The Elk Hunt

First, for anyone who does not know, Gary has been trying for this Nevada Bull Elk tag for 20 years (give or take), so it's been a very big deal. It's the reason he bit the bullet and bought a toy hauler FINALLY! ;P He's been spending a ton of time up on the mountain- scouting, camping, hunting.... Uncle Blair was so generous as to let us keep the toy hauler on his ranch for the majority of the last month. (By the way- his property up there is beautiful!! We're so jealous!) That made things so much easier since Gary didn't have to haul the thing back and forth for each trip.

So for the first few days of the hunt, he had two of his hunting buddies with him. That was at the beginning, when it was still fun. Unfortunately, they both had to come back to town for their jobs, and Gary was left up there by himself. He came home for a day and a half, then went back up. Of course, by then the hunt was becoming more work than fun. Then of course, he started coming down with a cold. It's no fun to get up at 3:00 a.m., hike for hours on end, then come back exhausted and empty handed to a lonely trailer even when you're well, let alone when you're sick.

So when Gary called hom on Thursday night saying that he was about to just call it quits, I tried to encourage him. Exhaustion, frustration, and missing the family had all taken their toll. I talked to his folks that same night, and Gary's mom offered to take the kids for the weekend so I could go up and help out. HA! The only way I'd be able to help out is by keeping Gary company. I sure don't know how to hunt....

But would you believe, that as I'm loading the car and getting ready to drop the kiddos in Logandale, Gary calls and says he finally got his elk. Yay!

Wait.... we can't celebrate so fast. Now's the hard part. Getting it off the mountain. A mountain designated recently as 'Wilderness Area' no off-limits to any type of vehicles off of designated highways. You can't even bring in a wheeled hand cart for crying out loud. (Thank a ton, Harry Reid. No, really.) Ugh.

Again, Uncle Blair to the rescue. Uncle Blair came up to his ranch with his horse, and spent the entire day with Gary and I.... hiking up to the elk, helping load it, and getting it back down to the truck. It was nearly 4 miles each way. And I mean 4 miles of rough terrain. It was, by far, the most difficult hike I've ever done. Thank goodness that Tex was able to handle the majority of it. But Uncle Blair, Gary, and I all had metal frame packs full of stuff too.

Gary's pack was so heavy that he was forced to leave it after about 2.5 miles. We marked the spot on the GPS, and ended up having to come back early the next morning.

In spite of the difficulty of the hunt, I think it was a good experience. And we'll soon have at least 100+ pounds of meat in the freezer. I can't imagine having lived in the days before grocery stores, when families either raised or hunted all of their meats. I, for one, certainly prefer the convenience of shopping for it. But at least I can say that I know what to expect, should we ever lose that modern convenience and be forced to hunt for our family's game.

A few pics (coming), for anyone who is interested.

9/11 - NEVER FORGET

It never fails. Every year on Sept 11th I feel anxious for my husband. On the other hand, I know that we've shown that we can come together and fight against a dangerous enemy. God bless the families of all those who passed on Sept 11, 2001. Innocent victims, brave souls.

Never forget.

The most amazing video

The Sabbath seems to be the perfect time to share an amazing video I ran across on the web. Reflections of Christ is a travelling fine art exhibit that I believe is in Mesa, Arizona right now. If it comes here, I will be taking my whole family to it for sure.

Take the time to visit this link and watch the slideshow. It's one of the most moving things I've seen.

Reflections of Christ slideshow

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

A Busy Week For Sure....

Monday was the first day of school. HOORAY! The kids have been so ready to get back. New clothes, notebooks, pencils, lunchboxes, and anything else they could get away with, were all chosen and ready for the big day.

And as an extra special treat, Grandma Robison drove into town just to walk to school with us! We just LOVE our grandparents!

Abby was thrilled to see Miss Kelli again, and Kelly was hopping with excitement to go into her new 2nd grade class with Mrs. Jones. For some reason my allergies were acting up that morning, because my eyes were kind of watery watching my biggest little lady walk into her class. She's gotten so tall, and she's so pretty. She holds her head high, and her heart on her sleeve. I'm just so proud of her. I'm so proud of all of my kids. If all goes well, Abby will be mainstreamed into kindergarten part-time this year. She's come so far as well. So very bright, and so very sweet. I felt so bad for Max... he began to cry when he found out he wasn't going to be able to stay at the school with Abby. It won't be too much longer though- he needs to stay my little man for a little while longer. Before I know it, he'll be just as big as Kelly.

