Out with the Old.....

As the Countdown Begins...

On this New Year's Eve...

I Wish Everyone a Very...

Wishing Everyone......

A Very Merry Christmas! It's not about the gifts under the tree or the latest gadget to be had.

It's about the love we have for family and friends and the special moments and memories we create when we are together.

Merry Christmas to all!

Are You Ready?

After a weekend of shopping and baking, I'm still not ready for Christmas! There are still gifts left to purchase and goodies to be delivered to friends! Will it ever get done!? Don't even mention Holiday cards.....we are getting them, but I doubt I'll be sending any! Maybe everyone will get a New Year's card......LOL! Are you all ready for Christmas or are you still scurrying around to get last minute stuff done?

I Felt It Coming On!

So I shall resort to the next best thing.....wine and chicken soup!

(now excuse me while I go buy stock in the Kleenex Company! Maybe I can decorate the Christmas tree in Kleenex!)

Turkey Day Recap

Countrychick helped out in the kitchen. She didn't have an apron, so I shared mine. Someone please pour the wine! More please........no a little more please! Mom was happy to have the family seated around the table. "Hey, where did the wine go?" Dad enjoyed the Thanksgiving wine. "Mr. or in this case Ms. Napkin Head" came to dinner. Can you name that movie?Cousin "IT" came to dinner and drank all the wine! Bad, Bad Cousin "IT!"There were several games of pool played at the end of the evening. Countrychick is quite the pool shark these days!

It was a great and fun Thanksgiving! I am thankful and blessed in my life...family, friends, fun, love and health...what more could we ask for!

Well maybe we could ask that Cousin "IT" not show up next year and drink all the wine....bad, bad Cousin "IT!"

Duty, Weather and Shopping

Well folks, I survived jury duty this past week, survived the wild and wacky weather and survived shopping at Walmart today!

Jury duty was interesting. Since I have never been called to serve before, I was unsure of what to expect. The judge made the whole jury selection process very informative from start to finish. I arrived at 8 a.m. and was finally dismissed at 1 p.m. My name was never called, so I didn't have to go sit in the jury box and go through the question and answer process. I doubt I would have been seated if my name had been called as I work with children and anyone who even remotely had anything to do with children was dismissed. The nature of the case was a tough one, so I am rather glad I didn't get chosen.

The weather this past week was wild and wacky to say the least. We had temps in the 60's, a wind storm with 60 mph gusts and massive dust, rain, snow and now temps in the 30's!

Shopping at Walmart today was interesting! We arrived early and the store seemed fairly empty, which is how I like to shop, empty store, no people, just get it done and over with fast! Half way through the shopping, the store became packed with people...packed with rude, grumpy people! Hayman finally made a beeline for the exit and went out to wait in the car. I hurried through the rest of the shopping as Walmart was not the only stop we had to make and of course, I forgot a few things. Oh well, just wanted to get out of crazyville before the grumpies started wearing off on me.

This coming week will of course be a busy one. My sis arrives on the train Tuesday and will be here through Thanksgiving.

I hope everyone had a great week and is ready for the busy week ahead! Who's cooking the turkey in your house?

Today Is.....

My One Year Anniversary at work and jury duty day!

Just When I Thought......

Things were going to settle down and return to normal (whatever "normal" is!) I received a hand delivered summons for Jury Duty starting on Tuesday! I guess this is a big trail for our community and there will be 80 of us present on Tuesday for the start of the selection process. Now please excuse me while I go book a flight for some far away destination to escape my civic duty.....and I don't even fly!

No I Didn't........

Fall off the face of the planet! I have just been bogged down with work the past month. I can't believe how fast October went and now we are well into November! And the holidays are just around the corner......Yikes....the whole entire year has gone whizzing by!! I spent all of October planning the annual county 4-H Awards Ceremony which was held November 6. I added a dinner for our volunteers and youth this year and that took a lot of planning and time. When you are planning an event for 100 plus people, everything else gets put aside for a while. My 4-H Ambassadors and I also planned a raffle for the event as well, so we spent weeks gathering items, selling tickets, etc. The Awards Ceremony and dinner were a wonderful event and we did very well with our raffle. The food, well it was just out of this world! All of the hard work really paid off in a big way! Things will quiet down now for awhile and hopefully I will find some time to post some long overdue photos and get a bit of blogging done. I hope everyone is having a wonderful fall!

