Breakfast with Santa

The Heritage Museum in town was putting on a new annual event of "Breakfast with Santa." You could bring your kids and have a doughnut and juice, get your face painted, and visit with Santa and Mrs. Clause. Of course both Ellie and Thomas were very unsure of Santa and Mrs. Clause. Ellie wouldn't even talk to them, look at them, or pose for a picture. Thomas just stared at them, although Mrs. Clause was able to bribe him with the goody bag for a quick picture.

There were lots of beautiful trees that the community and different organizations have put together for display. All Thomas wanted to do was pull of every single ornament off of every single tree.

The face painting was also sort of frighting event for
Ellie. I made Thomas go first so that she could see that there was no harm.

She was very brave and was quite the little trooper. And in the end she was so proud of the little angel on her face.

Let it Snow!

Friday morning we woke up to a little bit of a surprise; SNOW!!! For Big Spring, Texas this was a big deal. And for a certain little 3 year old it was an especially big deal. Ellie and Thomas had quite a wonderful time playing in the snow. Ellie was quite the little explorer and wanted to stay out all day, she kept saying "Help me make a snowball fight!" Thomas on the other hand was happy to be outside for a while but wasn't quite sure about all the cold. I have to say it really makes it feel like Christmas time when the weather is a bit colder. It really was a nice surprise for an Idaho girl.

Our New Car

Over the course of the past year we have sort of out grown our little Saturn (aka Heath's pick-up). So the last few weeks we've been looking and searching and we found this little beauty. We love it! It's big enough for the whole family and then some. It has everything that we were looking for; it has power locks and windows, cruise, 4 wheel drive, sunroof, CD player, three rows of seats (seating for 7) and a healthy V-6. Needless to say we are very happy with our purchase and have no buyers remorse whatsoever. And Heath was "negotiator of the year" and got us a great deal! Hopefully there will be lots of wonderful roadtrips ahead.

Please Take Me With You!

What a day! Well, its 11:17pm, the kids are asleep, I have full control of the computer and I actually have some time to blog! My morning began about 2:00 am, getting up with Thomas, who apparently thought that it was a good idea to be awake, WRONG! And after an hour with him it was time to get up to take Heath the airport. He had to hop a flight to Salt Lake so he could be in Rexburg for a hearing tomorrow. I told him numerous times that I wish I was going with him. Yes, for moral support AND so that I could see my brother and sister-in-law, visit old friends, see a little snow, reminisce the good-ole days of college life and maybe even do a session in the Rexburg Temple (We moved before it was completed, bummer).
Maybe another day...

As much as I wish I was somewhere else tonight, I'm grateful and truly happy to be home with my beautiful children. And I'm anxiously awaiting Heath's return!

Rattlesnake Roundup

As a "Yankee" living in Texas I am constantly being introduced to many new things. Christmas parades, fried okra, as Heath says "a REAL rodeo", all sorts of plants that could easily kill you and yes, The Rattlesnake Roundup. We had the opportunity to attend the annual Big Spring Rattlesnake Roundup, what a show! It was really quite fascinating. The reason for the Roundup is to obtain the venom from the rattlesnakes by "milking" them. They use the venom in making anti-venom and also for research in other medicines. Pest control also happens to be a lovely side effect of the Rattlesnake Roundup.
There were all sorts of rattlesnake paraphernalia to purchase and also the floor show where death defying acts were taken place, crawling in a sleeping bag full of rattlesnakes, the Kiss of Death, and the world famous snake handler Jackie Bibby swinging rattlesnakes in his mouth. Pretty impressive, but definitely not some thing that I'll be training for anytime soon!


In the other half of the building they had all the rattlesnakes in this "pit" and they would put a bunch in a bucket and send it over to the next guy.

He would then milk the snake to extract the venom.

Then the snakes would continue down the line to the chopping block. Watch out!

And then onto the skinning station. After she was done cleaning them up she would take them directly over to the concessions booth, where they would chop, bread and fry them.

Certainly no Rattlesnake Roundup would be complete without biting into some deep fried rattlesnake. Yum!

Fun, Sun, RUN!!!

This last weekend we loaded up the Jeep and headed to Moab, UT. Charlotte, Annie and some friends of theirs were running in a half marathon and we all decided to show up and cheer them on (we also needed a good excuse to get together for the weekend)! Heath had the idea to leave Big Spring on Wednesday evening and depart on our 13 hour trip hoping that the children would sleep the whole way. Well the children and the dog did very well, but I was trying to sleep in the back seat between car seats, while Heath was a rock star and drove us the whole way there while downing caffeine and pistachio nuts and listening to his MP3 player really loudly. Thankfully, we arrived safe and sound.


We showed up Thursday morning and spent the day with Cory, Susan, Heather, Spencer and Charlotte. There was swimming, horseshoes, and yummy Chinese food. Friday was filled more family - Mom, Dad, Nicole (who surprised us all!), Annie, Derik, Jessica, Levi, Stacy, and Rachel. We played games, ate a lot of good food and had a grand time. Saturday was the race and the girls got up bright and early to get bussed up the canyon to the starting line, and about noon we all headed down to the finish line to see them come in. What a feat! I'm so proud of all of them, but especially Charlotte! She made up her mind to run 13 miles, trained for months, pushed further than she had before and completed the race with a wonderful time. She truly is amazing! After the race we had more yummy food and birthday cake for Levi.

It was an awesome weekend and worth the time, money, and distance to see everyone and we are looking forward to it next year.

I've Been Tagged

Weeks ago my sister-in-law tagged me and since I'm very slow to get anything done here I go!

This was taken January 18, 2006 in front of our house in Rexburg. We lived in this house while we managed apartments...what an adventure! This was a typical amount of snow that would fall in a days time in Rexburg (and yes this is the very reason that I've been loving the winter here in Texas). That's me all bundled up in front after I came out to take some pictures of Heath who had been snow-blowing that morning. It's so funny to think back when we were first married; going to school, before kids, before "real life". It sometimes seems like I'm looking into a different life. Oh the things that life brings to us, life truly is an adventure.

Here are the rules
1. Go to the 4th folder where you keep your pictures on your computer.
2. Post the 4th picture in the folder.
3. Explain the photo.
4. Tag 4 fellow bloggers

I tag Annie, Hollie, Susan, & Danielle