Happy Holidays 2008

Well, as the slide show above shows - we have been busy having fun this year. For those of you who haven't been here to our blog before feel free to view previous postings to really see what we have been up to. I tried to post something once a month and because of that I am not going to go into a long post of what we have done. Just to catch you up though, Brett is still a Regional Fisheries Biologist for the Idaho dept. of Fish and Game. I am currently a full time dental hygiene student at Idaho State University and have 3 semesters left there. Sadie is 11 now and is excelling at school and dealing pretty well with the drama and emotions that being an adolescent brings. Cody is 8 and loves to push the limits - he loves our animals and is usually very helpful when we have chores to do. Jackson and Greg are 7 now and feeling like quite the big kids. They are in different classes at school but play with each other at each recess and miss each other if one is gone.

We hope all of you are having a great holiday season and are enjoying the presence of family. We love you all and would love to hear from you. Love, The High Family

Turkey anyone?

Just a quick post to show the world Sadie's first hunting trophy! She shot it all by herself. Now that is an animal Brett hasn't even conquered yet :). Ask her about it next time you see her, I am sure she will have a lot to tell.

Birthdays, Costumes and Awards

All the kids helping Brett stack the wood. What good helpers. Sadie turned 11 years old on October 18th.

Pumpkin carving was fun. The kids had "pumpkin guts" stuck to them everywhere!

Sadie the black cat, Jackson as Spiderman, Cody the pirate "ARGH" and Greg as "The Thing" from Fantastic Four.

The kids all drew pumpkin designs and then we used one thing from each drawing. The top pumpkin has Cody's eyes/brows and Jackson's mouth and the bottom one used Sadie's eyes and Greg's mouth.
Sadie holding her awards. One from the Post Register and the other from the school board here in Rigby.

OK, so here I am working on a blog post instead of studying for an exam I have on Monday. Don't worry, I think that I have my priorities right where they should be for the moment. There is always more time to study. As you can see from the photos above, we have definitely been keeping busy. At the beginning of October Brett and his Dad went and cut a ton of firewood and the kids spent an entire Saturday morning helping to get it all stacked. Sadie's birthday was spread out over an entire week. Brett was going hunting on her birthday, so we did gifts Friday night, she spent her day with her friends, and then on Sunday we did her favorite meals. The next weekend I took her and a friend to see High School Musical 3 in the theater. It was a fun girls "date". Halloween came and went without too much to complain about. The kids were really good about costumes. Jackson said that he didn't care that he was Spiderman last year, we live somewhere new, so nobody knows. I thought that was pretty good thinking. Greg was pumped that we got his costume off of eBay. I tried to convince the kids to be the Fantastic Four, since we have 3 boys and 1 girl, but they all looked at me like that was the stupidest idea ever. Oh well, a mom has to try right? Most recently, this past week, Sadie was recognized for an essay she wrote. The Idaho Falls newspaper (The Post Register) had an essay contest on diversity. Her language arts teacher told them that they could enter it for extra credit. Sadie, being the student and writer that she is (her goal in life is to be an author) entered. She wrote the essay without any help from us or her teacher. She received an honorable mention in the 6th grade division. You can read her essay online at http://www.postregister.com/essays/.

As for Brett, he is almost in full swing with his trap line. He has been concentrating on getting his bait caught first. Now he is focusing on his hunts. He has a pretty good deer and elk hunt this year, so he has been going as much as he can. He has been great getting the kids off to school everyday and helping around the house so much. I don't know how I could do this without him. I have been kept busy with school. I am finally learning how to use all the instruments that dental hygienists get to use. It is a bit stressful, but exciting too. Truly, school has been flying by. I only have 4 weeks or so left in the semester and I will be 1/4 of the way done with my program! It is going really fast.

I hope that all of you are well and, in this season of Thanksgiving, that you are beginning to focus on all that we have to be grateful for. I, for one, am grateful that I don't have to listen or view any more political adds for a while. Keep in touch!

Oh! Also, for a good laugh, check out my Brother/Sister in law's blog which is linked on the right side of my blog - living the high life. They have a hysterical video of our neice.

