Christmas 2008 Newsletter

So I meant to get a Christmas letter in the mail this year and it just didn't happen. I had a few friends send me e-mailed cards and I thought ... what a great idea! Here's our Christmas letter just for you ... when you click on it, it will open a new window. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to read the words! Enjoy and have a wonderful Christmas!

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Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving Day. We went to Caldwell, Idaho to see Tony's sister. His parents also went up. We had a good time. Lots of food, and even more pies. Tony and his brother-in-law Travis played football thursday morning, Tony got his lip split from an elbow. Then after dinner we played hand-and-foot. On friday Tony, Gene, Bradley and I went to this place about 20 miles from the Oregon border to shoot clay pigions. It was kinda like golf with a shotgun. There were 10 different spots that you walked to, and at each place you got 4-6 shots at the clays. There was a total of 50 clays you got a chance at, and I got 22/50, Tony only got 28/50, and I beat his dad who got 18/50. It was a lot of fun. Then that night the girls went and saw "Twilight" which was totally awesome. Right on with the book. I'm excited for the next movie. Then on Sat. we went to the YMCA were Gena (Tony's sis) works and took the kids swimming. They have this awesome slide that i had to take Bradley down at least 20 times. Then later that day we stopped at Becky's house and visited with her and Dan for about an hour. Then we drove up to see Grandma and Fred. They seemed to be doing really well for their age. I hope that I can take care of myself as well as Grandma can when I'm her age. She's amazing. It was nice to see the kids playing with her. She really enjoyed playing with Andee, who warmed up to her right away. Then on Sunday we drove home.
Well that's our little update. We're all doing fine, trying to get ready for Christmas without over doing it. I don't know about your family but I think we're going to tone down on the presents this year and try to focus more on the spirit of Christmas. I know my kids don't need that many more toys. Well we hope you and your family are all well, we love you all.

King's Peak Hike

Dad has wanted to climb Kings Peak for years now. After talking about it I found time to go in August. So we planned to spend 4 days after our Lake Powell trip. We had to plan menus, buy or borrow proper gear and get tents fixed. I was concerned about Gavin, this being his first real hiking experience, I didn't know if it would be too much for him. Dad and I hadn't done any real hiking in some time either, so I wasn't sure if any of us were up to the challenge. While we were at Lake Powell I tore the skin off the ball of my right foot, while climbing some cliffs to jump off of, and wasn't sure I could even go. It seemed to heal enough, and we took Mole Skin just in case. 

I didn't want to take our big, bulky camera, so Kacie asked us to stop on our way and buy a disposable camera to take pictures, but I forgot and we were stuck with just my BlackBerry for pictures. I'm glad we went on a Monday, because there was almost no one else on the trail, so it was hard to get a picture of all three of us together. We couldn't ask for better weather, almost no wind and sunny all the time, it was just beautiful and peaceful. We were disappointed we didn't see more wildlife. Other than small birds, one of which my dad nearly killed while at the summit, the only wildlife we saw was a mamma moose and her calf on the third day. The first day we hiked about ten miles to Dollar Lake and set up our base camp, we were all very tired and sore, but I think Gavin was in the worst shape. We kept telling Gavin the hard work would be over when we got to Dollar Lake, that the climb to the summit wouldn't be that hard because we would only be taking daypacks. As it turns out the climb to the summit was just as hard and longer than our first day. We didn't get back until almost 8 PM, and we were tired. The view from the summit was awesome, skies were clear with some clouds, you could see the wind turbines along I-80 in Wyoming that will increase our electric bills. (Thanks for vowing to bankrupt the coal industry, Obama, putting millions of people with high paying jobs out of work. But I digress...) The third day we just took it easy trying to recuperate a little, we hiked about halfway back to the trailhead and set up camp. The truth is my feet hurt so bad I could barely make it as far as we did that day. The fourth day we packed up and headed back to the truck, we must have passed 50 or more people all going in. As I said earlier, I'm glad we went on a Monday-we almost had the place to ourselves.