A Little Help

Cash has become quite the helper. You start pulling things for dinner....he'll make sure you don't forget anything.

You load the dishwasher....he'll empty it for you.

Our little helper!

Holidays and Cash's Birthday '09

CASH'S FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY! Believe it or not, the Casher turned a year old on December 18th! We had his first birthday party up at Todd and Tracy's house in town. As you can see, he and his friend Maddox really enjoyed one of his presents. A toy that throws balls up in the air. YIPPEE!!!

Mommy and ol' Rudolph! Cash's day care hosted a Christmas party at the Missoula Carousel. There were about 25 kids and 50 parents who showed up for the event and everyone had a great time!

...That is a great time until Santa showed up. Cash did alright with Ol' Saint Nick for about a minute and then he decided he had about enough of the HO HO HO's and the strange man with the big white beard. Well, at least we got a picture of him with Santa!

We hope everyone's holidays were full of happiness and good cheer and we wish everyone a wonderful and blessed 2010!!!

Book Worm

Reading?? Not quite, but pulling them off of the shelf....all of them....got it!

How's my hair?

I wouldn't be surprised to see this picture next to the word "bedhead" in the dictionary!

Fun filled days

I don't even know where to start. We have had so much excitement through the month of November and into December. First of all, we had the big auction/fundraiser for our good friend Schaufi (http://www.teamschaufi.org/). We were able to raise around $25,000 plus! That was in less than a month and a half. Amazing.

The weekend after that, we headed out to Bozeman for an elk hunting/Thanksgiving trip. We met up with Brent's folks and bro for the turkey weekend at the old C'Mon Inn. We both shot a cow on Thanksgiving day....a wonderful addition to our already full freezer. We did lots of swimming and played lots of cards and just hung out for the rest of the weekend. Back to Missoula on Sunday and time to butcher, butcher, butcher. Maybe next year I'll be a vegetarian?? All of our meat is cut up and in the freezer...just a night of grinding burger and we're good to go.

Mine and Cash's Christmas present came early in the form of a cute little horse! :) His name is Fritz and he's a tiny little guy. We'll have to get a bigger one next spring for Brent. I don't know much about him, but I do know that he took me on a 30 mile elk hunting trip earlier this year and that he's a real sweetheart. I don't have any pics of him yet....soon.

Today was the Griz game. Holy blowout! I think that the final score was either 52 or 53 to 0! We're thinking that this was Cash's last Griz game, it was pretty cold. Once again, he slept right through the first half and was a great little boy for the rest of the game. Tomorrow is a big day of nothing....I hope. And if the weather is decent Fritz and I may check out a trail or 2. Yipee!

I know that I'm a little short on photos, but.....it's 9 at night!!! I can't sit up and add pictures all night. :) We have SO many pictures that they're impossible to pick from and it seems that I have been putting too many photos on my slideshows and slowing down the system (or showing the same photos over and over). So, this is it! Enjoy and keep watching -- I'll get more pics up eventually! Happy Thanksgiving late and enjoy your Christmas tunes....we are!

Brent's buck

Brent's buck looks just the tiniest bit bigger than mine....

Filling the freezer

I got a buck the other weekend -- one shot....standing up! I can't believe it! And no, I didn't even ruin any meat. Waiting on Brent to get home from his hunt with JW and hoping we have another deer to put in the freezer.

Elk Camp

Elk camp was a little short this year due to 'family dynamics', but was still fun filled in a day and a half! Brent, Joe and I loaded up horses and gear on Saturday afternoon and had the horses in their corral, the tent up and the cribbage board out by 6 or so. After a great steak dinner and a few games of cribbage it was off to bed -- a little different from years past....I think we were in bed by 9pm. Brent made me set 3 watches to make sure that we would wake up on time...5am.

Sunday morning we were up before the sun and had the horses saddled and were making our way into the mountains. We had a nice ride....a 27 mile nice ride....the kind of ride that makes you think you must be some sort of amazing cowgirl/cowboy to even be able to get back into the saddle, let alone ride another mile! It was actually great fun, minus the riding in the dark on the wrong road. We weren't technically lost, but we weren't exactly sure what road we needed to be on to get back to camp. Lost? Nah....

We made it back to camp late Sunday night after seeing a bunch of wolf and mountain lion tracks and a few mule deer. I must have shot the tail off of a muley buck, but nothing to bring home for the freezer. **sigh** Brent will be headed out to hunt this weekend and I'll wait till cows open up around Veteran's day. We'd better get something soon because our freezer is getting EMPTY and I don't do chicken!