Fall is in full swing

The kids enjoying some play time with a box - it takes so little to amuse them eh?L to R: Greg, Sadie, Cody, Jackson
"Sprout"

So, it has been three weeks since my last post and it seems like a lot longer. So much has been going on that I don't know how I could possibly tell it all. We have gotten into the swing of school, and me being gone all day. We spent two weekends in Blackfoot attending the Eastern Idaho State Fair, including going to the demolition derby. (Cody wanted to know what a redneck was, so we went to that so he could see some for himself) ;) This past week and a half we have had kids sick, then Brett came down with it too. I was so happy that I hadn't gotten sick because I can't miss school (seriously, if I miss more than one day they can kick me out of the program), but it finally hit me yesterday while we were up cutting firewood. So I got to have a stomach flu in the forest (not fun) and Brett got to haul wood by himself. I am grateful that it hit me on the weekend though.

It seems like everything that could happen, has happened, since school started. The fuel pump went out on our Suburban, our dryer died, sick family etc. etc. So we fixed the car and finally after three weeks without a dryer, we bought a new one. So the kids took the box out on the front lawn and had a blast. I had to take some pics. The photo of the dog is another one of those things I was talking about. We got notified, this past week, that one of the people that we had sold a puppy to last fall had surrendered it to the animal shelter in Idaho Falls. Since she is papered they contacted us to let us know that we could come and get her if we wanted her. Well, we really don't want another dog, so we contacted another person that we had sold a puppy to, and he wants her, but he lives across the state and is still trying to figure out how to get her. So Brett picked her up on Friday and we temporarily have two dogs. She is really lovable and hasn't been aggressive at all. We called her Sprout before we sold her, so we are calling her that again. Hopefully we won't need to have her here too long because she is all ready getting attached to our family.
As far as school is concerned, I am loving it. Don't get me wrong, it is probably one of the hardest things that I have ever attempted, but it is also really gratifying. It is so nice to sit in class after class and learn things that directly apply to what I want to do. It is also really interesting to note that it is coming really easy for me. I am remembering things without effort and I haven't had to study nearly as much as I expected. I got elected the Dental Hygiene Jr. class president, so that will look good on resumes and scholarship applications. I love the people in my class and I think the next two years are going to fly by. Now, being away from the family like I am is a challenge. Everyday I get up at 5am, leave by 6am (before anyone else is awake) and then am gone for 13 hours almost every day M-T. Fridays I get home earlier so I have made a habit on Fridays of crashing for a 30 minute power nap until the boys get home from school at 3:30. The kids think it is cool to have me working on homework at the same time they are.

So far, this fall has been really crazy, but I know that if we stay strong as a family and stay close to the Lord that all will work out. I wouldn't be able to do this without Brett and the kids taking over so much around our house, I am really thankful for them - Oh, by the way, today is Brett's and my anniversary. 13 years!!! Pitifully enough though, we have been so busy we both totally forgot about it until this morning. I guess that says something about our relationship, we are comfortable enough with each other to say, "Happy Anniversary honey, I totally forgot until just now!" And that is a good thing, of course I will try not to forget any other important days like kids birthdays or Christmas. I would definitely be in trouble then. Hope all is great for all of you. Keep in touch.

Sadie takes on the County Fair

Sadie and "Buddy" waiting their turn
Sadie during the market class showing
Sadie and Buddy's backside (sorry) notice the blue ribbons?

Sadie and one of her blue ribbons

From the 11th of August through the 17th we were involved with the Jefferson County Fair in one way or another. A totally new experience for us all I promise you. Sadie did 4-H - Lamb, Dutch oven cooking and a cooking day camp. She showed her lamb and got a blue ribbon for showmanship and a blue ribbon for the market class. Her lamb started out at 81lbs. in June and ended up weighing 141lbs. at fair. Pretty good rate of gain! When she showed him for the showmanship he got away from her (they aren't supposed to use the halter) and it shook her up a little. But once they caught him again she took control and did her best. Through out this experience she has pretty much hated her sheep and told us repeatedly that she wanted to quite. Of course, we didn't let her and I think that she is grateful now. She had a good time. Overall she got 4 blue ribbons and one BIG rosette chamion ribbon for a poster she made at the cooking day camp. We decided that the fair is so small, next year we are going to enter something in every category (not every animal category though) and see how much money the kids can make! You get paid like 3 dollars for every blue ribbon etc. My green peppers totally would have won this year, oh well.

