Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful that I got to spend some time this week with a couple of my sisters that I haven't seen in a very long time. One lives in California and the other one lives in Tennessee and there's always way too many years between visits! But we always pick up right where we left off...with tons of laughter!! It's amazing to me how much alike one of my sisters and I are given the fact that we only share one parent (our dad...from my dad's first marriage) and we were not raised in the same house so we didn't grow up together. But we have the same mannerisms, we always have matching something (last time we were wearing the same sweater when she got off the plane, this time we have matching cell phones) we respond the same to things...in fact quite often we say the same thing at the same time in the same tone. Very freaky. She is 10 years older than me and before I got married I went on a few vacations with her and her family. Her kids always told us we shared a brain. :) My kids now agree with that after this last visit. But we had a great time and it was neat to have the whole family together for a few hours.


My dad with all his kids...Beckie (the other half of my brain), Glora Dawn, Carol, Dave & Me.

I love this picture of my mom and dad.

Beckie and Carol with my kiddos...my sisters hadn't seen my kids in about 5 years.

Thankful Wednesday Night :)

I want to do my Thankful Thursday post tonight because I am feeling so thankful for my sweet daughter. I have had a very draining week at work due to a termination I assisted in and tonight I had to go back in to meet this individual to clean out their office. Brian is out of town so I left the kids with instructions for dinner and as I was heading out the door I offered to pay Hailey $2 to clean the kitchen...it was a disaster!!!!! I just couldn't face coming home to that after this long day. Two hours later when I walked back in the house my kitchen, dining room, living room and kitchen floor were SPOTLESS!!!! I was so grateful that she not only cleaned the kitchen but went the extra mile...she totally made my day!!!

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful that Brian and John were watched over and protected last week on their hunt. They went up in the afternoon last Saturday and started hiking in but decided to leave their snow shoes in the truck since it seemed the snow was packed down pretty good. It was also a pleasant afternoon so Brian went up with just a t-shirt and heavy flannel shirt but no coat. They had a little bit of food in their pack and a small amount of water thinking they were only going to be up there a few hours. They spotted a herd of elk and started hiking up to get close to the herd. They both got shots off and ended up hitting one of the elk that they proceeded to chase until it died. By this time it was around 6:00 pm and starting to get dark. In order to haul it out they were going to quarter it (I know...gross) and put half of it in a large garbage sack inside a large backpack (about 70 pounds) and they had rope tied around the hind quarters that they were pulling. By this time it was very dark and they only had headlamps and had lost the trail so they just started heading back "cross country" toward lights. They realized they were about 3-4 miles from the road and it became quickly evident that they might have some trouble getting back because every step they took sunk them in snow up to their knees with the added weight. It was very laborious and getting very cold. Brian had called me when they shot the elk and I hadn't heard anything after that. It was getting to be 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30 and no word. The thought that kept coming to my mind was, "This is Brian. If he has to, he'll put the animal and John on his back and get them down that mountain." Come to find out, that's pretty much what he did.

The more they "walked" the more they realized they might be in some trouble. John is smaller than Brian and when he tried to take a turn with the heavy pack he couldn't go more than 10 minutes with it. They didn't have water left, the temperature was dropping and their feet were soaking wet. They decided to stop pulling the hind quarters and tucked them out of the way to come back and get them another day. Their goal now was just to make it to the road. John was losing energy fast from the knee deep snow and came to a point where he didn't think he could take another step. Brian gave him a priesthood blessing at this point and he gained enough strength to keep going. Within a few minutes of the blessing they came upon the road that lead them to the truck. By the time they got there they were both completely exhausted. I finally heard from him at 11:50 pm and was so relieved to hear his voice.

I am thankful he came home to me safely that night and I'm thankful that the thoughts of his family were helping pull him down that mountain. I'm also thankful for all his mornings in the gym and marathons he's run that made him strong enough both mentally and physically to get back to the truck. I'm also thankful he knew to rely on his Heavenly Father to help them both!

(For those of you curious, John went back up on Monday with his cousin who has a horse and they retrieved the hind quarters. They were concerned they would be eaten or picked at by other animals or birds but they were untouched and in perfect shape.)

Thankful Thursday

...I didn't add my pictures before I started writing and now it won't let me copy and paste my text up here at the top. So, enjoy the pictures first. :)

Rocko stayed up till midnight with us on New Years Eve but the poor puppy got tuckered out around 10:00. Brian put this blanket over him and he was so tired he didn't move. :)

Snapping some pictures during our marathon of games that night.

"Happy New Years"!!!!!

Rocko perked up once we started counting down to midnight.

Just another cute picture of our little friend Ellie!!!! I love that she loves playing with her toothbrush...it reminds me so much of Nick when he was a baby.

Today I am thankful for the start of a new year. I love starting a new year and thinking about all of the things I'd like to either do differently, start doing, stop doing or think about doing in the new year. :) That's not to say I always accomplish all of these things but I do like the feeling of starting anew.

I'm also thankful I got to spend a fun New Years Eve with my family. We usually spend it with at least one or two other families but this year it didn't work out that way and even though I missed our usual traditions I am thankful for the time we spent having fun with just us. The kids and I went to the store and picked out a couple of new games for the evening and we really had a lot of fun playing them most of the night. We stopped about 11:30 to get our traditional grapes and "fake champagne" ready for midnight. Eating 12 grapes at midnight is a Spanish tradition that we started doing several years ago with our friend from Spain. As we were each eating our grapes I asked Brian what it was symbolic of and he actually had no idea. (He went on his mission to Spain.) So we have evidently been eating grapes at midnight all these years just to eat grapes at midnight. :)