Big Boy

I just thought that this was a cute picture to share. Cash is holding onto the furniture and walking and is doing a ton of crawling! Time to get our running shoes out.

Free dirt

Who needs dinner when there's so much free dirt to eat?!? Cash had his first taste of dirt (you can just see the bits of dirt on the corners of his mouth in the pic) and didn't seem too worried. I, of course, ran inside and got a glass of water so he could 'swish'. Yeah...babies don't 'swish'....they just swallow the dirty water. Oh well. He lived through it, we lived through it and the trees got taken care of that night.

Vaca pics

I hate to do this....but, I really had no choice. Cash got his haircut about 2 weeks or so before he was baptized in Fargo on Oct 3rd, then Grandma and Grandpa Hobbs swung through for a visit and finally we were off to Fargo. Lots of memories and lots of good times, not to mention 490 pictures taken. Holy crap! It's taken me forever to download them all and then weed through them and create a slideshow, but that long wait is over! Hope all the pics don't jam up your computer and make sure you have LOTS of time to watch. :)

I bought Vikings/Packers tickets for Brent and I for our 1 year anniversary, then once we got there, we stumbled upon Twins tickets and Wild tickets (hockey). Wow! What a weekend! We got to spend lots of time with family in Fargo, then in Minnesota (thanks Lyle!) and not to mention all the fun we had with friends. I got the pleasure of meeting a few of Brent's fraternity brothers and their wives....what a GREAT group of people. I've heard lots of stories and now I have a face to go with each story. Maybe we'll all get together again sometime -- we'll need a huge place and I swear next time I'll bring an entire purse full of pictures of Cash! :) Or maybe next time Cash will just get to come along.

We're back on track from vacation time now and getting back into the swing of things. I got to enjoy a dinner night with Tawni last night and Brent will go to the new scary movie tonight with friends. Yes, he did invite me along and no, there's no way I will go see some movie about a guy that kills people from jail -- Law Abiding Citizen? Then tomorrow is a day of football and fun with Aunt Steph, Uncle Wes, Molly and Casey. Should be a great time! We're crossing our fingers for good weather....I want to get the lawn mowed one last time before the snow comes. Double crossing.

Garage Wars

My big project this year while Brent was at elk camp was to tear down the existing shelving in the garage, build a new set of shelving, power wash and scrub the garage floor and use a concrete stain to 'spiff it up' and hopefully help keep some of the dust and dirt down. Sunday through Tuesday night I stayed up late after work and Cash's bedtime to tear everything apart and do some moving. Wednesday night Doug came up to the house and helped me get the frame of the new shelving unit up and Thursday night we finished the building. I used Friday to powerwash the garage and put the good cleaning on it, then primed and painted the shelving. The plan was to wait for Cash to go to bed and then it was out to the garage to put the stain on. Then....the plan went down the drain -- Brent came home early! :)

Turns out there was nothing but people, people and more people up where they were hunting. Not just people....but from the sounds of it, dumb people. You know the ones (I hope I'm not offending anyone who does this, but my guess is none of you would pull this)....the ones that walk right through everything, making as much noise as possible as they go and cow calling or bugling every 5 minutes. Yep, that's real natural, that's what elk do all day. Amazing.

Back to the garage. Now Brent has come home, I had just put Cash down....we got him up to give some loves to Dad and he just sat in his arms patting his face and smiling (Cash did that to Brent, not the other way around). I told Brent that since this was my project that I would finish it so he could just relax after a long week of hiking and hunting. I finished....at midnight I finished. Whew! Yesterday was a day of putting the garage back together and we are now back on track. Our house no longer resembles the Beverly Hillbillies with all of our garage contents thrown outside and now I can't help but to walk out and just take a peek every few hours. It's beautiful! Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I didn't even imagine it being this nice when I came up with this project!

Now what?!?

9 months and counting

Cash is now officially as many months old as we had to 'endure' to get him here! Yipee! He had his 9 month doc appointment last Wednesday and the old doc said he's as healthy as a horse. He is officially 22 lbs 15 oz and 28 1/4 inches long. I think he said that puts him in the 80th percentile for weight and 50 for height. Oh, and he has a big melon. I can't remember the size off hand, but I think it was something like 48 cm....90th percentile? That's not the important stuff.....he got his flu shot....and I gotta say it was pretty funny. The nurse stabbed him with the needle (ok, she gently stuck it in his big ol' thigh), he kind of acknowledged that something happened, made a little noise, then giggled when she put the bandaid on and continued to laugh and chat while I got him dressed and we high tailed it outta there. Happy 9th month, Casher!

