Sydnee

POGO in action! She is so athletic. She rode a bike with no training when she was 4. She just took off and rode through all these cars and somehow managed to make it through and she was on her way. She was really good at the trampoline when she was like a year and a half or two. So here she is jumping away on the pogo stick.
Just thought I would update the blog from two months ago. Thought I would show you a little look into the life of Sydnee! She is so fun to have around. Never a dull moment if you don't gather that from the pictures.

She is an animal whisperer. She attracts all animals to her and her favorite thing to buy is dog leashes and collars. I can't believe why someone would need so many but we never seem to have one when she needs one. She would rather have a new leash or collar over a toy any day. She just walked up to this little calf and tamed it right down. Before you knew it she had Kai pulling around the miniature pony and her pulling this around all over the field. When she gets home from school she runs out to the barn and starts messing with an animal or three.

She is really organized and loves to be in charge and have things to be in charge of. That's why she is so good with Kai because Kai listens to every word she has to say. And Sydnee can be her boss.

And climbing up the walls is the latest up her sleeve. She is just a lot of fun and has a great laugh. She is the biggest helper and will do anything for you. Kai looks forward to being with her as soon as the bus gets home and relies on her to take care of everything. She is her best friend. She's too smart for her own good. She says, if mom says she will think about it then that means, no. She is always out-thinking us and it drives Taya and Payce crazy that she can figure things out before them. It's a lot of fun. She says all she wants for Christmas is a cinch for her little pony saddle. As of right now she is using bailing twine and it's a balancing act to ride the pony like that. But she says if we don't have the money to get it for Christmas she will just get it after Christmas. I was thinking.... ya because we will have tons more money after Christmas, HA! Well there is Sydnee for you. Now I am good for a couple of months for an update.

County Fair 2009

We made it through another Coconino County Fair. Everything turned out really good this year and Taya did really well. Her steer weighed in at a wopping 1158 pounds. We were keeping him from drinking in order to hit the middle weight class and low and behold he had lost 50 or more pounds than a few weeks ago so we should have given him the water but oh well, he didn't drink when we gave it to him anyways. So she hit the lightweight class. She won that class and then went on to take 3rd overall. The Grand was a very nice steer and the reserve had 300 pounds on her but the judge took a long time deciding. But better than that our favorite doctor came and bid on her steer. Along with The Landscape Connection, Northern AZ Diesel, Homco, and other great people!! She got $5.00 a pound. Do the math it is close ot $6000. Also Olsen's Grain added on $100. So all in all the girl made out big time. The Grand got $6.00 a pound and the reserve got $4.75. Thank you to Nate Tritle for buying the steer. He is a good person. He shows up right before the auction starts and says, where's my steer? Where's Taya and my steer. I hope someday I can do that for someone but I think I'll be in steer debt for a few twenty years or so! She also got Reserve Champion Showman with her steer in the junior class.

Then there is Baby Cakes. She needed some more weight also. We poured on the food to both of these animals but they just wouldn't eat enough. It came in the middle of her weight class. Homco Glass & Mirror bought her pig for $4.30 a pound. She got $1000 for it. A big thanks to Homco for supporting Taya and the auction this year! So if you need a loan from Taya, too bad. She is making the mortgage this winter. Just kidding! I Hope. When the pig got loaded on the truck headed to the meat processor Payce and Sydnee couldn't hold back many tears, nor Taya of course. But Sydnee turns around and says "I'm not doing this, I'm showing a goat!" Goats don't go to processing so she would be safe with that. Taya did really well at showmanship with the pig. She got like 5th out of 13 or so but don't know why because she did really good.

We all had a good time living at the fair for five days. We got our new camp trailer and it worked great for us. Nice to have a get away from the fair to go to. It was also nice that Paula and David (Aunt and Uncle) were set up with their Fodder machine right across from steer barn so we could hang out there and rest. She was a great babysitter for Kai and Sydnee. So now we are home and working with Payce's steer already. Troy wants to win so bad he can't sit still. Me on the other hand would like to get the steer in late May and go from there. Shoot... train it with a horse the week before the fair like the Good Ol' Times.

Day before fair

Here is Flash and Baby Cakes for one last picture at home. We will be living at the Coconino County Fair for the next few days. Please send money to the following address. Ha! Hopefully we can hang out at our camper a lot to save from buying all the carnival food. But oh what about the Kettle Corn, and the Bean & Cheese Fried Bread, and the Snow Cones, and the Cotton Candy, and the grilled corn (oops... I won't be buying any of that this year). I have had enough corn to turn me into masa. All I need to do is be wrapped up in a corn husk and steamed. I can guarantee Troy will try the Bean and Cheese Fry Bread like everyday to bring back his chidhood memories, even if they cost $9.50! They make a killing. You could buy 50 pounds of beans, flour and lard with that much and make a million of your own.

