proud of that fact! 

Owen has developed a great friendship with one of the employees at our D n B store who works back in the hunting/fishing/gun section of the store - Jim. He gave Owen a brand new, special knife when Owen brought in a picture of his first buck (and he hung the picture up in the store). Owen used his knife to help gut the elk out so Mark made sure to take a picture of it to show Jim. We think he'll be pretty pleased. 

Owen is now the youngest person in our family to have gotten an elk. He is in the process of telling every single person that very thing. 

He's not proud or anything!

In this picture you can see the road winding it's way along the bottom of these hills. To the left of Owen, you can just barely see Mark's red truck (it looks more like a tiny bush). I wanted to make sure and include this picture so you could have a better idea of just how steep and big this hill was that we all had to hike up (and how far Mark and Michael had to drag the elk down!). 

Such a special hunt for this special kid!

Christmas 2016

This Christmas break has been special. Magical. Everything a Christmas break is supposed to be. It has been filled with fun times with friends, trips to the movies (4 times!), lots of good things to eat, and lots and lots of relaxation. 

Every  minute has been wonderful but Christmas day was extra nice. 

We started our morning by reading the last part of our advent story - Jotham's Journey. If you haven't heard of this book before, it was awesome! Each night we would read a little part of Jotham's Journey starting the 4th Sunday before Christmas. It was quite the adventure that little Jotham went on and the kids really enjoyed it. Perfect way for our family to stay focused on what Christmas is really all about! 

After our story, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and then began to open our stockings. 

Caleb and Owen both purchased a few little things to go into the stockings this year and I honestly think they were more excited for us to find the things they placed in the stockings, than looking into their own. 

The best was when Mark and I both discovered gold coins at the bottom of our stockings from Caleb and then Owen said, "I still have one more thing in mine! I know what it is - gold coins!". Only when he pulled them out, they were lumps of coal instead. We all laughed and laughed at poor Owen but since the lumps of coal were made out of chocolate, he wasn't too upset. Caleb thought it was the perfect moment, of course!

We feasted on cinnamon roll cake - delish, if I do say so myself. 

We played some fierce games of Hearts. 

And then we loaded up the presents, some pies and salads and headed up to Dad and Mom G's house for Christmas with the family. The boys got to see their cousins. 

And their Aunt Molly and Uncle Bill. 

And their Grandma and Poppa Golter but I never did get a picture of them...

We ate a huge, yummy lunch first and then it was present time. The kids took turns wearing the Santa hat and passing out gifts. Sometimes the big, bearded kids would join in!

On a side note, can I just say how much I actually liked the beard? Mark has since had to shave it off until next November's fundraiser but I really enjoyed it while it lasted! 

We opened presents up one at a time, which is my favorite way of doing things. I love seeing what everyone gets and their reactions to their presents. A lot of thought goes into gift giving and I like to prolong the experience and enjoyment of it for as long as I can! 

Molly and I modeling the new hats mom picked out for us. 

We spent the rest of the day visiting, playing games, eating pie, and simply being together. 

Christmas 2016 was a blessed one indeed!