Lambing
 
 
 
One of our neighbors is really into the stockshow and has a herd of show quality sheep. His daughter has taken and sold several of their sheep at the State Fair Show. He also works for the Police Dept. so I know him pretty well. This is a few shots from March of 2008, he was just finishing up lambing and was showing us around his place. The kids enjoyed the new lambs. Mer even got to bottle feed a couple.

Elk Migration
 
Our neighbor told us that the elk had traditionally migrated through the area where we lived. She gave us a call one Sunday night(Jan 2008) and told us they were coming. They moved through pretty quickly, so I only had time for this shot. Then they dropped over the edge of the hill and out of sight. As many as there are, they didn't come anywhere near our property line. The elk were on the other side of our neighbor's property and didn't even come up to our fence (shown in the very bottom of the photo), which is a good think as I doubt it would have held them back.

10th Aniversary

Having never taken a "real" honeymoon, we finally got around to it for our 10th! I had a training in Austin, TX. Colleen flew down the last day of training and we spend an extended weekend in Austin. It was rather enjoyable to be that far south in December rather than Craig.

The first night we went to the Nutcracker Suite Ballet. We had the very back row of the balcony, but it was a small enough theater that it didn't really matter. Afterwards, we tried to find a resturaunt with some food we recognized. Which actually took some doing in Austin! The next day, Neal & Debbie drove up from Houston up to see us and we drove to some small town that had Smities, apparently the best barbecue of all time (according to Neal and the Wall St. Journal). We then toured around the State capitol building. Walked along a trail taking photos of the river and the skyline. We slept in the next morning, before catching the plane home. It was really nice just to be together and away from all the kids for a few days.
 
Smities
 
The capitol building.

 
My beauty in the dome of the capitol

 
The skyline along the river.

Elizabeth's Wedding
 
Jason looks a bit outnumbered here!

Christmas 2007
 
 
This was before we put in the wood stove, but we fired up the "fake" fireplace for Christmas. It wasn't warm, but it looks great.

Christmas Eve 2007
 
 
Several member of Colleen's family spent Christmas with us becuase of Erica's baptism a few days before. We did the Christmas story with the little kids. Will and Mary's (then youngest) child was rather adorable as the baby Jesus.

Erica's Baptism
 

Pretty self explanatory. We did have several family members come for the baptism which was nice, though the weather was bad and many had to leave right after the baptism.

Halloween 2007
 
 
Cute kids, of course, the the group shot just didn't do Jason's enthusiasm for his costume justice.

General Conference Trip

We went to Utah for General Conference in Oct. 2007, to see family and a few sights. We went to Camp Floyd (a historical inn and fort), then drove out along the Pony Express Trail. The first photo is of the Inn at the fort. Mark Twain spent a night there while writing "Roughing It."

 

 
We went to the Great Salt Lake to do a little birding. I got a nice shot of Antelope Island.

 
We didn't get tickets to go into conference so we thought we would hang out on the Temple grounds and listen. Unfortunatly it was raining pretty steadily, so spent most of it inside where they don't brodcast it. Ah, the best laid plans...

Traveling Vietnam Memorial
 
 
 

In Aug 2007, Craig hosted a traveling Vietnam memorial. It is a replica of the one in Washington only reduced in size. Its was absolutely amazing. You could just feel the significance of those who gave their lives in this war. While we were there they had a small ceremony with the VFW and a few talks. We ended up staying about 3 hours longer than we expected. I'm not sure the kids loved it, but both Colleen and I were quite moved.

Mt. Borah (Idaho's Highpoint) Trip

Since Neal was moving to Houston, we decided to try to get in one more highpoint before he left. This is a view of the peak as well as the trailhead parking area where we threw our sleeping bags down on the ground and slept under the stars the night we arived. Neal's blog has a better blow by blow of the accent at http://nealsnowfamily.blogspot.com/2007/08/mount-borah.html. I've only added a few highlights of my own here.


A tremendously cool tree we saw on the way.


We reach the Top!


View from the top.

As you can see from the last two photos, as we summited the peak a storm started rolling in. We busted it down as fast as we could and got down to around 12,000 ft. when the storm hit us. Most people were smart enough to take cover, but Neal was convinced that just a bit further and we would be under the worst of it. The wind was howling and the rain pelting us as we got to what is called "chicken out ridge" a long narrow ridge many people don't dare cross as them come up the mountain. Coming down, that ridge was between us and the storm. So as we came over the top we were hit with the full force of the storm. The rain felt like being shot with a pellet gun with those plastic pelets. It was honestly difficult at times to navigate down with the wind and the rain. The wind was easily 50 mph if not more. The ridge was steep enough that a couple of mistakes could have been very costly, which was only intensified with the wind and rain. I would have gone back over the ridge and waited out the storm, but Neal was a few hundred feet ahead of me with no way to get his attention with such an intense wind in my face. So I ploughed ahead trying to catch up, so he wouldn't look back and not see me and think I had gone over the edge. Right about the time I got off the ridge, the storm broke and it was beautiful weather all the way down. We didn't have much company at this point since everyone else had(rightly so) huddled up and waited out the storm. Not exactly life threatening, but rather intense to say the least.

Also from Colleen's S.D. trip

Colleen's S.D. Trip



We had a couple of weeks between when we closed on our house in Denver and when we could move into our house in Craig. I continued to work, but Colleen spent a week of that with her family and the kids in South Dakota. There went to a variety of caves and saw Mr. Rushmore. Colleen liked it so much she talked me into going back a few years later so I could see it all too.

Our Home in Craig


In July 2007 we purchased this house. It was really an amazing find. I had given up looking for a house on some land within our price range. I was looking for lots and thinking of building a house. I had gone out on MCR 103 to look at some reasonably priced lots. I knew there were some other lots on LeBlanc Rd. that were much more expensive so I wasn't even going to look at them. However on a bit of a lark I decided to check them out. Across from those lots was this house with a "For Sale by Owner." You have to understand that there are a total of 6 houses on a dead-end road. No one goes down this road if they don't already live there. I contacted the owners and they said I was the last person who they could sell to by Owner as they had just contracted with a realtor, but since I had called them before they signed they would show my the house. In the end, that saved us several thousands of dollars and that put it into our price range and we bought it.

For what ever reason, I was looking at our blog today and it made me a little sad that we hadn't posted anything since we moved to Craig. I'm going to redouble my efforts to add to this and let people know what is going on in our lives. I'll have to put photos on our thumb drive and bring them to work since we have a horifically slow dial up at home. Wish me luck!