I started school today with an orientation. It opened my eyes as to just what a hard two years are ahead for us (That and the twins crying last night as I tucked them in asking me "why do you have to go to school mommy? Is it because of us, don't do it!"). I know they will be able to handle it once we get into the rutine. I will try to keep posting somewhat regularly but we will have to see. The kids also started school this week and they are all loving their teachers and the twins love being there all day and being able to eat lunch. Hope everyone enjoyed their summer as much as I did.

Kelly came for a visit!

Sorry I am a bit of a slacker, my sister came like 2 weeks ago and still haven’t posted anything about it. Like I said, my sister Kelly and her family (husband Bob and kids Brett and Allison) came to visit us from Oregon. They were here for about a week and we loved having them. We took a trip into Yellowstone and to Jackson Hole so I have posted some photos from that trip. The family photo of us is taken in front of the Tetons right at twilight. It was really beautiful, those mountains are so awesome. We spent a lot of time visiting and the kids had a blast having their cousins here to share the pasture with (they made some cool forts). It was awesome to have them make the effort to come so far just for us. It is the first time any of my siblings have come to see us (except when they might have been passing through) and it meant a lot to me (no this is not meant to be a guilt trip guys, just an observation. I know how far it is.). Thanks again Kelly. Anyway, the county fair starts this week so I am sure I will have a long post about Sadie and her sheep experience for you next week, not to mention my brother is getting married on Saturday (congrats Joseph) so check back then and enjoy the rest of your summer.

Lagoon vacation

All right, so we finally took our kids on a vacation that did not involve fishing, hiking or huckleberry picking. Although we love doing those things, we loved this trip so much. We left last Wednesday and went to Downata hot springs and spent the entire day playing in the water and going down the water slides. It was fun, but the pool was too hot for me. Ya know when it is 90 degrees outside, you don't really want to swim in a pool that is warmer. It didn't seem to bother the kids though. They loved the slides and slept hard that night. Thursday morning we headed out early down to Farmington, Utah where there is an amusement park called Lagoon, for those of you not from around here. I had never been there before but Brett had gone a lot when he was a kid. There are rides of all kinds there and even a water park. We avoided the water park, since we spent the first day at one, and concentrated on the rides. Now for those who aren't aware, I have never been a roller coaster type person. I have vivid memories of riding the kiddie coaster at the state fair as a kid and feeling sick. I was so scared of throwing up on someone that I never even tried any other roller coaster since then. So going to Lagoon I knew that I was going to have to suck it up and just do it. Well, we started out slow, carnival type rides and then worked our way up. On the first day Sadie and I went on the "Jet Star" a short but totally fast roller coaster. I screamed like a little girl, but I loved it. We also went on the original roller coaster which was rickety and I didn't like that so much. By the end of the first night Sadie and Cody were set on the idea of going on Colossus, one of the BIG coasters that has a double loop-de-loop (yes you go upside down twice!). I was unsure. So as soon as the gates opened the next morning we ran to Colossus because the lines could get pretty bad. Brett took Sadie and Cody on it since Jackson and Greg were unsure if they wanted to try it yet. Well, they got off it laughing and telling us how awesome it was. I couldn't let my 8 and 10 yr olds go on a ride that I was unwilling to, so I did it. Humbly I admit that I was wrong. Roller coasters rock. I guess that the feeling of terror you get standing in line, is part of the fun. Sadie and Cody ended up going on Colossus 8 times that day, myself 6 times and the twins both rode it at least once. Jackson wouldn't go on it after the first time though because, as he said, "I screamed like a girl". Apparently, that was humiliating for a 6 yr old boy and he didn't want to repeat it. Brett was the only one of us who rode all the coasters, see there is the newest ride called "Wicked" which the kids and I just refused to try. You shoot out of the launch building and go straight up, no joke and then go straight down and then it shoots you through a corkscrew. NO THANKS! Brett liked it, but admitted that it was kinda freaky. The kids all enjoyed the big swings and we all laughed when we looked over and Jackson had both hands in the air as we soared over the park. He did that on almost every ride. Overall, we were exhausted after those three days, but had just enough energy left to take in the sights of Salt Lake City. We had a tour of the conference center and walked around temple square. We even watched the featured movie at the Legacy theater on Joseph Smith. It was really good and stimulated some good questions from the kids. Hope all of you are having fun too. Enjoy the slide show. The first slide shows the slides at the water park, and there is one of the Colossus. If you look close you can see Jackson and I in one row and Sadie and Cody behind us. The photos of dirty faces show us eating the traditional ice cream from the pioneer village. I might try to post some video later if I can figure it out.

