Family Ski Trip!

We all went cross country skiing at Kelly on Monday. Everyone was there but no pictures of Dad and Adam because Adam was being a slow poke. Bummer.

We ended up splitting into two groups. Group Pete, Sam, Em, and Rory stopped to warm up at the warming hut and took a few pictures.

Oh, that picture was too nice. Here's the real one.


Pete being so happy to ski... and Sam being something.

Plus there was hot chocolate at the end! What a wonderful family ski trip.

Christmas Cookies

One of our family traditions is making Christmas cookies together. Well, at least frosting them together. The more frosting the better.

Skiing at Idlewilde

We went skiing with a group of friends on Saturday. It was really fun! And it was the perfect day for skiing too. Nice and sunny and no wind. I didn't take very many pictures and the ones I did take didn't have everyone in them. We had 11 people in all!

Christmas Trees and Skis

Here's a picture of the finished product. I've really been enjoying it especially because it took so much work to get it.

I've also been enjoying living on 25 acres. I have my very own cross country ski course. It's nice.

Be Vewy Vewy Quiet...

We're hunting Christmas twees. This is not a Christmas tree. It's a wild turkey. We saw it on our way to the Christmas trees. We also nearly ran over a couple of pheasant hens.

The mighty hunter searching for prey.

The thing about skiing in a mile and then killing your Christmas tree is you have to ski out a mile dragging the thing. Dead weight Christmas trees are heavy! Rory tried harnessing just himself but it didn't work too well so we had to turn it into a team effort. I admit, I was cranky.

We finally got the stupid thing back to the car and tied on top. We were pretty tired.

But we had hot cider in a nifty new thermos waiting for us so the day ended up good. Plus we got a lot of exercise. I was so exhausted I couldn't even aim the camera so half my face got cut off. Oh well. We now have a beautiful Christmas tree gracing our lovely living room. It looked a lot smaller outside.

Happy Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Rory's mom this year. Thanksgiving day we went to his Uncle Scott's place and ate loads of yummy food. And, of course, there was the Thanksgiving quail and pheasant hunt. I actually went this year although I didn't carry a gun. My weapon was my camera.

They ended up with quite a few quail but the pheasants on the property lived to see another day.

We also went to a nifty wreath making class at the local nursery. Here are the products. One for Jolene and one for us!

Jolene was so nice to buy me poinsettias. We also went Christmas shopping. So many people! I'm getting used to teeny tiny Burns. We hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving too!

Watch out Oregon!

That's right. We are official Oregon drivers. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! (Psych reference) You could miss 7 questions on the test and I took full advantage of every one of them. Rory did better. But like the DMV lady said, a pass is a pass.

Wizard of Oz and other things

Last week I got to accompany the Missoula Youth Theater as it (with the help of Burns kids) put on the Wizard of Oz. Basically traveling directors come to your town and have local kids audition, rehearse, and perform a play in one week. It's amazing that it actually all comes together in that time period! The kids were awesome! I even got some roses for my efforts at tickling the ivories... although they may or may not have been meant for Michelle... either way I got roses and they have been beautifying my kitchen table.

Other than that we've been mourning the loss of a kitten and going to the Crane Hot Springs. No pictures of either though.

First SNOWWWWW!!!!!!

The cows are thinking 'dang it'....

But I'm thinking this:

And this:

Mountain Biking Take 2

We took a mini vacation this weekend!! It was stake conference so we headed to Bend and went mountain biking and shopping and soaked in a hot tub and sauna, ate a good dinner, and listened to stake conference. Aaahhh.... so relaxing! Except for the sore bottoms from biking...

Happy Halloween!

I know, I know, it's not actually Halloween yet but we've already celebrated and moved on. Yesterday was our wards Halloween party. There was a bunch of yummy chili and oh so delicious pies!! I went as a punk (again...) because I'm completely unoriginal. I did add a nose ring this time. I got a lot of open mouth stares from the kids in the ward. Haha.

Rory was awesome and went as Mort or Death or an otherwise skellingtony thing. He was a total hit and made a few kids cry... seriously. We were in charge of the put-your-hand-in-the-box-and-feel-the-creepy-stuff-inside booth for the little carnival and one kid wouldn't even come into the room because Rory was so scary. Hopefully we don't have angry parents knocking down our door in the next few days.

Ex Elder Pete

This weekend we went home and saw Pete! He got home from his totally honorable mission to Brazil on Wednesday. The visit was way too short but we stuffed lots of things in even though I forgot to take pictures of a lot of it. We went to the straw maze and rocked out to System of a Down.

We got lost in the straw maze and had to be rescued by Rory and William... twice.

We eventually did make it out of the straw maze.

We played lots of games and had lots of good food and hung out with lots of awesome family and friends!

And we even listened to Pete's homecoming talk! Way to go Pete!! It's good to have you home!

Apples and Fossils

This weekend Rory and I went to pick apples at the Kimberly Orchards. It was a beautiful day to pick and we got a ton.... sort of by accident. It's amazing how fast you can pick 220 lbs of apples! Luckily we have some friends that we're sharing with.

On the drive home we stopped at the John Day fossil beds and went on a little hike. The water was greenish blue!

One visitor to the park commented that they expected to see Kirk and Spock at any moment. we agreed.

We also stopped at the Historic Cant Ranch and the fossil beds visitor center.

Burnin Ring of Fire

Work photos! We've been doing prescribed burns. Everyone has to wear a yellow shirt. Rory being the pump man:

We're burnin medusahead plots here using drip torches. The cowboy is Rodney. His wife makes good salsa.

We're also burning some plots out at the Butte. They have a lot of sage brush so we had to chop some down so certain things won't burn. Like the H braces and electrical boxes. This is us in our sage brush chopping gear:

Our burns at the Butte didn't work to well. There wasn't enough wind or ground litter to get them to spread. Bummer.

Oh So Domestic

We've been learning how to can. A couple in the ward were nice enough to pick us up some peaches and pears for us from a farm in western Idaho. Here we both are working hard:

The results! Yummmmmm!

Reffin Rory

Rory started reffing for the high school soccer games this week. So far he's done two games. His first game he grabbed two left cleats. I had to bring him his right cleat but didn't get there fast enough so he had to ref the first half in two left shoes. Poor guy.

I like going to the games to cheer for the ref and heckle the crowd.

Burns looking cool in gold and purple.