This is her pig. Looks really pretty. Don't you wish you could be washing up a pig and showing it in front of everyone. And to think we did it and are now re-living it! Well I hope I'll blog when we get home and let you know the results. Her steer of course was very bloated tonight so I should have showed the picture of it standing uphill in the pond and tied to the Bobcat to relieve some gas! Maybe next week.

Summer

Let me wrap up our summer while I am on a high speed internet at my mom's. Apparently we still live in the stone "area" and can't quite get high speed yet and just can't seem to give up the time to post with slow mail. Anyways I will try to be positive but some may find humor or pity on our eventful summer, never a dull moment. A lot of the summer was spent working with the animals for 4-H. Above is Sydnee and her friend Christina. Sydnee trained this little heifer calf in about a day, maybe two and now it does whatever she wants. She washes it, combs it, blow drys it, practically walks it in the house. Troy on the other hand as you can see in a few pictures down didn't have the same luck with his calf. She is an animal whisperer. That calf tried to get away from her the first day and she just grabbed the fence post, anchored down, and held on. She actually won and the calf now respects her. Payce on the other hand tries to walk his and always comes out with a rope burn or two. The first day he started out wearing his crocks, now you will not find him in the steer pen without big ol' bog boots and full armor.

The best part of our summer was in late July and early August we went to Nauvoo, IL. It was the neatest trip you could ever take. We loved every minute of it and learned so much and saw so much. We hardly slept an ounce but I wouldn't trade that trip for anything. We flew to Kansas City, went to Liberty Jail, Jamesport Missouri where we spent the day in a large Amish community, then on to Nauvoo, Carthage, Hannibal for a Tom Sawyer cave tour, and then back home. We stayed in an original home built in Joseph Smith times right in the middle of old Nauvoo. Thanks so much to our Randall family serving a mission there who set us up with everything we needed to see and do. I will never forget the feelings there and what we saw and did.

And then there were those not so fun times this summer. Kai and I making memories. My dad loaded us up with a truck load of sweet corn to sell in Flagstaff. Well the truck is broke so I threw it into the Yukon and sold it. I think I'll just stop there and let you decide how much fun it was. And then to think I took on another load and the worst is that they still have 20 acres more of it that's not ready to harvest yet. I am pretty sure I will be busy for the next 5 weekends probably learning under water basket weaving or something or at least until corn season is over.

And then there is the rest of our days spent washing, combing, blow drying, etc. this thing. The fair is September 4th and we are looking forward to camping out there and seeing how Taya does. It is a lot of work but she likes it. She has a pig also that she will be showing.

Then there was Troy who couldn't believe Sydnee could tame that calf so quick so he decided to try it with Payce's calf. You know who won. Let me create the scene..... the pig was out on a walk with Taya, the steer tied up to the wash rack, Sydnee had her calf leading around, and Troy had Payce's in the shoot trying to clip on it. So there were animals everywhere. He comes walking around the corner with blood everywhere. I holler at the kids "put up all the animals I need to take dad to the doctor." So they are panicking and running around everywhere, chickens flying around, pig running all over. Anyways he cleans it up and stops the bleeding and decides to butterfly it. We put some essential oil salve on it and butterflied it and the next day the huge cut was almost gone. It was amazing. It stayed swollen for over a week.

Oh ya and don't let us forget our garden. Prophet says plant a garden so we planted a garden. This was our dead frozen garden in the first week of August. In one night it froze everything, even the hoses had ice in them. Everything died, we ate two pea pods from it, weed-whacked the entire area, and decided that maybe we don't have the green-thumb for gardening. The cows enjoyed it all. I guess we will just buy some sweet corn from that Yukon on the street corner and eat that all winter.

Well I could post about some other things we did like went to Lake Powell to camp and the wind blew nearly everything into the lake and the things that didn't go into the lake such as the tent and the awning got broken into pieces and thrown away. Or there was the other time we went to Lake Powell and spent 4 hours trying to get the boat to start in the rain. It wasn't until Taylor, a friend of Taya's, yelled out a prayer and said "God fix this boat." The boat started 5 minutes later and we were on our way. Or there was the time, oh well I think I'll save some for later. My kids are going to appreciate normal someday!! At least they are good troopers and for sure they have seen a lot. And now they are back in school and they just love it or is that me who just loves it? And I might blog again before fall or winter comes but I might not!

