Christmas 2008

Here's our Christmas trip in a nutshell:

Sledding on Columbia View Farms sledding hill. Does this bring back any memories to any of you Basin City folk?

Acting out the Nativity on Christmas Eve (the livestock: Ren, Kache, Ryder with Brek and Uncle Eric looking on).

Grandpa reading "The Night Before Christmas" to Summer, Brek, Wyatt, Ren, Kam and Kache.

Kache's favorite Christmas present. Jason playing with the boys' presents.

Jason and Kameron playing the Wii.

Doug, Erica, Claire, Jen and Bret.

Dallie and Claire trying to figure out what their Spanish-speaking dolls are saying.

Renton, Justin and Ryder being cheesy.

The Bagley cousins: Ryder, Tayson, Kache, Dallie and Jacie.

Ryder's Birthday

We celebrated Ryder's 3rd birthday at Grandma Bagley's house. Doesn't Ryder look great with his koolaid mustache?

Lightning McQueen blankie from Grandma Nielson.

Kache looking on.

New farm set from Grandma Bagley.

Christmas

Merry Christmas! We are in Washington for a couple of days before we head to Idaho to visit Jason's family. Most of my siblings will be here at some point during the holiday. Tricia and Kristin live here in Washington and are here; Erica from Wyoming has been here for a couple days; Mijken from Idaho and Bret from Oregon are coming tomorrow. We are only missing Sara and Luke.

We are moved in to the McGinley (not unpacked yet) and things seem to be alright there (the house anyway - the ranch itself is another story). We don't have internet yet (we had to travel 1100 miles to get on the internet). The roads and traffic weren't great, so it took us a little longer to get here, but we made it. We were ready to have a break from the ranch, but we don't enjoy the traffic here or all the people. Kache and Ryder are having a good time with their cousins. I haven't seen much of Kache since we've been here.

Dallie.

Brek, Summer, Kache, Lexi, Wyatt, Ryder, Kam, Bode, Cole, Ren, Weston in their pjs from Grandma.

Ryder and Ren on their way to the sledding hill.

Trim Up The Tree

Our Christmas tree this year was rather large. It's a good thing we have high ceilings to accomodate it. Decorating for Christmas used to be so fun when I was a kid...what happened?

Notice all the balls hanging in one spot. This is where Ryder decorated.

Moving Day

Tomorrow is the big day. We're mostly packed. We ran out of boxes, but luckily we're only moving an hour away. We're coming back on Friday to clean so we will be able to get everything we can't fit in boxes. We moved to this house two years ago from Torrington, Wyoming. I was a little more excited to move to this house than I am to move from it. We had to leave Torrington the night before we had planned because a blizzard was coming. We got to this house at three in the morning just as it started snowing. We were glad we got here when we did because we got snowed in that night. We weren't able to get out of our driveway for a couple of days.

So two years later and I'm sad this is our last night in this house. I'll miss my bedroom and closet and the four bathrooms, air conditioner, the location of this house and the view. I'll miss living by Ben and Shelley. They've taught and helped us out a lot. We will miss our mail lady. But I have to stop thinking about those things or I won't be happy on the McGinley. So I'm signing off from the Pawlet house. Good night and good luck.

Chadron State Park

Two summers ago there was a forest fire in Chadron State Park.


It burned within feet of some homes.

This is the only national forest in the panhandle of Nebraska and the only place to cut down a Christmas tree. On Friday we went up and since there isn't much of a selection we take what we can get. This is the tree the boys found this year. (Dallie and I stayed in the car; it was too cold and windy for us.)

Rex Ranch Rodeo

Tonight Jason and I are doing a little packing while we watch the NFR. I used to love watching rodeo, but it isn't as fun anymore. Maybe because I get to watch my own rodeo any time around here.

Jason is in the saddle bronc event when he gets on Roxy and she doesn't want to be ridden. She gets to bucking and he gets thrown. I don't start laughing until after he gets up (when I know he's alright).

Then there's the wild cow milking. In the spring after a calf has to be pulled, the cow has to be milked and the calf tubed with the colostrum. The cow is in a head catch, but she will still kick when she is being milked (and then there's the manure, blood and afterbirth flying around).

Roping events include roping cows and calves when they need to be doctored. But instead of trying to catch them within an arena, they have hundreds of acres to run. In this event it's easiest to chase the cow until she's too tired to run anymore and then rope her. In the spring at the brandings there's lots of calf roping and calf throwing\wrestling.

