I truly have had the best intentions of writing and updating the past couple of months - but alas...I still haven't downloaded my pictures and we are only 10 days away from a New Year! YIKES - time goes so fast!
I was thinking about my blessings over the past year and I wanted to share a few of my thoughts.
On November 21, 2010 we welcomed our 9th grandchild - I am so grateful for each and every one of these special children. I can't even express to you the joy I feel as I have watched my daughters become mothers. These are amazing strong and knowledgable women who love their children unconditionally and who teach, nurture, and share so much with each one. I love them and I am so proud of each one and the people that they have become. This is one of the great rewards for all of the sleepless nights, worry, struggle, and moments when you feel like you just can't measure up - somehow these sweet daughters have taken the good that I tried to give them and have increased it 100 fold for their children. I am so blessed!
In May Ray and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary - I started to think about our courtship and marriage and I couldn't help but smile. We have shared so much over the years and we have grown so close. I am so grateful to be married to my very best friend! I adore this man! We have so many great adventures together:
In April we went turkey hunting - it was our first outing in the trailer and it was also the coldest camping I can ever remember. We started the hunt on a beautiful sunny day and the next morning we woke up to 2 feet of snow. Ray always makes sure that we have plenty of coats, hats, gloves, snowpants, boots and other warm gear so going out in the snow wasn't too bad. We actually called in a turkey and watched him for about an hour through out binoculars. He just wasn't mad enough to leave the safety of his little cave to try and attack the intruder - so we didn't get the chance to shoot him. Although we weren't successful we did have a wonderful time and it was the first time I had actually called a turkey and had him respond. We had a great day driving through the snow in the Jeep and looking for turkeys. We did see a lot of deer in the area. It was fun...until we went to bed that night. I was snuggled under lots of blankets and my body was warm - but that was the first time in my life that my head was so cold I couldn't sleep. I tried to cover my head but nothing I did seemed to warm it up. That was long cold night!
You would think that I would have learned my lesson about winter camping but Ray and I drew out two cow elk permits in three corners (by Flaming Gorge). I couldn't believe that the hunt started on November 19th. We purchased a new Fifth Wheel in August before our family reunion so I felt pretty confident that we would have a warm bed at night. We decided to take Brenden on his first elk hunt with just grandma and grandpa. The first two days we didn't even see an elk. We did see a HUGE buck deer - it was probably the biggest deer I have ever seen and lots of does. But no elk. Again we had the experience of going to bed with beautiful weather and then waking up to about 6 inches of snow. We took the Jeep up on the mountain and we hit a really slick spot - gratefully Ray was driving and although we ended up in a rut along the side of the road we were all safe. Ray decided to put the chains on the tires - after a lot of slipping and sliding and falling down - he got them all on and was able to drive us off the mountain. There were a few moments of pure terror but we were all okay. The next morning we finally saw some elk - in fact we saw about 40 head in a little valley that we had walked to (Brenden was a champ and never once complained). We were looking at them through the binoculars and we couldn't believe our eyes - all of the elk were bulls - big bulls! I have never seen that many bulls in one place in my entire life! We were witnesses to a real treat. Sadly there was not one cow among them and our tags were cow tags. I can't tell you how much fun it is to go camping and hunting with Ray. He is always prepared and we always make amazing memories.
I mentioned above that we had a family reunion in August. 2011 was a banner year for our family, my sweet daddy turned 80 this year. To celebrate this milestone we planned a family reunion in our family's favorite place...Beaver, UT. There is a little lake there called Puffer Lake and we have been going to this spot for over 45 years. We have so many wonderful memories of this beautiful place and because the tradition was started by my dad we thought it was a great place to celebrate his life. We had over 50 attendees and it was so much fun. We ate, we talked, we laughed, the kids made and sailed wooden boats, we took pictures, we reminisced, and we honored our father. It was such a great time! I am so grateful to be part of such an amazing family. I have wonderful parents, siblings who are also great friends, really fun nieces and nephews, and all of the in-laws are good friends too. What a great memory this will be for years to come!
As you can tell 2011 was a good year - lots of memories were made and as I stated before I have a lot of pictures to share. I will try to do another synopsis of vacations, parties, holidays, special moments next week. I really do have a lot to share - I just need to get better at doing it more often.
I wish all of my family and friends a Very Merry Christmas and another wonderful New Year!!
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