As you can see, it was very difficult to get any decent pictures of the little turkeys though! LOL...








Saturday was Gary's big 40th birthday bash! Okay..... it was a moderate sized backyard barbecue with about 25 people showing up, and he made out like a bandit with the birthday gifts- the lucky dog. Gary's work schedule (his being able to take vacation) was up in the air for so long, that I wasn't able to set a final date for this party until about a week beforehand. And I'm the queen of disorganization to begin with, so I'm grateful to those who could come help us celebrate on such short notice. (Cassondra and Jake only had an hour or so!)

Not only had I been ferreting a bit of the savings away for awhile, but I'd also been saving my AMR paychecks for this. I was finally able to give Gary a few of those 'big ticket' items that he's been wanting or needing for so long. He got a nice mountain bike, a top of the line GPS device- along with some mapping programs, a new pair of binoculars, new speakers for his truck, and a telescope from the kids (they said it will work better to look at the stars than his spotting scope that he has been using!). Our wonderful neighbors made him a hand-made pillow from travelling (or chilling in the livingroom!), and the last present Gary opened was the one that got the most laughs. His good friend from church, Jake, gave him a box of Depends, and a card that said he'd make sure to tell him if he started getting that 'old man smell.'

Thank you to everyone who was able to come, and those who were with us in spirit!

Rapunzel, Rapunzel.... You're every bit as cute with short hair!

And so, so sweet to donate those lovely tresses for a good cause. Kelly's very happy for several reasons: First, she knows another little kid who doesn't have hair will get a wig now with her hair in it. Second, she finally gets a cute 'short' haircut like Abby got right after Christmas. And last, she gets cute bangs.

I don't mind trimming the girls' hair up, but I wasn't brave enough to do the bangs myself this time. So Kelly got to visit my hair stylist. What a treat!



Her hair turned out very cute. As an extra special treat for me, I got to kidnap her for another hour or so for myself. We went on a 'Girl's Date' to the Cheesecake Factory, and pigged out on lunch and sweets.



Just to finish off her hair story, we took a picture of her with her lovely locks, soon to be on their way cross country to begin the long process of becoming the new hair for a child in need. Then she personally handed the envelope to the mailman at the post office.






If anyone is interested in donating hair to Locks of Love, here is their official website, including instructions on how to do it, and pictures of recipients.

Well, I don't know why it's not showing up right as a link, but the website is http://www.locksoflove.org/

Go Clean Your Room!

And would you believe it??? He actually did. Of course, it was a 3 year old's version of organizing, but at least everything was off the floor, he knew Mommy could vacuum.

I promised the kids we'd go...

...to Chuck-E-Cheese over their summer break. Yesterday was so hot and muggy that it was good to take the kids somewhere fun and air conditioned. By the end of our time there, they had more than 120 prize tickets each, and took forever trying to pick out what toys they wanted.

It was a fun day.

Camping isn't so hard.....

Not when you have a trailer to stay in!

Gary's good friend, Kevin, owns a nice piece of property up on Beaver Mountain. He was nice enough to let us camp on it for a few days. He has it set up pretty nice- with his toy hauler, 4-wheelers, a nice cook shack, fire pit, etc...

It's just a quick 4-wheeler ride down to Le Baron Reservoir too, where we got to take the kids fishing. Of course, Abby and Max didn't want to fish- they just wanted to throw rocks into the water and scare all of the fish away. Between their yelling and rock throwing, the fish knew to stay clear of our little area! But in the end, Kelly was able to catch one little trout... which Ozzy ate back at the campsite.

It rained a little each day, but it was sooo nice that we didn't mind at all. It was just so nice to get away from the city.

We all had a ton of fun, and we're looking forward to going back!

In fact..... there were a bunch of pieces of property for sale up there......

I knew this would happen....

I have got to get better at updating these things. It seems that when there's the most to blog about, you have the least amount of time to do it.


So lets' see here.... what have we been up to lately?


Kelly and Abby both performed WONDERFULLY at their dance recitals. Of course I'm still waiting for the DVD's of their performance numbers. They looked beautiful, and danced their little hearts out. It was a looooong day though with Kelly's performance being at the 9:00 a.m. show, and Abby's being at the 3:00 p.m. show. We were all spent by the end. Grandma Jeannie and Grandma Robison were both able to make it though. The girls were very happy to have their own little cheering sections in the audience.

