PAWS Award

Evan Recieved at PAWS Award at school today. PAWS stands for Person Achievers Who Succeed. Grove School designed the program to reward "paws"itive behavior. The Criteria inculdes attendance, daily work and behavior at school.

Scrapbooking

I have been busy cleaning up the scrapbook room and getting back to scrapbooking on a regular bases. Last Saturday we scrapbooked at the house. Well I should say I did since only one other person showed up because of the bad weather. Julie stopped by but did not bring her stuff. We had a good time catching up. We have both been so busy that it has been a long while since we have had a chance to visit. In fact we ran into each other in Tri-Cities at the Sportsman's show a few weeks back and joke about having to travel 60 miles just to see each other. Enjoy the layouts I finished while we visited.

Elk

Have you ever take a close look at an Elk. They are quite beautiful animals. All the years I have seen mounted Elk head I have never really taken a close look until now.

ELK Choir Concert

Tuesday night was the Middle School Choir Concert where a group of selected kids from Grove Elementary sang. The concert was to be held in December but was cancel due to weather. Elk is in the middle row. Second from the left. The concert was really good. The kids did a great job singing. You can see that his left shoulder is a bit droopy. We are always reminding him to hold is shoulders back. We go back Feb. 16, 2009 for another set of x-rays to see if it is healed completely. The pain is getting better. In fact last night he actually rolled over in the middle of night so he must be doing better.

Broken Bones

The 4th run of the day is a curse for our family. 2 season ago Rick tore his ACL on the 4th run of the day. Today ELK went off a jump near the top of the 4th run of the day today. He landed wrong and on his left shoulder. Came up crying with his shoulder hurting. Andrew and Evan were skiing this run alone and going to meet Mom and Dad at the bottom of the lift. Evan said he could ski to the bottom which he did. We meet up at the boys at the bottom and went straight to Ski Patrol. That was the end of the Ski day and a drive to the ER. Here is what his collar bone looks like.

He will be in a shoulder harness for the next 6 weeks. It looks like the end of ski season for him. One thing he is glad about is no more wrestling practice. He just hopes he will be healed in time for baseball season. This is his first broken bone.

Its Snowing.....

Today we woke to a trace of snow and still snowing. 3 hours later it is still snowing but not amounting to much. There is about an inch of snow on the ground.

Andrew has been out shoveling the neighbors sidewalk and hauling the snow to our house. He is building a big pile of snow trying to create a snowboard ramp for them.

As you can see in the photo he has gathered quite a bit off the neighbors walks. He has the block cleared and has moved on down around the corner and using the wheel barrow to haul the snow. He is every energetic this morning.

This afternoon we will be going to church to play Bingo. We have started playing once a month for a few reasons. First and foremost is to come together as a church family and have fun. Which we do quite well. Second reason is to raise money for our Youth program.

The Elks Lodge had an old Bingo board they had not used for years so they donated it to the church. I am the BINGO QUEEN CALLER so far. This will be the 4th time we have played and everyone has a great time. We have been gaining more people each time. With the snow I don't expect many people but who knows. Last time we had snow I thought that an 22 people showed up. I was amazed.

Sunday we will be heading to the mountain to ski for the day.

US President

Barack Hussein Obama II, born August 4, 1961, is the forty-fourth of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. He was sworn in as President on January 20, 2009. Only time will tell if he is able to make changes that are needed in the United States.

Skiing

Mom I am really hot and want to take my coat off!

Trophies

It's here. Rick finally got the Elk head back from being stuffed. He shot the Elk in October 2007 after hunting for 20 plus years. This was his first "Big Bull" and want to get it mounted add it to the trophy wall. As you can see it is much larger and probably the most memorable trophy on the wall. The final scoring of the horns was 343 by Jeff, the taxidermist.
Its temporary home is in the shop. Who knows where the its final resting place will be or if it will even be moved for the current spot. We do know that the ping pong table needs to be moved right now or else the Elk could will be a playing partner. Come on by and visit the trophy. Rick would love to show it off.

Joseph in December

View from the living room window where we stay in Joseph.

We went to Joseph this past December for a wrestling match. Here is a few photos that I took of the bronze art pieces downtown Joseph.

This one is my favorite Bronze.

Skiing at Bluewood

The top of the chair at Bluewood. Hard to tell but it was snowing.

What is taking you guys so long?

Here is ADK waiting for the rest of us at the bottom of the run.

The family minus Mom, the photographer. This is near the top of Skyline.

Here is some video of the boys skiing. Enjoy.





Video of ADK at the bottom of the terrain park at Ski Bluewood.

Video of ELK at the bottom of the terrain park at Ski Bluewood.

It was a good day of skiing for us, since it was our first day of skiing for the year.

This is ADK skipping rock at Wallowa Lake this past December. The picture was take about 3pm as the sun was starting to set. We went over for the weekend because there was a wrestling tournament in Enterprise on Saturday.

Here ELK is, he's the one in red/black. ELK took first place at the Enterprise Tournament.

Sunset

As you can see there is not much snow left. Just two pile the boys build a snow walls for the snowball fights they had. It rained most of last night and into this morning.

I was out cleaning out the chicken coop when I walk around the shop and saw the sunset. It was beautiful. By the time I got the camera the colors had disappeared some but still beautiful.

My chicken enjoying time out side the chicken pen. I have three of them that need to be butcher since they are not laying eggs anymore but I can't get anyone to kill them. Any takers???? I looking for a home for them.

Snow...Snow...

Woke this morning at 3:30am to rain. By 5am it had turned to snow. The thermometer shows it is 35 degrees but it is snowing. A very wet snow. At noon it had snowed 3 inches. A&E have been having fun making a snow family. snowboarding on the jump they made it the tall grass field. This is making up for missing the 3 ft of snow we got at the house over Christmas break when we were down South.

Lacy goes crazy when you throw snowballs. She chases them and also jumps in the air to catch them. She loves playing with the boys in the snow.

Today is Rick 49th Birthday. We don't have any special planned except for going out to dinner at Applebees in Walla Walla. Last night Evan realized that we had not gone shopping to get Dad a gift. He said he was going to give him $6 and needed something to wrap it in. I told him to keep his money and make Dad a card or a picture. Andrew and I did go out on New Years Day and get a few small things. I just paid for his fishing trip to Alaska this coming September so I figure that is a pretty good birthday present. We did bake him a cake when I was home for lunch today.