Beautiful Views and Relaxing

Earlier this month, Hayman took me on a surprise trip for our 20th wedding anniversary. He researched places on line and finally settled on a resort in Idaho. He booked a house for five days in a beautiful area about an hour from Boise, Idaho. We stayed in a cute little house. It had its own geothermal spa and geothermal creek running behind the house. There was a golf course, club house and geothermal pool as well. We spent our time relaxing and exploring the area. The spa provided relaxation once Hayman figured out the trick to regulating the temperature (the water entered the house/spa at 180 degrees). I took photos of our day trips, but didn't take many photos of the house we stayed in. The ones I did take didn't turn out well because I had my camera on the wrong setting. It was a cute place and the perfect place to spend our 20 year anniversary!

Hayman checking out the river!

The water was so clear!

Trees, Trees everywhere! (I don't see many of these where I live!)

Hayman managed to find some very narrow, winding roads for us to explore. You never knew what was around the next bend.

Just after I snapped the photo of the doe running away, her baby ran out of the trees and up the hill behind her.
The canyons were deep and the water rushing! There were many people braving the fast moving water and rafting the river!

And below, our little spa that looked out over the creek running behind the house. There were little twinkle lights that lit up the room at night. Perfect for a nice evening with a glass (or bottle) of wine and some relaxing!
Thank you Hayman for our wonderful trip! Happy 20th Anniversary!

Pig Wrestling Anyone!

We survived fair week! I met myself coming and going many times over the course of last week and weekend and at one point I think I even passed myself and said, HI! It was a busy week and a fun week as well. Countrychick and friends entered a pig wrestling event last Friday night. They represented our county 4-H program. Did they catch their pig....you will have to watch the video to find out. The rest of the photos below are of Countrychick showing her birds. She did very well...scored 100 on her showmanship and received a blue ribbon and three of her roosters placed very high; 1 grand champion and 2 reserves in their classes. The little chick that we raised this spring won Reserve Champion Heavy Breed in the show. My friend Oregontribal1 and her husband Dodgeman were here for our crazy fair week. They were hoping for a vacation, but I put them to work. They were troopers and a huge help as well. I think they had a great time, but next year they might plan their vacation a little differently so as not to have to work so hard on their time off....he, he. Thanks guys for all of your help! Okay, so Hayman has surprised me with a trip for our 20th wedding anniversary. The big day is not until the 23rd of this month, but Hayman will be putting up 4th crop of hay at that time, so he planned a little trip for us and we leave tomorrow. I will be sure to post photos when we return. I'm told there is no internet where we are going, so you will have to wait until next week for an update. Happy Weekend to all and you all really should try pig wrestling sometime...........

Today I Will.......

Catch up on blogging! Here it is the end of August and I have only managed to post one blog post this month! Work and life in general have been very, very busy! The photos posted today were taken at the beginning of the month. Today I will also clean the house since we have company coming next week, help Countrychick with her fair entries; she has photos to get printed and mounted, treats to bake for the foods part of the fair and a poster to finish on dairy goat products! Countrychick competed in her first dairy goat show a few weekends back. She and her goat, Fawn did very well! So my weekend will be a busy one, but next week, Whew.....I can't even begin to tell you what will be going on at this point! It is our Tri-County Fair week and I will be on the go, go, go, go, go!!!!! I still can't believe how fast this summer has gone! Wow! is all I can say to that!!



The Budweiser Horses stopped overnight in our little town. They are on tour this summer traveling all over the country. Our fair grounds have a nice stable area, so the horses were able to spend the night in a comfortable setting. I must say, they do travel in style!Hayman and I traveled to California for a funeral at the beginning of Aug. We stayed in an area which allowed for some fishing. Hayman grew up in this area, so it was good to see everyone even though it was a sad event that brought everyone together.Hayman spent several hours enjoying his favorite past time! The day was beautiful!These little brown trout sure put up a fight. Hayman is a fly fisherman, so everything is catch and release. The dragonflies were plentiful in the area as well, so I spent some time snapping away.




This squirrel was very curious about what we were doing. He was rather large too!The snow covered area is actually a glacier. You can actually hike up to the glacier and to several hidden mountain lakes in the area. Countrychick and her goat Fawn before the Dairy Goat Show.In the show ring with the judge.Showing in the prodigy class. Countrychick with Fawn and Miss E. with Ginger. (Fawn's spring baby.)


I was in the show ring as well with Fawn. The show manager requires that the parents of the kids get in the ring and compete as well. That way we know what the youth experience and how they feel in the ring. This took me back to the days when I showed sheep in FFA. I had a blast!.Fawn was very good for me and we placed 3rd in our classCountrychick and Fawn took away the serious awards! Countrychick came home with blue ribbons and two Reserve trophies and rosettes. Fawn was reserve champion in two of her classes!Next week will find Countrychick competing at the county 4-H poultry show with her birds! Now it is time to get on with the day and the many things left to do. Happy Saturday!

