The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away

'Tis the season of giving, but all good things must come to an end.  The love you take is equal to the love you make.  If you  love something, you must set it free.  Giving gifts are better than receiving.  It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
....this hurts me more than it hurts you.
....when it rains it pours.

What cliches can you come up with?!

So as some of you may know, we've had a lot of excitement recently. Maybe I can sum it up in a few thousand words....or a few pictures. 


Merry Christmas!

Let's go skiing!!  Great!

Oh no, someone killed our Christmas tree!!...I blame Bin Laden, or the dogs!  (I caught them discussing retaliation after Jill dressed them up like elves.)

No matter.  Let's just enjoy the new year....and a new rental car!

About two days before New Year's, we had a huge snow storm.  It was gorgeous, but the roads weren't.  I was driving to the gym to meet Jill when another vehicle headed towards me lost control and fish tailed into my lane.  As I saw this unfold, I started to put on the brake, even though I was only going about 20 mph on the icy road, but by the time his front end came into my lane, I had no time to completely stop nor bail into the ditch.  We collided with a combined speed of about 45 mph.  His little Chevy took a hard hit in the passenger door, and I had a jolt to my front end.  Both of us were ok, but he had a few cuts from a shattered window.  The glass from that window can been seen atop my truck, here:

Being 10 years old, it didn't take long for these damages to amount to more than what my perfect, problem-free, low maintenance truck was worth to HIS insurance company. 

In the image below, you can see where my grill, radiator and fenders peeled back far enough to smash the front end of my frame. 

Unfortunately, the F150 is dead. It had over 134,000 miles on it and never let me down...which is far less than what I have to say about the Dodge POS they rented me.

I leave you with a quote from William Shakespeare:

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them. "

And then one by D.H. Lawrence:

"I never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself.

A small bird willd rop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."

Christmas 2009

Well, it's Christmas day.

Brian's fixin' the ham, I have the polenta/bread dressing (we were out of cornbread-I didn't know it until today -we ALWAYS have jiffy?! I'll be making my really yummy sweet potato casserole and john folse's spinach loraine... yum! Salad will also be accompaying our meal for two... which can also fee MANY!

Photos of the dinner will come soon!

In about ten minutes, I will be skyping with my family!!! woohoo!!! Can't wait to see everyone! and sometime later this evening we will skype with Brian's side of the family!

Here are pictures so far of our Christmas day!

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Morning

Handmade Stockings by Jill, filled by Santa (aka Abby)

Santa and her little helper!

Sometimes they don't agree on everything!

Christmas is here! with TONS of presents

Maybe a little overboard on the presents?

Family showered us with presents

We love you!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas!

"It's beginning to look a lot like Xmas" and elk!!

So for all those that didn't believe we could post more than once every 3 months, here's our second in 3 days.  Just to prove we could!  Plus, we got our first heavy snow last night, and our freshly painted house looks great in it!!

We got about 2inches and it's as light as flour!  Both Jill and I went to eat some of it and we ended up breathing it in by accident.  Super powder!

Also, for those who are interested, following are some pictures of the two elk we got in Northeast Oregon.  If you have an queasy stomach or an uncommon bond to Bambi, you might want to stop here.



We hunted the North Fork of the John Day river.  It was a steep canyon about 1.5 miles wide with lots of beautfiul country to see.  Luckily, nobody saw elk on the opposite, very distant canyon side....that would have just been mean. 

This was the 6x6 point that we got on day 3.  It was a younger, satellite bull that chose to die in a very steep drainage.  We had to use pullies, blocks, chainsaw wenches, chainsaws and a cart to get it down and back up a steep drainage.  When we finally got it to the truck, it was easy livin'!

Correction, it was easy livin' for all the retirees I was hunting with.  This elk made my life tough!

Life at camp was fantastic!  Being a transplanted Westerner, I'd never exlperienced the "Wall Ten".  Notice the chimney pipe poking out of the tent.  Each tent had it's own stove.  Despite snow, rain and below freezing temps, camp was always a good place!  

This next one was the 5x5 that we got the last morning of the 5 day season.  He was another satellite bull, but a lot older.  After a 8-year dry spell, everyone was excited with the first bull.  After the second, all these salty, old hunters were giddy. 

Good times!  It would have been fun without bringing home some meat, but this way I'm definitely going back next year.   Well, I'm off to grab some breakfast sausage....I wonder if it's from this guy? 

-P.S.> Dad, I think raising cows with names like "Sir Loin" and "Seconds" might have had some side effects.  But boy are they're tasty!!