Happy Happy Birthday Daniel!

Wednesday, the 28th was Daniel's 24th birthday. :D Unfortunately it hasn't felt much like his birthday with it being Midterm week at school, and his busy trebuchet project that he hasn't been receiving very much help on from the other group members.

Sunday night I made Daniel's favorite dinner knowing that I would have class and not have time to make it on his birthday. We had cheesy (funeral) potatoes, ham, and my rolls that Daniel loves.

Daniel informed me that it was his "Birthday Week" and that he was going to try and drag it out to 5 days this year instead of 4 like last year. I had to try very hard to not let Daniel open his presents early. I have that problem, where I get so excited to give presents that I hate waiting to give them to people....

Luckily I made it - I need to get the pictures from the camera on here, but these will do for now. Daniel received Transformers II and a Porter Cable Orbital Sander from me, the new Brad Paisley CD from sister Mindi, gun sling from brother Conlee, and Wrenches, Four-foot level, and yummy pickled eggs from Momma Jan and Papa Eric. Daniel is hard to shop for :) especially since he will always want tools.. and I am not good at picking out the "right" ones :D. This is also why my parents haven't figured out what to get for him yet.

Daniel was able to see his family on his birthday, but only for a little while, because we had to be to the church so they could set him apart as 2nd counselor in the Stake YM Presidency... they think he's not busy enough...

It was a good day, but I wish it could have felt more like a birthday for him.. Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

My First Buck... It's a Trophy!

This past week Daniel and I have been making every effort possible to find me a deer to shoot at. Last Saturday we happened to see a 3 point running.. unfortunately, no shot. Then Tuesday night we were with Daniel's cousin Travis hunting in Orangeville and happened to surprise a two point with his lady friend. He stopped at about 100 yards, during the time that Travis and Daniel begin to freak out and tell me to, "Load a bullet! Get out of the truck! Shoot the buck! Hurry before me runs away!" I was breathing hard because of all the hoopla that had happened already, and finally got the gun on the shooting sticks. I tried to shoot the gun three times before realizing I had failed to take it off safety.. and then I shot under the buck! Talk about being stressed, excited, and having a true hunting experience.

A little disappointed we headed back out to try and find me a buck to shoot at before it got dark. At the last possible moment Travis and Daniel spotted more deer, and confirmed the presence of horns on one. There were about five does with the buck, and Daniel had to point the scope so I could find them because I couldn't find them with my naked eye (I'm blind). Daniel told me, "Wait til he walks out in front, okay, now he's the front deer looking back at us, take your shot when you're ready."

Luckily Daniel hadn't put the safety on or I think I would have had problems again. I took a shot at this lovely little buck below at about 150 yards, he was quartering away, and as Daniel says, "You nailed him clean pilgrim!" (Jerimiah Johnson) And therefore, I was overjoyed and very excited to have shot and killed my first buck. He only went about 30 yards before he was down - and if you can't tell, he is a spike by 2.

Travis told Daniel to rest my 25-06 on his antlers... :) As you can tell it needed a little bit of help from Daniel.

See it forks on it's right side, I promise!

This seems to be the tradition this year from Daniel's family, Mindi did this with her elk, and his Aunt Nettie with her deer. So, I joined the club. I think the feet are cool, you can watch the tendons move as you move the hooves. Happy Hunting!

A break from school work. . .

On Labor Day, Daniel was able to go down to Greenriver and spend the day with Cody hiking all over and finding shed horns. They had a blast and also had a very productive day as is shown in the pictures below. Between the two of them they found about 40 horns.

Daniel with about 20 heavy horns on his back.

On saturday the 12th, Daniel and I traveled back to Greenriver to take mules up with Cody and pack the horns out. Along the way, I spotted this shed from the truck. :) It's the biggest deer shed I have found thus far, and isn't much compared to all those elk sheds, but I was happy.

While riding up to the horns to pack out, we stopped and glassed across the ridges with our binos, and Daniel spotted this horn by seeing only one tine. He hiked up to it and found a good 6 point shed.

Daniel and I sitting on our mules

Cody looking estatic with all the horns on Otis

The haul from their Labor day adventure, plus a few more horns, including my deer shed in front and to the left.

All the sheds in the back of Cody's truck. A huge pile that we took with us to Ray's Tavern for dinner and parked directly out front so the boys could keep an eye on their treasure. They also picked up two more deer sheds on the way down.

Fun was had on both days, and it was a nice break from school and good stress reliever!

Two new additions to our family..

Monday, Daniel was able to shoot at this big buck at 20 YARDS!.. He is still on cloud 9..

