So I have not posted in a while because I have been a little busy. Right now I am in Bozeman Montana because of a mission conference that my home church puts on every year for their suported missionaries to come and share what is happening in their lives at the moment. Chad was going to go but various things did not allow for that so her I am with Mason. It is a little weird to just have Mason to take care of....but I am enjoying myself! I arrived Monday morning and then that evening we went to a prayer meeting where all the missionaries had sent in prayer requests ahead of time and they were all broken down so we could pray for one request at a time! It was a neat and uplifting experience and then the requests were all linked together and hung up around the church for them to remember to pray for the missionaries! Tuesday morning I had to get up at 7am to get ready for a breakfast that the church had prepared for all the missionaries to come together and enjoy and just get to know each other a little better. It was early but a great time and I met some amazing people there. On Wednesday I slept in because I was so tired but then it was time to get up and go shopping and eating and then off to a foot spa that my sister was hosting at her house! A very relaxing day and a supper relaxing evening!!!!! Foot spas are great fun and the products were great as well. I probably overspent a little :} .....Oh well. Thursday we are headed for Great Falls to see my grandpa and for him to meet Mason and also to see some other relatives. Chad has been at home with the girls and they seem to be doing fine without me. I think that they miss me lots and I know that I miss them....but soon enough it will be back to my same routine again. Sometimes it is nice to mix it up a bit!

A Morning with Emma

This morning as I lay in bed listening to Mason arouse from his slumber I decided that I was going to take Emma to the pool to give her a little more time to practice her swimming before her new swimming lessons started tonight. During the last set of classes she passed all of her required swimming tecniques except the combined backstroke where you kick with your legs and use your arms at the same time. So I woke her up and the second her head came off the pillow her mouth was moving a mile a minute with all sorts of questions of various topics. I finally got her to be quiet so I could tell her that we are going swimming and that she needed to get her swimming suite on!!! She is so much a morning person and I have no idea where that trait came from! :) We got to the pool and started working and she swam the length of the pool about 8-10 times and then we worked on little things and did some short swims to the middle of the pool and back. I think that she will be ready for the level III class now...at least I am hopeing they will let her, she worked so hard to do it right. :) I enjoyed my time with her so much and it was nice that it was just the two of us for an hour. When we were finished I took her to the coffee shop and we sipped our tea and shared half a bagel for about 7 minutes until we had to rush out the door to get home so Chad could get to work in time. I look forward to more of those moments, the little things that I can do with each of my children even if it is just a moment. I promised Madison that I would take her as well at another time....

Morning walk

On Sunday morning bright and early, Emma and I went for a walk to the barn to see if we could get a picture of the orange moon but it had already disappeared behind the trees! So we took some other pictures and I thought they were just as beautiful.

This is Ben and Daisy our two draft horses.

The Jumpie

This was Mason's first time in the jumpie seat and he took to it like it was old hat! HE absolutely loves it for which I am very glad because until now he was kicking us to death!!

Here is a better picture of the bald eagle.

Jump!

Emma and Madison have just completed 5 weeks (10 lessons) of swimming lessons and at the end they get to jump off the diving board which is what the video is of. Next week we start another 5 weeks of lessons! They are both doing really well and I am so glad that we signed them up for it because they love swimming so much!!

Random pictures

The first picture is of a blad eagle that was right outside our house yesterday, and the second picture is an areal picture of camp taken several years back...(not by me!). All the white roads are the roads that are around camp with our big lake in the middle!

Chad's new baby!!!

For Christmas Chad got the present of his dreams!!! He has been wanting a new bow for over half of our marriage and this year I was able to give him the money to buy it. So now thanks to ebay my husband has an obsession. He actually bought amost everything for his bow and his bow off of ebay because they were such a great price (of course)! Now he is excited to get to the shooting range in town at the bow shop to begin practicing on it and strengthening those muscles that you use....they have gotten a little weak over the years :). So here are a few pictures of Chad in his garage fine tuning all the little gadgets that make a bow be the best device that it can be!

....and for all you bow guys out there who want to know what kind of bow it is....it is a Mathews Drenalin LD 30in draw. :) He is very excited to go up north to hunt caribou now too.