Month of May

The month of May has been a little busy for us! But at least we got Sydnee graduated from Kindergarten! She was so excited and looked so cute. Her teacher announced what each child wanted to be when they grow up. This list included one girl wanted to work at Albertson's (I wonder where her mom works), a teacher, a mother, a doctor, a fireman, an APS employee ( I know where his dad works), and topping off the list... Sydnee wants to be a Vet. Go figure, she attracts or is attracted to any and all animals. I don't know if she could handle it though because she cries at Fox and the Hound.

On Monday we celebrated the Memorial holiday with Payce's birthday. He wanted to go fishing and have a food fight also. We managed to find the fishing but I have prolonged the food fight. For one, who thinks of that? And two, who would allow that? Me I guess. My plans are to draw boundaries in the field and put food in each corner and let them have at it. I will have to remember to post the results!

Then there is Kai. Nothing special for her this month. She has been so good lately. She just goes along with the flow and you always find her asking, "Where we going now?" Good thing we have a pair of shoes for her in each vehicle so when we are all in we know her shoes are somewhere. It doesn't matter what she is wearing but you can be sure as soon as we get home she goes directly into her room and puts on her "nanna pants". Also known as pajama pants.

It was also grandma Helen's birthday. We all jumped in the car Saturday morning and went down to the ASU game. Why I do not know. We could have watched it in an air conditioned home and drove nowhere but we had fun. The kids swam and we had a good time. By the way.... this yard was not landscaped by Spike Landscaping & Tree Trimming!

Earlier in the month Taya turned 11. She had a small party at the house where a few friends came over and we made hair bows. It was a lot of fun. It was relaxing and worthwhile. Every now and then I even attempt to do their hair now that we made more bows. She celebrated the day by going on an all day field trip to Space Camp down in Peoria on a bus with no AC. This is her new 4-H pig. We went to Buckeye and got it. By the time we got to Anthem we had to stop to buy ice and pour all over the pigs. It was hot.

We have our anniversary on Saturday and then we should be all through with the May celebrations. The kids are all playing ball except for Sydnee. Her mean mom didn't sign her up on time so I told her we could do barrel racing practice instead. She is excited and has her first rodeo in our pasture on Saturday at 7 am. We are looking forward to school getting out next week.

One good dentist out there

Just want to thank our dentist!! Sydnee had a tooth really hurting her for about a week now. I was doing what i thought would work to get the infection gone and some days she was fine but others it hurt so I broke down and called the dentist to get her in today. I knew it was going to cost a ton but what's another medical bill or truck deductible, or you name it and we owe it! So she goes in and the first thing they ask is how are you going to pay for this? So Troy says well that's just it I need to arrange something and the dentist was concerned and said why what's up? He proceeded to tell her of all my medical bills, Kai's medical bills, and the not so good luck we are having at them cooperating with us on a payment plan. And the most wonderful dentist ever named Jessica said don't worry about this one. Oh my gosh Troy almost cried and so did I. I wasn't there but Troy took her in, but when he told me it was the best news. I figured it would cost around $1000. Such a big relief. There are a lot of good understanding people out there and she is one of them!
Anyways... she pulled the tooth way in the back of her mouth and some very nasty stuff came out from underneath it. The dentist even thought that her jaw was so swollen that it may not even be tooth related but after pulling the loose tooth the infection was confirmed it was the tooth. So now she has a spacer and is on the rebound! Look at that tooth. It is so big. It looks like some foreign object growing in her mouth. I mean it looks like it walked out of the treasure chest from down under the ocean. By the way I am selling the crown after I bargain with the tooth fairy for it if anyone is interested? Rustin..... need any teeth to disect at dental school? Oh ya, Rustin will be a good dentist as well when he graduates in the year 2018 and we will be mowing his yard in exchange for pulling our teeth (just had to get that in writing)!