Happy 4th of July

Well, the past couple of days have been BUSY! On the 3rd, we had several friends over for a BBQ (of course we really didn't BBQ anything). Three of Brett's friends from high school and their families came over. There were 8 adults and 13 kids here and boy did we have a good time. It had been a long time since we had seen them and it was great to catch up. All the dads and the kids even floated the canal that is close to our house and they all got wet and cooled off pretty good. On the fourth we met up with Brett's brothers and families at the river. Brandon brought his boat out and we all did some fun stuff in the water. I attempted water skiing for the first time ever (shown in the top photo). I almost got up on the third try but tried standing too soon and lost it. Oh well. I was a lot better at knee boarding. When it was done though, I was totally pooped out, as you can see by my lovely photo above. After fun in the river we headed to Cameron's (another brother) and we had a yummy dinner and played on their new Wii "rock band" which was pretty funny to watch. Cameron could rock the drums pretty good. We watched the fireworks from Troys (another brother :) ) and finally headed home around 11:30pm. Needless to say, we were really tired when we got home. The boys slept in until 10:30 this morning which, if you know my kids, is totally late for them. The bottom two photos I took while we did the fireworks thing. It is hard to take photos at night without a tripod so excuse the blurry nature. The one with Greg swirling the sparkler is my favorite photo though. It turned out exactly like I wanted it to.

Hope all of you had a great 4th and took a moment to recall why we celebrate it. I am truly grateful for the men and women who had the foresight (or was it the divine help?) to fight for the freedoms which we now posses. May we try not to take those freedoms for granted, that is my prayer for us all. Have fun.

Airplanes and trails

Just a note to show some of the fun we have been having. A couple weekends ago we went to a free air show up in Rexburg. It was a beautiful day and the planes were amazing. I think all the kids left wanting to become pilots, and so did I. We left the air show and went up in the hills to do some fishing and hiking as a family. We had a lot of fun being outside and together. Sadie helped her brothers by putting the worms on thier hooks. The photo is a silly one on the trail by a cool tree we passed, the kids called it the "U" tree. By the end of the hike they were all pretty worn out from a busy day. Our family was asked to speak at church last Sunday but somehow there was a scheduling mix up and we were only left 15 minutes for our entire family. None the less, the kids all spoke individually on Fathers and the priesthood and Brett and I had a little time left to say a couple things. The bishop said that he would have to ask us to speak again soon since we really didn't get to give our talks. One can only hope that he forgets, hee hee. Other than that we are just busy taking care of our animals and our property - no automatic sprinkler system here, so that keeps us hopping. I was so spoiled in Nampa. This last photo is taken from our front porch of the sunset last night. Makes me grateful for all the beauty that surrounds us. Enjoy the wonders around you.

Busy Spring

Hello all! Spring sure has turned out to be a busy one for us. The snow finally left us alone and the sun came out - temporarily (it has been raining for weeks it seems). In early May my parents came out from Stayton, Oregon to visit. We arranged to have Cody’s baptism for while they were here. It was cool to have all of Brett’s family and my folks all there for that special day. Cody really loved having them there for that. A couple days after his baptism we had a birthday party with his friends from school. He wanted a “cool” cake so I whipped this one up for him. He has skateboarding aspirations - which I don’t know if I am too excited about.

We haven’t decided if we are going to get TV yet (no reception without cable) and so our evenings have been all about playing or working outside together. Here are some photos of Brett playing football with the kids. He and Greg against Sadie, Cody and Jackson. The photo below is of Greg running in for a touchdown. They have a lot of fun. I spent last week building our raised bed gardens and then we got them put in this past week. I am going to finish planting them today. We also got our cow last week. Brett’s brother Brandon got him for us before we moved and has had him at his place. They called him Donkey and our kids decided they like that name, so we have a cow named “Donkey”. Weird, I know. He is missing his herd though and will follow us around the pasture. It is pretty cute. Sadie will be getting her sheep for 4-H this week and we are all excited about that. None of us have ever been around sheep before. It should be fun. We are also going to be getting a bunch of chickens next week. You can call Brett “Old MacDonald”. Another thing that we have enjoyed has been bird watching out our back window. We have several feeders out there and even the kids have gotten into it. In fact the boys just got back from a bike ride and told me that they had seen a new bird, described it and then they found it in the bird book. They were so excited to have found it on their own. I have been trying to get everything ready for school in the fall. I went and got a bunch of vaccinations today and get to do CPR certification on Saturday. I also just got called to be the Sunbeam teacher in our new ward. It will be perfect for while I am in school because the 3-4 yr olds won’t know if I am prepared or not as long as I bring something to color. Well, hope all is well in your neck of the woods. We love where we are and feel so blessed to be here and have so many wonderful friends and family out there who care about us. Keep in touch.