Unfotunately, I didn't get to see the shot, I was waiting on the four wheeler to pick him up after a "short walk" that turned into an hour and a half. After calling me on the radio to come get him, and after I had started the fourwheeler, he called back "Kiera! Turn off the fourwheeler and stay where you're at!" I had no idea what was going on.. til he said "KIERA! I just shot the BIGGEST BUCK I've ever had a chance at!!"

Daniel's buck green scored 168 and 6/8 with a 27 and 7/8 outside spread!

This is the first new addition to our family.. eventually it will hang in our house. :)

On Tuesday, we were blessed with another new addition, Raegan RuthAnn Richens, 8 lbs 1 oz, 21 inches long. My brother and sister-in-law had their first child. We haven't been able to see her yet, but we are very excited to!!

Being held by Grandpa Richens... She is going to be able to get whatever she wants from him..

Sleeping on Grandma Richens' lap, precious and sweet. Brown hair like her daddy :)

Being held in mom's arms

My oh my, where has the summer gone?

Nothing too exciting has been happening in our lives over the past few weeks. Daniel and I are getting things in order for us both to start school. He will start on the 17th and I start again on the 24th (one more year for me! woot!) It is International Days this weekend here in Price and my dancers are dancing this year at opening ceremonies and in the park on Saturday. It'll be fun to see them dance again, I know they've missed it, as have I.

We are going the rodeo in Castle Dale this weekend, we haven't been since Daniel and I were dating, but I convinced Daniel to go with me on Saturday evening.

At lastly, for the past two evenings I have had the "privelege" :) of watching bow hunting, and last night Daniel was getting excited for the bow hunt this year that he wanted to go out and practice shooting his bow... in his bright green mountain dew pajama pants. I love this boy!

4th of July Fun!

This past weekend we were able to go to Richfield and spend time with Daniel's family. I have never seen any fireworks other than those here in Price at the Fairgrounds, but the show down in Richfield was amazing compared to those here. We went fishing with Daniel's Aunt and Uncle and their 5 kids, the night before we ran to Walmart to get the girls pink fishing poles that Brian had promised them. Luckily they had just gotten in a new batch of Princess poles, surprisingly the eleven dollar poles were the best at catching the fish!

Brigham, 5, with the catch of the day, he told everyone later that he was a world class fisherman!

Jake, 10, with his catch on the princess pole :)

Colton,12, with his big one, also caught on the princess pole

Maddie, 3, my shadow, with the stray kitten that showed up at Grandma's

Little Maren, 2, figured out how to swing, biggest blue eyes!

Little Cassidy, 3, loves her "Dano"

Most of Sunday Daniel devoted his time to unclogging Grandma's sink, they finally got it cleared out around 4 o'clock. Luckily it happened when we were there to help resolve the problem. I went to sacrament meeting with Debbie and the kids, Brigham had a nice chuckle about the size of the sacrament bread (it was miniature because there were so many people in sacrament meeting).

And last but clearly not least, Daniel had a very fun experience - he got to shoot to his Uncle Kirk's 50 Caliber rifle, hence the video. He now wants one eventually, even though it is not economically wise to shoot them at all, its about 2-5 bucks a bullet. He had a blast, they were shooting at 1000 yards. I'll have him write more when he is home next.. not sure when that'll be, he's working on the skyling up Huntington Canyon for the next two weeks.

We have a video, but I couldn't get it to work, I will try again!

Fishin up at ole' Pete's Hole

Daniel and I decided to take a short fishing trip up Joe's Valley to Pete's Hole before I had to go in to work at 1. We left at 6:30 to make it up there in enough time to fish, and to give us enough time to make it home for work.


I like to use my lucky lime green lure, and it was lucky today! Above is my one of the littler ones I caught, but it was really pretty so I wanted to put this pic up. I caught 8 fish and had many other little bites compared to Daniel's 3. Part of his "success" is due to the fact that he kept feeding a little chipmunk sunflower seeds and shooting at the pot gut intruder instead of casting out and reeling in.



However - I have to tell the funny story of Daniel's first fish. I traded him poles to give him a chance to catch a fish. With me casting out on his pole I caught a little one first cast.. :D Next he finally caught a fish on my pole and was determined to get a picture with the "d@*#" fish as it spit the hook and fell to the ground, he was kickin' it up on the shore to keep it from flopping back in the lake, dropping it 2 or 3 times, I should have switched the camera to video mode and recorded it, but I was laughing so hard it brought me to tears. So I finally got a pitcure of his with his fish :P I hope its still alive with the grip that he had on it.

It was an great morning, fun and muddy, but the best of days!