Goodbye 2012!

Some of my favorite Moments from 2012! 

 #1 Baby Number Three is Growing! :) Im almost 17 weeks along, baby has had a steady heartbeat between 141-143 BPM 

 #2 October Road Trip, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon Watching my kids at Disneyland was something I will never forget. Although they may not remember it as well..I always will.

 #3 Driving to Alaska for the 2nd time, this time with my Great Grama and Mom. Silas still talks about the bears and the moose! I absolutely love that drive. May be boring to some, but it is almost a spiritual thing for me, haha..seriously though, untouched land..for as far as your eye can see seeing more bears that people..I just love that drive..especially thru the Canadian Rockies and down the Cassiar Highway.

#4 Watching Sean catch Sockeye Salmon on the Russian River in Alaska..seriously, fishing is a favorite, Alaska is a favorite, my husband is a favorite..I was in heaven! :D Plus he is in all camo in this pic..*sigh ;-)

#5 This should be higher on the list, but Sean being able to fly to Alaska to visit us twice, this was a huge deal since it is so hard to get summer time vacation. Im so thankful for this, like beyond thankful. I cant wait to return.

#6 Turning our Garage into a family room! Ahh how nice this has been! This year we are remodeling our kitchen..one of these days Ill get some updated pics of the finished project! :)

 #7 This year was the first year Siara has been very vocal about her interest in bow hunting with me. This excites me..a lot. She got a play bow for Christmas from her Papa and she has played with that more than anything else. Im so looking forward to the years to come and us girls going out hunting!

#8 While we were in Alaska Sean got a dog, Thor the Bernese Mountain Dog. Although his shedding hair can be a huge pain in my butt..he is a great addition to the family :)

#9 Along with many of the moments I was able to capture in 2012, this was one of my favorites, my cousins finalizing their adoption, 2012 was also special because Luke came home in May! This little guy is so special..Im so grateful to be trusted with capturing their most precious moments in their first year with him home!

#10 Ill never forget getting this close to a grizzly bear in Canada..granted I was looking down a little bank at him from right next to the van, it was very exciting! :D

It looks like I enjoyed my trip to Alaska this year huh? ;-) I really have so many wonderful moments from this year, these are just a select few that I especially enjoyed. :)

Happy New Year, wishing 2013 be full of blessings for you and your families!

(Thanks Kayleen for the idea!)

Thank You Elves in Brown

I started to write this post last week, before Christmas..so here is what I had before I had to log off to tend to the kiddos.. :)

My husband hasn't come home, all week. He has stayed in Auburn with my parents, who live 15 minutes from his building. Getting off at close to 10 is pointless to drive an hour home just to go to sleep. But the kids and I have missed him. We did go see him on Wednesday and stayed the night there as well, but came home for a couple planned play dates that we didn't want to reschedule. My only hope, is that the people who wait until Wednesday to order their gifts, realize what their UPS guy has to go to to get their package to their door. And I mean the whole company of course, and that IS their job, but still, I miss my hubby this time of year. The month of December I turn into Single Mom by week. Thankfully my kids understand, they do miss Daddy incredibly, but know he is helping Santa deliver boxes to little kids. I also tell them about our military, how there are Men and Women who are in far away countries and their little kids dont get to see them at Christmas, so we have to be very thankful that even though we miss him, he is close by and we can enjoy him all weekend!


Now here it is Thursday the 27th, and Christmas is over, boo, I love this time of year, and this one was especially fun with the kids. Silas was very into the whole gift thing, and I got an absolute kick out of watching him open his presents. Sean had to work until 10pm on Christmas Eve (a lady told him, go home to your family! as he delivered her a box, and I asked why he didnt tell her, dont wait until the last minute to order something and I would be at home! haha)
So the kids and I did all the Christmas Eve things without Daddy :( We made Sugar cookies for Santa, read all our Christmas stories, and I tucked them in for bed. It was a bit of a challenge at first because of the excitement of everything, but they finally went to sleep and I got to enjoy a bit of quiet time watching Christmas movies. We went to Sean's parents for Christmas day, and came home late to a house full of STUFF everywhere. I had to ignore it and go to bed, I could conquer that the next day. Which, Sean was able to get Wednesday off, so that was such a nice treat. He deserved it. The day was unpaid, but he worked enough overtime last week to cover it. I had to go to the Dr yesterday because I was pretty sure I had a UTI, and I did, but I also wanted to talk to him about a scary episode I had at church on Sunday. I was sweating bullets and my vision was going in and out, and jelly legs..was very scary, but the baby is ok, still at 143bpm so we are still betting its a boy, but those are just wives tales..will know for sure on the 28th of January! :)

 

Hunting

Well, Im back from Hunting, no animal in tow but thats ok. That is the beauty of bow hunting, and being pregnant. :) I couldnt hike as much this year, Dr said it was fine I went, but was very adamant that I couldnt get too cold. It looked like this when I first arrived up in the mountains where we hunt, down at camp we never got any snow.

