Our holidays were great; small, easy, and fun. We had lots of time together as a family. Jason had a couple of weeks off of work and we accomplished nothing but hanging out and eating good food:) The best part of our Christmas celebration was........we had 7 baby bassetts born on Christmas Eve. What a great present for all of us. They all came out healthy and strong. Jason played the midwife through it all. 
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On a sad note though, we lost mama dog "Reba" do to a very unfortunate accident. The kids and I were
pretty upset for a few or so days but we
have moved on as life has a tendency to do. We do miss her and she is in our thoughts daily. Jason buried her in the backyard and Cheyenne and I are still working on a memorial for her. Jason let Cheyenne keep one of the puppies which has helped us all get through her passing a little easier. "FJ" (Fred Jr.) is our new one and he is a landshark just like his daddy "Fred". So we still have 5 active, jumping, running, barking dogs:)
The kids are doing well. We are moving along well in school. They both are doing very well in History, Science, and Language. Math sometimes can get to them but they keep plugging along at it. Spelling is a bit of a challenge for Cheyenne and a piece of cake for Austin.
Cheyenne is riding in her Gymkhana again this year, she is riding a friends horse that is really nice. Her horse "Dyno" is her trail horse this year and Rusty is in retirement from the Gymkhanas. She will compete on Rusty once in while at a new event in town called the O-mok-sees (meaning Indian games). They are fun games on horseback and she does well at them. She and Austin are still in 4-H and keeping quite busy. Over the holidays their 4-H group did a blanket drive for kids without and donated all the blankets to FirstChoice Pregnancy Center, Family to Family, and NoTo Abuse. It was very rewarding. The groups new Community Service is working on making funds for a K-9 Bullet Proof Jacket. They would like to purchase one for our local unit here in Pahrump. They are all pretty excited about it.
Back in December, Austin decided to purchase a hog for a market project this year for his 4-H Livestock project. And.......what a rode this has been, very fun. His hogs name is "Bacon" which is named after a meat from the hog, of course. He has feed, watered, worked, and bandaged this hog and what an accomplishment so far. Bacon is 200lbs right now and he can't exceed 280lbs for the fair. The Clark County Fair is April 9 -12 held in Logandale NV and at that time Bacon will be auctioned off for meat. Austin will get paid from that meat, minusing some expenses he should do well. Last weekend we went to Logandale for our Market Preshow and Austin placed 5th out of 9 in showmanship. He did really well for his first time doing it and he can't wait till Fair time.
Cheyenne on the other hand, wants to do a market animal but can't because she isn't 9yrs old. So instead she is raising a goat, which is bred, for milk and to sell the babies for money. Her goat "Hope" is a registered Nigerian Dwarf and is due around the time we go to fair:), which makes Cheyenne very nervous because we'll be gone for about 5 days. We are praying that she'll have the babies before or after the fair. 
This is picture of Cheyenne with her goat "Jackson" in a barrel.......together........happy! She plans to take 7 chickens to show in the fair and maybe 2 goats, wow. I have to deal with a 270lb hog, 7 cackling chickens, 2 nagging goats, and 2 rug rats (Austin & Chey), wow! I've started the chiropractor on my neck, yesterday:)Well, along with riding horses and 4-H, we have went to a couple desert races and rode our ATV's. We took a family jaunt to the Armagosa Dunes and it was quite fun, different. We really enjoyed ourselves. The desert races are always a pleaser, when a trophy truck comes roaring by you at 100+mph, its GREAT!
