Last Wednesday my sister had a sled riding party down at her house, it was kinda a send off for her because she is going back to Qutar. She is leaving January 9, (last I heard), but she has to be in Pittsburgh until then. The kids had lots of fun. The first couple pictures they are going down the hill on an old truck hood, believe it or not it went pretty good.

Here you go Dev, pictures of Maria opening her gifts at your mom's. She got a Barbie laptop, and a doll that looks like it is a real one (I think she thought it was at first), and she got a hidden picture book and a little fairy doll baby from us. She had a blast playing on the paino with Olivia.

This years Christmas tree. The kids helped decorate it and they did a pretty good job too. Olivia helped Will with the high ones.

Well here is this years buck an 8 point with a 16.5 inch spread. I got it from Den's spaceship (he had to work) and Denny pointed it out for me because I was watching out the other window and he let me shoot at it first. I made a good shot, but still had to track it down over the hill towards Claire Dashers house, it almost made it to the road. Hopefully Denny will get one the next day he gets to go out I think its Saturday.

Olivia and Will got to play with Maria for a little bit this evening. They had lots of fun pouncing on Pappy and running around in circles trying not to slip on the floor.

These are the 2 bulls that were fighting they almost look like twins.

These pictures I had to sneek up through the woods and hope they didn't run away before I got close enough for pictures.

Even got the kids to go out on a swinging bridge for a picture

At this one bridge there was a path that went to the river and you could go across so we did. This is Lynnwood behind us, Denny said he wants to do it again it was pretty cool he also said that Lynnwood was grinning from ear to ear. We certainly have fun when we get together.

How often is it that you can get 10 kids all different ages together and they all get along?? In my experience not very often unless its this group of kids: Preston, Tyrel, Keristin, Shianne, Olivia, Mikayla, Trenton, Will, Travis, and Tanner. I took them for a walk in the woods close to our camp "trying to see some elk" Sunday morning. Sorry if I spelled some of the names wrong, but you know who they are, lol.

When we were getting packed up and ready to go home from camping all weekend we decided to go and try to see more elk and this is what we saw. It was really awesome, how lucky were we to see something like this not everybody gets to see this type of thing except on tv.

Well its my favorite time of year, fall, hunting season, and trapping. I could hardly wait all year for this. Summer is just to hot out for me, but the rest of the year is okay but fall and winter are by far my favorites. So far this trapping season I've caught 1 raccoon and 1 opossum. Took the raccoon to the trap guy who I sell them to and was only offered a dollar mainly because it wasn't prime yet, meaning that it wasn't a nice silver and black yet, so we said that he could just have it and keep his dollar. I wasn't gonna let it go have you ever tried to let one out of a box trap that isn't fun so you can just imagine how it would go trying to let it go from a foot hold trap, vicious little buggers, but fun to trap.

As a lot of you know Denny had gastric bypass surgery on Monday, October 26. He made it through that with flying colors even fixed the hernia he had. They kept him until Wednesday when I came down to pick him up in Pittsburgh. He said that if it wasn't for the hernia getting fixed he wouldn't have hardly any pain. Then on Thursday afternoon he was having some trouble breathing he called the doctor and they thought that it might be a blood clot and said to get back down here. So off we went, his mom came and got the kids and kept them the whole time we were at the hospital until we came home on Saturday around 5. As it turns out he developed mild pneumonia. He is doing much better now he even came out with me today to set some fox traps. Oh and a great big thanks to Uncle Tim and Brenda for all the help and just for being there it really meant a lot, and to all of you guys who put in the prayers and good thoughts THANKS A BUNCH!!!!!!!!!!!

On Wednesday was Denny and I's 9th anniversary. He surprised me with these flowers he had sent. The picture is a little dark because I used my phone to take the picture to send to his mom to brag that he didn't forget.

On Saturday we made our annual trip to Bennezette with Lynnwood, Cari, and kids to see the elk. It was a alot of fun, they have never been there and we were excited to show them around where we usually see them. We saw around 66 total and some really big bulls. The one pictured is one of the biggest that we saw. On the way home we stopped for supper at Ponderosa. So all in all it was a pretty good day.

HAPPPY BIRTHDAY Will !!!!!!!!!! Today Will turns 6 years old and becoming quite the little man. On Saturday we had a party for him and Olivia with all of their friends and grandparents. The sad part is that I didn't have my camera so I didn't get any party pictures. But they had a great time and got some really good gifts. Thanks to all who came and for the gifts.

O

n Tuesday was Olivia's birthday. She is now 8 years old, she's growing up alittle to fast for my taste.

Aunt Connie and I took Olivia, Will, Zeb, and Madison up to Linesville to feed the fish. I haven't been there since I was around 14 and I thought that it would be nice for the kids to be able to enjoy something that I got to do when I was younger. They really had fun. Each of them got a penny with a different impression on it as a souvenir. On the was back we saw a sign that said "Deer Park", Olivia thinks that next year we should go there.

Having lots of fun at Uncle Tim and Aunt Connie's this Labor Day. Denny, Den, and Tim were flying their planes. The only major crashes were Den's, his throtle button broke and was stuck wide open and he lost control. His plane was in at least 4 pieces, he took his other plane back from Tim and flew it, the plane was in the air only 2 minutes and it crash landed as well, so him and Denny took both planes and some epoxy and made a new plane. So far its still in one peace at the moment.

Denny, the kids, and I went spotting last night, just for something to do. We saw a few deer, even saw a nice red fox right next to the house over by the spring. We went over to Uncle Tom's and looked at Dan's oats that he had planted saw a couple deer and a few porcupines. Then we checked on his corn crib and this is what we saw. A two young raccoons having some corn. When they saw us they climbed the sides and one got out. Also there were some little baby coons hiding under the door to the corn crib, they hid to fast for me to get a picture of them.

This is some of what we had to eat at The First Anual KMI Company picnic. We camped, ate, and some of us swam in the lake. After a delicious supper we had some singing entertainment from some of the KMI drivers. They did a pretty good job. Nobody even let the rain bother them too much.

I forgot that I took this picture. This was on the side of one of the big garage doors.

The new secret picnic spot.

One day last week the kids and I were going on a golf-cart ride looking for some berries (didn't find very many just a handful) ,this is what we found. I'm not even sure how we even saw it being that it was so small and blends in with its surroundings real well. If you look closely at the first picture you'll see it.

Today we had a visitor Ballerina Maria. She came to spend the day while Devon, Charlene, Den, Penny, and Denny went golfing.

Here is Olivia and her team after winning the championship game a couple of weeks ago. It was a close game, they were playing the one team they couldn't beat all season, but they did it. You can just see Olivia's face in the middle of all the arms up touching the trophy.

Here are a few more. Some poeple are nuts!!!