PS - If you click on the photos they will come up full size so you can see them in better detail.

We have arrived in Rigby Idaho!

Well, I am sorry it took me a month after moving to get this posted but moving is a busy event! We left Nampa on April 4th and stayed with Brett's brother Troy and his family for about 3 weeks while we waited for the purchase of our home to go through.(We are so grateful to them) We have been in our new place now for a week and we are loving it. The house is older, and the same size as our old place, but it sits on 2.27 acres that are beautiful! There are cottonwood trees all over and we are very secluded. It is on a road that pretty much dead ends so it is wonderfully quiet. Well, I should say that it was a nice and peaceful road until our family moved here. Now our kids ride there bikes all over and make all the noise that kids do. Oh well. So far Rigby has been very welcoming and we are loving it here. The kids have made some good friends all ready and their new teachers are great. Cody turned 8 yesterday and we will be having his baptism later this month. I will post photos for sure! We know that we are truly blessed to have had everything fall so perfectly into place like it has. Here are some photos of some of our property that I took this morning. Yes, we woke up to this on May 1st. That is crazy! Definitely not typical weather, but as people say here, "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes, it will change". Well, I put our contact info on the e-mail I sent out. I didn't really want it posted here for the world to get a hold of. Keep in touch!

GOOD NEWS!!!

Sorry, no photo to accompany this post but I have great news! I found out today that I have been accepted into the dental hygiene program at Idaho State University!!! Only 26 people get accepted every year and hundreds apply. I will be starting school in the fall and it is a 4 semester (2yr) program. Sadie has all ready told me that she needs to learn how to cook better so she can help out more when I am in school. I am so excited I don't have words to express it! Brett has all ready started calling me his "sugar momma". Anyway, I promised that I would let you all know. Also we will be leaving Nampa forever as of April 4th. We don't know for sure where we are going as of today but we will let everyone know our new contact info as soon as we have it. Our love to you all!

Greg has lost his first tooth!

Just a quick post to let Greg show off his new smile! Of course it doesn't really look like he's smiling does it? Well, every time he smiled for a picture his lip covered up his new hole! So he kind of ended up grimacing at me while I took the photo. He was really excited about loosing it, but when the tooth fairy left him a half dollar coin he thought it was just a quarter and was quite disappointed. I explained to him that it was a really cool coin worth 2 quarters or 50 cents and he cheered up immensely! Well, still no offers on the house. We will keep you "posted".

House For Sale Nampa Idaho

After working my tail off (not literally, of course that would be nice- I could do with a little less tail LOL) to get our house ready to sell, it is finally on the market. With new tile in the bathrooms and laundry/storage (which we did ourselves), new paint throughout and cleaner than we have had it since we moved in. The trouble is that there are like 200+ homes on the market that are comparable in price and size to ours, so it will be hard to get people to come look at it. Anyway, we are not giving up faith. Meanwhile Brett is working in Idaho Falls already and coming home on the weekends. My thanks to all you family members who have had him in your home. I know he really appreciates it, and me too. If you all could keep us in your prayers as to our home selling quickly, we would sure appreciate it. Being apart is something that we have done a lot of in our marriage, but it never gets easy or enjoyable.
The kids are all keeping busy with school. Sadie is doing basketball again with her school team. Cody has decided that he wants to be a vet/animal rescuer when he grows up and has been spending a lot of time studying animal books. Jackson is still a mini version of Brett and can't wait until he is old enough to go on the winter campout. Gregory is my little collector. It is almost impossible to keep his bed cleaned off, he constantly has a shoe box of some kind of collection going on.
If you are interested the MLS # for our house listing is: 98345813. Hope all is going well in your lives. I will post more news as it comes.