It was so heartwarming for me to hear Siara express an interest in hunting. I have been hunting since I was her age, with my long bow, trying to shoot chipmunks as my Dad and Grampa went and hunted the big game. And yes, I did shoot a chipmunk with my bow, and yes, I ate it. We dont hunt to kill, we hunt to eat, pure, healthy, meat. Really the only form of organic, besides owning/feeding your own cow, chickens and pigs..but Im not a big pork fan what-so-ever. Anyway, I came back early one day and took Siara out down on a low road near camp, it was the cutest thing.

Here she is in her camo, she did change her boots before we went, but she got on her best camo..haha. We  havent bought her actual hunting clothes yet, because to be honest its expensive and she wont sit out there with me for more than 20 minutes if Im lucky, so we will wait :) But she does really want a bow, so we will get her that. We didnt see any animals, but we did find a lot of elk track and boy was she happy about that!!

Anyway, moving onto later in the trip..the snow started to fall up top for us, GOOD. That gets the animals moving down, especially the elk who stay way up in the wilderness until the snow gets too much and then they head over to the feeding station. Its right off 410 in Naches and an awesome sight when the snow is heavy and they are thousands of head of elk in the fields waiting for their alfalfa.

I love snow and I love the mountains, so lets say I was one happy girl. :) Plus I was hunting, so thats triple happy! :D I was very careful to go back to the car if I got cold, or made sure I only did one long hike each day, and other times stayed near the car. Every hike we went on we spotted animals. One hike we went down an old Jeepin' road a couple miles and decided to turn back as we faced a big hill and the wind was really picking up, as I took a few breaks on the way back I was checking this hillside, and sure enough I spotted 5 cow elk headed up. So I told my Grampa, we need to get up on that road up there, they werent spooked and I was for sure we could catch up with them. We hustled (as fast as I could haha) back to the car and headed for the high road, came around the corner and sure enough, there they were..

This is the best picture I could get from my cell phone, but there she stood in the middle of the road eating moss off a fallen tree. We sat parked and watched her, she really didnt care we were there. I even ate some beef jerky like I was watching a movie..haha. My Grampa had a plan to get out of the car and slowly walk up until he was in safe shooting distance. Down from 150 yards to hopeful of 50 yards and the furthest. If we were Rifle hunting she would have been taken down easily, actually not cause Rifle can only shoot branched antler bull elk, but thats another story. ;-) If I wanted to shoot her I would have needed to be within 40 yards..bow hunting is a challenge. 

So after a few minutes these two guys pull up in a truck behind us, get out to see whats going on, pee, talk whatever and Im in the car with wide eyes, BE QUIET! QUIT MOVING! haha, so needless to say my Grampa didnt have a choice and had to start sneaking in on her, he got very close, about 65 yards away when one of the guys from the truck behind us grabbed his bow and started after my Grampa. Im thinking he figured there was more than one and wanted to get a shot himself, but he wasnt very quiet, and once the cow looked up and spotted him, she left. I was SO upset. Who does that?! Ugh. Oh well. 

And to top it off, as we were leaving the area we pulled over for another car to pass us, and there was my  buck, 20 yards from the car. He didnt care we were there, but once the other car drove by, he did and left. Ugggh again! 2nd time that day people ruined our chances of an animal. If we could have kept driving and I walked back and waited for him to cross the road, I'd be feeding my family venison for the rest of the year, but hey..there is always next year! :) My Mom has already agreed to watch my kids, take Siara to school while I go over. How lucky am I?! Very!!! Thats just a couple stories, I have more, but dont have time to type them all up. I had a great time though and was thinking I should name my baby boy  (if its a boy) Hunter..haha, I mean do we HAVE to choose an S name? My family is Tim, Salina, Stacy and Steven..so I'd say its ok??? ;-) 

Now its on to Christmas shopping..thankful for Amazon and my Prime membership! :D

Nice little run from a Buck..killed the tree!