My personal favorite is calf tagging. Within hours of a calf's birth, it needs to be tagged, weighed, etc. If you wait to long to do this, the calf has a little more energy and a greater ability to escape when you're trying to get its vitals. So you have to catch the calf, throw and hold it down, get its weight, tag it and do all this with its mother breathing down your neck.

So even though we aren't in Las Vegas at the Thomas and Mack Center, our spectators still enjoy the action here at the Rex Ranch Rodeo.

McGinley Update

We went down to the McGinley on Tuesday. The carpet is in, the hard wood is shinny, and the tile is in for the back splash. We are still on for moving on Wednesday; unless of course the plumbing isn't fixed. When we bought the place new septic systems were put in, but the person doing it didn't do it right (like there are caps at the end of the pipes so there is no place for the sewer to go). The guy was supposed to have it fixed last Friday and as of Tuesday he still hadn't come out to fix it.

Primary Program

Sunday was the Primary program in church. Kache did really good with his part and the songs. He is one of the most reverent kids in primary. Every Sunday someone tells me what a good boy he is. He is a really good helper at home too. I'll be sad for him to go to school and grow up. He has a talk next week in primary too.

Jason says we are moving next Wednesday. Two of the guys on the ranch have offered their clean horse trailers so we won't have to take time cleaning trailers out. I don't have enough boxes (when we moved here I finally threw away all my moving boxes). I feel very unorganized. I would like to start moving stuff down to the McGinley this week, but the carpet is going in today and we will just be in the way if we go and after that Elder Nielsen will be putting a finish on the hard wood floors so we can't be there until that dries.

I took these pictures the other night of the kids reading stories with Jason. It looks like Dallie is about to fall off.

McGingley progress

We stopped by the McGinley on our way home from shopping and took some pictures of the progress. It's coming along quite nicely; we just wish the ranch itself were in working order. Jason tried to move his cows the other day and the fence of the pasture he was trying to go into was laying flat for over half a mile.

Mom, notice the molding.

The master closet with doors.

Thanksgiving Fun

We had a fun Thanksgiving. Myron and Caroline Durfee are on the Rex Unit (it is the farthest unit east and is about an hour and a half from our house). The boys had a good time playing with their kids. They made pumpkin pie turkeys for dessert and had had a good time jumping on the trampoline. Jason and I enjoyed the socializing (since it happens so rarely).

Our Friday shopping didn't go as planned, but we were still successful. Jason and the kids did pretty good. Kache told me he didn't see the train in the back of the suburban. He's been asking all day if we can have Christmas now. What he doesn't know is that the train is for his birthday in February. Poor kid will have to wait even longer for the train he didn't see.

Thanksgiving plans

What are everyone's plans for Thanksgiving? Are you doing any shopping the day after Thanksgiving?

We have been invited to some friends' house tomorrow. Jason's excited. He didn't want to have a big dinner with just us and he gets to watch football with a friend. I'm excited to go shopping on Friday. Well, not really. I don't really like to shop, but I am excited for the deals and I'm excited that Jason is coming with me. He'll probably stay in the car with the kids and sleep, but at least I won't have to make the 2 hour drive to Scottsbluff by myself.

I hope everyone has a nice Thursday and Friday.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Mijken!

First memories

I thought I'd write my first memories of Jason. The first two were before I knew who he was.

I was invited to the Livestock Center for the Animal Science Opening Social. They had a three-legged barrell race in the arena. Jason was paired up with his friend Jamie. They were in the middle of the pack when half way through the race they tripped and were run over by the other contestants. I remember feeling so bad for that couple and thought they had to be so embarrassed (because I would have been).

The next time I saw him was at the Ag Opening Social. We had a dance contest in the shop. I was entered with a boy who had just won the pie-eating contest (I was afraid he was going to throw up on me) and Jason was dancing with his friend Brooke. Jason and Brooke won the contest; their prizes were a rope and a BYU-Idaho sweatshirt.

My first memory after actually meeting Jason was when I was walking down the hall in the Benson building and I saw him coming out of the glass study room by the computer lab. He was looking up and smiling at me when his boot heel caught on the threshold and he stumbled out into the hall. He was already falling for me.

Mr. Mischievous

Every time I turn around Ryder is getting into something he shouldn't.