Tax season is over, yeah!! It seemed like a nightmare this year with all of our "make you a stronger person" moments and me going to Montana and the firm giving me triple the work as years before, but it's over. We celebrated today. Although I did not partake I hung out to be a part of the celebration. Unlike most firms who work until midnight on April 15th, our firm closes business at eleven and says "should of gotten it in earlier." SO at around 8 this morning they started with the champagne and lemonade (just including the recipe for those interested in a good drink they say). Then at 9 out came the bloody merry's and they sipped/gulped on those until we closed and left for the restaurant where all celebrated with a shot or two of tequila and who knows what else was in it along with marguaritas. I was a big fan of the chips and salsa. Then a round of beer or two for the after meal celebration. I hope the lady next to me made it home alright. I gave her all the shots they were bringing me and she didn't seem to mind. She did seem a little more gone than the rest! Glad it's over but the money was nice. If I were a real accountant I probably would have joined on the spirits and not just the food! So my time frame revolves around quarters(tax talk) and not seasons so I wanted to catch up on some things that happened to us this first quarter. Here is Kai all healthy and happy.
On February 27th I took her to the Williams Clinic for her fever that had gone on for a couple of days. They ended up rushing her to the hospital in Flagstaff, well not rushing because they needed to get their 45 minutes in so they could charge $1800 to get us there. First time I ever drive on I-40 under 50 miles an hour besides when Troy is testing his gas mileage and wants to get the best out of each fill up. So she ends up being diagnosed with pneumo thorax. It is pnemonia outside of the lungs.

Her oxygen was in the 70's which is very low. She didn't eat for a few days but when they brought around the macaroni and cheese she went to town on it. Those are her Pepsi's surrounding her plate and that's my helathy salad sitting beside her.

She got spoiled while in their. A lot of friends sent in the gifts and toys to keep her entertained. This was a singing balloon. It took quite a cart load to take down all of her gifts to the car.

She couldn't bathe and her hair was getting so nasty so while she was sleeping one night I stayed up and braided it. It was so much easier to deal with. So after 3 days in ICU and 3 days in regular room oh and $45,000 later she is home and healthy and back to ruling the roost. We were glad she made it through this. It was very scary in the beginning.

Easters

Okay all of you naggers, I am back (for this quarterly report only)!!! I would like to consider my self a quarterly blogger so here it goes in a nut shell,well Easter anyways. Some day I will have to blog about our exciting few months we have had! And yes that is Kai in her pajamas. She is a pajama girl and wanted to wear them to ply at the dock and all day and what does it matter what she wears. She's wearing what we'd all like to wear at the lake when we have eating disorders!! Easter at Roosevelt was not exactly the Easter we had planned out but we found ourselves here ready to get in that lake and have some fun in the sun. Mother Nature had another idea but we put our bodies to the test by trying to ski and tube in very cold conditions. On Friday we were able to jet ski and tube. Troy and Kamron even tried to ski but they didn't have a good report, they froze. The kids didn't complain they rode them a lot easier out of the water. The many fishermen with coats and sweatshirts on didn't htink we were so smart, neither did we but we had to say we did it right?

So this is the last thing that happened to us before we decided to leave for the weekend but this is where the picture popped up and I am not going to try to move it to the bottom! Kai fell in this fire. Thank my lucky stars I was standing right next to her and grabbed her out after saying a few choice words very loudly. I believe I wasn't the only one who screamed out but as long as she was safe who cares what the bishops wife said. Thank goodness her hair was wet after a shower because it still singed it. I wiped off flames from her clothes and flung her shoes into who knows where because there were coals in the bottoms of them. The look on her face just flashes back to me she was so stiff and scared. Fortunately the only thing that burned was her hand where she grabbed the metal fire ring to try to get out and a little bit of hair singed. Her and her cousin were fighting over her $1 bill she had found in an easter egg. She was crying, my money, my money. Well her money is now an ash in Roosevelt camp ground but that's ok.

And here is Troy and Kai on a boat ride. We did take the jet skis out this day but it was raining and so cold. We didn't get wet but still the only ones on the lake on jet skis in pants and coats. Kai just catching some sleep.

Here are the kids imagining they are tubing. Thank goodness for their imaginations! They got a lot of other things done like playing ball and hiding and coloring eggs and watching the only DVD we had there over and over while it was raining. And then there was the best thing of all..... our nice little Megacab met Mrs. Elk on the way to the lake. Troy decided to go to Roosevelt through Camp Verde instead of Lake Mary because he thought there would be "less elk". Well these two happened to be "NOT AT LAKE MARY." Fortunately no one was hurt, not even the BEAUTIFUL elk. It hopped up and ran off once we got to a stop. The kids slept right through it and we got out, looked at the damage, and drove on. Just typical of the things that have been "intorduced" into our lives lately but who has time to blog about them. Let's hope the insurance comes through but who's crossing their fingers. Only the bumper is twisted, hood smashed, grill broke, and side needs replaced.