No Time

"I'm late, I'm late for a very important date! No time to say, "hello", "good-bye", I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"


Seriously, I'm very busy with work! I'm still trying to figure out where the month of July went and we are already into the second week of August! Ack...time flies right out the window these days!

Hayman and I traveled to California two weekends ago to attend a funeral. Not what one wishes to do for some down time, but while there, we did manage to visit friends, relax and yes, Hayman got in a little fishing. I have photos to post and hopefully will get to that this evening...or whenever a free moment appears in my schedule!

Now I must get back to work and prepare for a meeting or I really will be late, late, late.............

OUCH!

When the wall meets a foot......bad things happen! Poor Countychick ran her foot into the wall a week or so back. Ouch!

This was the result of that contact! Her foot and toes turned many shades of purple and blue over the coming days. The little toe was broken and it is still black and blue this week! At least she had pretty blue toe nail polish on for this close up! Poor kiddo........this is the fourth time she has broken the pinkie toe on her left foot!!!! I think she needs some steel-toed boots!

Read All About It!

Catchy post title, right! Okay, so here's the scoop.....I have been busy, busy, busy at work and then I get home and I'm busy, busy, busy at home and then I'm too pooped to blog! In all reality, I have been so busy at work planning the 4-H dog show, (which is today and tomorrow) and planning the 4-H horse show, which is next Tuesday and Wednesday, that I haven't had time to blog or read my favorite blogs! Ack...I know nothing, nothing, nothing about planning a horse show! Twitch, Twitch, Twitch.....that's me, twitching at the moment! I had planned to blog and post over the weekend, but as modern technology would have it, our DSL box went out or died or something to that effect, so we didn't have Internet at all on Sunday....sniff, sniff, sniff, twitch, twitch, twitch! So here I am on my lunch hour doing this little bitty blog post. That's all for now folks......must get back to my twitching......umm, I mean work!

I Didn't Do It!

Honest, it wasn't me! I didn't do it! That's my story and I'm stick'in to it!
Could this face tell a lie!

Wasn't me, wasn't me! Honest!

See, I'm cute and playful....grrrrr!

And I'm an Angel when I sleep!I didn't piddle on the floor all day, chase the cats or steal the big dogs bed! Honest, I didn't! That's my story and I'm stick'in to it!

This sweet little puppy belongs to our son, Cowboy M. The puppy was a birthday present from his girlfriend. The puppy's name is Diesel. Cowboy M. came out to work on the farm the other day on his day off and he brought sweet, cute, little Diesel along. Auntie Countrychick got to puppy sit all day. Little Diesel kept Countrychick plenty busy! At the end of the day Countrychick proclaimed that puppy's are hard work! He, he, he....ya think!

A Little B-Day Fun

A busy week last week equaled no time for posting. So without further ado, here are those birthday photos I told you to stay tuned for.

One must have a little glass of wine on their 40th birthday. Or possibly and entire bottle!
And gifts, there must be gifts! Gifts wrapped in tin foil are even better! Cowboy M. loves to get creative with his wrapping paper style. At least I was spared the duct tape! Please ignore the silly look on my face....we will blame it on the wine!Oh wait, I was spared the duct tape, only to be tortured with electrical tape! Cowboy M. wrapped the entire present in an outer layer of tin foil and an inner layer of electrical tape. Very clever son I raised! Countrychick wrapped her gift to me in layer after layer of tissue paper and string bows! Yes, this is the same photo as the one above. I don't know how that happened or how to delete it, so here it stays! Somebody handed me this wonderfully, yummy cocktail in a glass! It was a Creme Brulee Martini! I have never, ever had a martini before in my life, but these are my new favorite drink! This lovely cocktail was out of this world! And it about sent me out of this world after two of them!One's 40th birthday is not complete without cake! Lots and lots of yummy cake! The entire room of 20 plus people sang to me as well. They sounded great! Oh wait, maybe it was the wine and martini's that made them sound great......The cake was a white cake with lemon filling. Hayman ate all of the cake I brought home! Someone likes cake!

Hayman had a birthday on July 7. I fixed him a nice tri-tip dinner with all the fixins. There was also wine and lemon pie! I got even with him and ate his last slice of lemon pie a few days later.

We have one more birthday to celebrate this month and that will be on Tuesday when Cowboy M. turns the big 23!