Only a week or so after the dance recital, we had the fun of hosting a BBQ at our house for the Gibson family reunion. No, no.... it really was fun. Gary loves to grill, and he was happy to feed a ton of people. Everyone loved his ribs in particular. YUM! At first we thought we were going to have about 75 people here, but it ended up only being about 55. We were pleasantly surprised that our yard can hold more people than we originally thought! The weather also seemed to cooperate. It cooled down faster than we'd thought it would. Of course, it might have had something to do with the makeshift misting system that Gary had rigged along our walls, and the TWO outdoor swamp coolers he set up. Leave it to Gary to think of all that.... I don't know what I'd do without him!

The only other thing really noteworthy (to me, anyway) is that my old computer finally decided to give up on me. Josh was nice enough to come into town and spend the night out here with Logan. He spent the entire day building my new computer, installing all of the new software, and trying to save many of my old files. He plugged my old hard drive in externally, and it made a pretty scary screeching sound....

So now I have a new computer that we've affectionately dubbed the "Pink Beast." I jokingly told Josh that I was going to get a horridly colored computer case, and found a pretty cheap pink one. I'd decided to spend a little more and get a plain old beige one, but then Kelly saw the picture of the pink one and had to have it. The pink was going to end up saving about $15 or $20, so I caved.

Little did I know that the power supply would burn up in less than 24 hours, so I would have been better off buying the beige after all! Everything is fixed again though, and all is well. Until we start building Gary's new one, that is. Kelly and I have already decided that he will get an 'Alien' case for his. With glowing red LCD alien eyes....

While Josh and Logan were in town, we thought Logan would like to visit Uncle Gary's fire station. So we were able to spend an hour or so there, before we headed out to Pahrump for Ben's pirate birthday party. The kids each got little fire hats, they got to look around, Gary helped them all try out one of the fire hoses, and then they piled into the engine for a quick drive around the block. From the looks of the pictures, it wasn't only the little kids having fun. Looks like the big boys were enjoying it just as much!

STRAIGHT A's AGAIN!

We're so proud of little Kell-Bell. She came home with her second report card, and she's gotten straight A's again! Not only that, but her scores actually went UP in all of her subjects!

So to celebrate, she chose to go out to breakfast at Denny's this time. They had a ton of fun, and were goofy as ever.

Spring Gardening

I know I've waited too long to tell the tale of our garden. My first garden, really. I was recommended the book Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew http://http://www.amazon.com/All-New-Square-Foot-Gardening/dp/1591862027/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205619737&sr=8-1 and was way too excited to get started. I figured that with the size of our yard, it would be a good solution to our lack of space, not to mention the bad Vegas soil. So a few weeks ago we finally got out and did it. Thank goodness Gary is such a handy guy. He's been a lifesaver more times than I could possibly count. I guess I could just let the pictures tell the story though....

Here's the material to get started. We went with the cheapest wood we could find, so it's just simple pine.


Gary found a good deal on 'open bags' at Home Depot. We still went out and bought the peat moss and vermiculite though. But this was a GREAT start on the soils we needed, at a great price!


The future site:


Gettin' it done:


Some of the frames ready to go:


Don't forget Dad's little helper... she was building a bird house with some of the scrap wood.


Finally ready to plant:


The first plants are in!!


A few days later, Gary was able to pick up the stuff to build our trellis supports. Isn't he a good lookin' guy?


One of the final products:



So of course by now, I'm dying to see our first sprouts coming out of the ground. I told Gary that I wasn't going to rest easy until I saw things actually growing. Shows my lack of faith, doesn't it!

So imagine how thrilled I was when the radishes finally decided to poke some leaves out! Yay! Maybe our garden will work after all!

**sigh**

I guess this means we're being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. Next thing you know we'll own an mp3 player!

Everyone knows that I am *the worst* when it comes to returning phone calls, writing letters, and generally keeping in touch. And many of you seem to want to know the latest on the kiddos (okay, and Gary and myself...) So that leaves us here.

Welcome to The Robison Review. I have no idea how often I'll be able to update this.... probably whenever something noteworthy happens, or whenever I'm bored....

Be patient while I figure out the ins and outs of blogging. I have no idea what I'm doing, so this will be an interesting journey.

More to come.....