And this story is flat for real no lie a true story..... the first night there we got there around 11:30 and got to sleep around 1 or so. About 2:00 am someone comes into my brothers camper and gets in bed with his little 3 year old boy. He was thinking it was my younger brother but figured there was no way he would be wrapped up cuddling with his son so he gets up to see what's going on. He shines the flashlight and sees this guy laying there. Then he rips off the covers and tries to figure out what is going on. After a few minutes of arguing with this "stranger" he calms down and starts talking to the guy. The guy was out of it. The little boy said, "dad what's happening?" It was then that this guy realizes he is sleep walking and kind of wakes up and leaves. It was pretty crazy. The next morning we figure out who the guy was and remember the what we had saw him smoking that night. Sleep walking or drug halucination, you be the judge, but it was crazy. We locked our campers from there out.

I am being of accused of a blog slacker by a few "choice" people so i thought i would try to do some updates to show why i have not found the time to blog! We had quite a busy month of December and seemed like we accomplished, not much! This picture above is kai just getting the swing of unwrapping presents! She would run and hide and try to open them when she knew they were for her. The other picture is Taya with her wonderful gifts Payce got her. They each were given $10-$15 to buy the siblings name they drew. All the other kids bought pretty nice little gifts. Payce on the other hand decided to go a different route. He bought Taya as many $.88 cent items he could with his money. She was afraid of his present but turned out they had more fun with that stuff than anything. She got silly putty, slinky, noise goow, and of all things... fake bloody teeth. They had a ball with them.

These are the pajamas I made for the kids, sorry the pictures are dark...I haven't got to that part in the instructions of taking pictures good with my phone. We had a pre-Christmas the night before we left for Holbrook and the kids got to open these pajamas and the presents that they bought each other in a name drawing.

Don't remember which day this was but there should have been a lot more moments like this for this little girl but she is a trooper and doesn't skip a beat on too many things. The bad part is that she hasn't learned how to sleep in yet so each long night and early mornings made it harder on us.

Here is Syndee unwrapping her present. She just knew it was the gift she peaked in on but had a hard time coming to terms that Kai got that present and she got something else. She got enough dog and horse toys to last her until her birthday in March I hope.

Here are the boys admiring Troy's Christmas present. It was a custom made 338 gun. It was quite a suprise to Troy and fun trying to get that thing made without having a clue about guns and the hole lingo! With the help of our home teacher a.k.a. the gun-maker, it got put together and turned out really nice. He does a really good job with guns.

Here is what I got a picture of at Christmas time. It was a spur of the moment flyer Troy happened to walk by and pick up. I am supposed to go order some but think I will wait for the new ones coming out with square doors, supposively holds more and that's what I am all about..... less loads and more time for me. What will I buy that can fold them now??

Just one of those late night card playing nights with family. I didn't get much playing in because I was usually zoning someone's feet or just flat out tired and lazy.

Here is Kelton and Troy having a great time at the card/dinner table. He is a cute kid. We went to my brother and sister-in-laws temple sealing this weekend. It was really nice. Kelton and Rylie got sealed to them.

At some point during this season, month of December, we went to the NFR in Las Vegas. Troy and I went along with my brothers and their wives and my parents. We had a fun time. This is just a shot of Tracy trying out an outdoor swing at one of the cowboy trade shows. We left her their while we shopped. We went to the rodeo two nights and walked, shopped, and ate a lot. We watched a little team roping also.
We also spent three days at Kristens trying to help with re-modeling her house. I loved cleaning, primering, texturing, re-primering, sanding, and all of the fun stuff. Not really but it was fun and the kids had fun. It was nice to be in that weather down there. We probably would have finished if we would have worked more than a half hour at a time before shopping breaks or just plain breaks.

And did I mention the deal of the day I got. Well not only did I get $46 worth of groceries for $2.50 at Walgreens but I went to Kohls to spend my $110 gift certificates given to me for buying presents for Christmas...... so I go to buy this silverware set, a nice one, and two baking pans. Well it was going to total around $115 so I put it up there and she rings it up and says $43. I was floored and paid and then me and Troy were like what went wrong and afraid to say anything for fear it was a mistake. I wanted to buy more but thought no way they will probably notice it and there goes the great deal. So then I was able to buy some more stuff with the balance. So wondering why it actually happened.....my neighbor went to Kohls to try the same deal and lo and behold the same thing for her. It was an $80 set for $7.99. I told her to buy all they had but that was the last one. You all should run to Kohl's and see what you can do. It was a 53 piece set, I think, and brand was Cambridge.... flat out crazy, they must have barcoded it wrong from the factory or something. What's even more crazy is that I have now updated my silverware collection from the salvation army used store...if any one is interested!! You won't even come close to the Kohls deal but at least I'll be getting rid of my old collection.