The Newest Kid

Well if you have been following my blog this past summer you probably read the one about our goats. Although I am not a huge fan of grown goats I have to show you pictures of our latest kid. Even I have to admit that goat babbies - they are called kids - are so cute. They rival puppies. This little kid was born last night, thank heavens, because we are starting another cold snap today. We haven't named her yet but I wanted to show everyone the pictures because she is pretty cute!

On another note - I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Christmas Baking Time!

Well I don't have any pics to post but I did want to write about my baking experience. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to Ben that I thought I would bake some poppyseed bread and some carmels and take them to our neighbors - He thought it was a great idea and immediately began forming a list. Well the list got longer and longer and needless to say I am still baking. So I decided that I would make my family's world famous poppyseed bread (I won a blue ribbon with it at the Utah State fair in 4-H), homemade carmels and red and green butter cookies. Well yesterday I rolled up my sleeves and started my project. After throwing out one batch of carmels and having my husband tell me the red and green cookies taste like cardboard I am down to poppyseed bread and well thank heavens my 4-H skills didn't fail me there and it turned out great!

I think for years I have taken for granted my mom baking for Christmas time. I didn't realize how much work and time was involved but I am faithfully carrying out the tradition. These recipes were passed down to me from my mom and hopefully I can pass them down to my kids as well.

I love Christmas and presents and the whole Santa thing but I the older I get the more I love the Christmas traditions. So here is to Ben and I and carrying on our families traditions along with making our own traditions as well.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and for those of you that received some baked goods from us - beware of the red and green cookies because even I admit they taste a little like cardboard!

Thanksgiving - Hawaiin Style

As usual I am late on catching up my blog but oh well I did want to write about our Thanksgiving.

Ben and I got to go to Maui for Thanksgiving this year. Ben usually goes over and works the USTRC roping there for our friend Peter Baldwin and this year I was able to go with him. We went a couple of days early and so we did a little of the tourist thing. It was a great trip. Thanks so much to Peter and his family - they let us eat Turkey dinner with them and yes even in Hawaii they have turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing ect. for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful meal and we really enjoyed his family!

Dinner Fri. night with Peter Baldwin, Myron Duarte, Dick and Julie Foreman

The roping was at Piioholo ranch (Peter's ranch) and what a beautiful place. He took us for a tour and there are some pics below. It is amazing to see cows on the hill and the ocean below - how lucky can a person get!

You can see Peter's pastures, some of his cows and the ocean - What an amazing view!

We went down to the ocean a couple of nights and it was so beautiful. We were on the north side of the island and so the waves were pretty high - at least to me. My only complaint about the whole vacation was I could of spent more time on the beach but I never seem to get enough time at the beach. There is something so relaxing about sitting on the sand, listening to the waves and soaking up some sun!

We were on our way to dinner and stopped at this beach - needless to say I went to dinner with wet shorts...

I thought this was a great pic of Ben!

I was trying to body surf but all I seemed to do was end up with a suit full of sand!

Probably the highlight of the trip was getting to go on the Piiholo zip line. They are putting a zip line in on Peter's ranch across a beautiful deep gorge and so a bunch of us got to go! It was so much fun and if you are ever in Maui you need to go on that zip line!

Peter and Ben on the Zip line landing called the Tree House.

Ben and I getting ready to Zip line. Aren't we all geared up! LOL

Look close you can see Clay and Bobbi Tryan going down the zip line.

Well besides doing all of the tourist stuff we also got to rope. Ben has been wanting to win a Hawaiin buckle for a long time now and he finally got it done. He and Alex Shulman were the Gold Plus champs and he is sporting a new buckle - yeah for Ben. I also roped but didn't get anything done.

All in all it was a great way to spend Thanksgiving!

Oh no - My Truck!

Well I have finally had the time to sit down and write about my poor truck. Although it has been a little over a week ago, I still wanted to write about it. I was headed early Sunday morning down to the Lonestar to work a roping (probably going to fast) and drove off of our county road. Well there isn't much shoulder to our road and so through the trees I went. I swerved just in time to get it back on the road before hitting solidly into a tree trunk but my back end fish tailed and the pics below show the proof. I am so sad - I know that it can be fixed and it is in the shop right now but I still feel bad. I immediately called Ben and what a great husband he is. He didn't once scold me for being stupid and not paying attention rather he was just worried that I was alright. Which I am! Thank heavens.

I am so thankful that I am okay and my wreck wasn't worse than it was. It could have been pretty bad. Oh and one more thing - thanks Ben for not getting after me about this....