First bull

JW and Brent went hunting yesterday morning and came home with this:

JW's first bull ever....his first bow hunt ever....luck or skill?? :) Way to go JW!

Go Griz!

Cash went to his very first Griz football game this afternoon. We rode the bus in from Frenchtown and did a little tailgating with friends, then made our way in for the kickoff. Cash had a nice welcome from everyone in our section -- after seeing me pregnant all last season I think that maybe they were just going along with the whole pregnant thing and thinking that I was just getting really fat!

Cash slept through most of the 2nd quarter, but was back up and running for 1/2 time and the last 2 quarters. It was a pretty hot day, so I think we were all glad to leave the confines of the stadium and get back home. A nice steak on the grill and now we've got our feet up and are getting ready to pick out a movie. And tomorrow....NOTHING! :)

Bums

We've been enjoying being bums for the past few weeks -- no softball! Thank goodness. I am thinking that I am going to have to retire next year, it just takes up too much time and it really does put quite the dent in the pocketbook. We've spent our downtime enjoying a big BBQ with friends, a lot of relaxing, riding horses, some baking and an O'mok see.

Lisa and I made Great Grandma Pietsch's caramel rolls this past weekend. I think I need to double the caramel part....but other than that, they were pretty darn delicious. Of course, there's no way I could recreate what G. Grams made, but I like to think that I'm doing okay if it's at least edible! So far, we've eaten an entire pan and nobody has been down for the count. Look at me, a regular old housewife....we even wore aprons while we baked! :)

Cash is getting big, big, big. He is so smiley and happy and we've just been enjoying every minute that we get with him. We have found that it works out a lot better if we get his food ready before he's at the table because if it's not already on the spoon and on the way to his mouth by the time we put the bib on there will be hell to pay. The little guy has some lungs on him....you've never seen parents shovel food so fast. He's trying hard to crawl, but nothing yet, just lots of rolling and scooting. He gets everything he thinks he needs, but we've been spared the crawling and walking for a little longer.

I have started my training for a marathon (dual purpose -- running for fun and running after Cash). I'm training with a friend (Heather) and we'll be running for a charity based out of our local hospital. All of the details haven't been worked out quite yet, but when it's all said and done we'll be running to raise money for 'Healing the hearts of the children of Ethiopia'. There is a local cardiac surgeon who flies to Ethiopia and does heart surgery for children for free. We feel like this is a good cause and are proud to be a part of a community that would be willing to put these children first. Our marathon will be in December in Vegas -- hopefully we make it out of the casinos to do the run! We have also started a blog detailing our training if anyone wants to read the gory details of running 100's of miles in a few months -- http://www.2runnersatheart.blogspot.com/

Brent is getting ready for hunting season. He spent last weekend scouting for elk and it seems the wolves have taken their toll on the animals this year. It sounds like a lot more scouting is in order and maybe a lot more traveling. We'll see what they find. We're looking forward to our first Griz game of the year next weekend. I think we're both ready for Fall....we've had a lot of mid to high 90's days this summer and are ready for a nice crisp Fall morning of football and hot chocolate! Go Griz!

A weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Olson

Once again, Brent and I had softball all weekend. Brent had men's state in Billings (they took 9th out of 42 teams) and we had women's state in Kalispell (we took 6th out of 12 teams). What a perfect opportunity for Grandma and Grandpa Olson to come halfway -- give or take a few hundred miles -- and meet up with Brent and Cash. From the sounds of it everyone had a great time and the boys that rode over with Brent were impressed with how good Cash was on the trip. This is the story I'm told....I'm just relaying info, not bragging! :) Slide show to come....

Is that what I think it is?!?

Yep....it's exactly what you think it is.....that's Dad on his new Harley and even Cash got a chance to sit on it and feel the rumble of the classic!

We had a wonderful 'vacation' (a 2 day runner) at Mom and Dad's and even got to spend a little time hanging out with Gramps! Mom and Dad took over as babysitter's of the year and watched Cash for Brent and I so we could go enjoy a movie (The Hangover) -- it takes a bit to get warmed up to the idea of so many bad words and images, but by the end you're nice and calloused and can laugh with the rest of the crowd!

I have lots more pictures from the weekend, so.....you guessed it.....another slideshow will be popping up shortly! I figured I'd better get these Harley pics up asap! :)

Congrats on your new bike Dad!!! Hang on tight Mom!!! We love you -- thanks again for the fun weekend, can't wait to get together again.....Cash will be ready to terrorize your house by then!