Our Life in Lovelock

This is an update of our lives in pictures. They aren't necessarily in any order. I find it too tedious to try and reorganize them after I've uploaded them.

We will be leaving Lovelock at the end of February. We'll travel to Utah to visit family for a week or so, and then Hiram will continue on to Texas to start selling pest control, while Israel and I, on the other hand, will jump on a plane and fly to Okinawa to spend some time with his Allred grandparents. Fortunately they were thinking or we may not have gotten Israel a passport on time. This is the photo we tweaked a little bit and sent in with his application last week.

Christmas morning. I love these little red jammies of Israel's.

Hiram helped me recreate a scene from one of the many Calvin and Hobbes books that reside in the back bathroom. If you look closely, you can see that one snowman has used the other's head as a bowling ball. The scene is complete with toy pins. Sadly, the weather has been unseasonably warm for the past few days, and our snowmen are no more.

Feeding the birds. Israel has been exposed to all kinds of wildlife since we've been here. Its supposed to be good for a child's immune system. Let's hope it doesn't kill him. Here you can see some of the peacocks, chickens, and ducks that roam freely around the house at all times.

Hiram's brother Ephraim and his wife Stephanie were sealed this month in the Reno temple. They are expecting their first baby in May.

One afternoon, Hiram took us on a drive. He got out of the truck at one point, and when he came back, he announced that we were going to try and drive over the frozen river as there was no bridge for miles. I was, naturally, a bit wary. "Are you sure it will hold us?" "It held me," was his genious response. Of course it would be safe to assume, since the ice was solid enough to support his 240 pounds, that it would be no problem to drive a two-ton truck over it. Well, it did hold us, as you can see from our tracks, but we sure gunned it, not wanting to test our luck more than we had to.

In Israel's shepherd pictures, you may have noticed the sheep in the background. Sheepmen are allowed to pasture their animals on some of the fields on the ranch. This sheep was a gift to Hiram's dad and had escaped his pen. Here's Hiram dragging him back home. His dad wanted to sell it, but Ellen (my mother-in-law) got her way, and now the poor sheep has been slaughtered by Eph and will be served as dinner instead.

When the tree first went up, Israel didn't seem to care the slightest bit for it and to our surprise left it pretty well alone. The needles were prickly enough to keep him at bay, but gradually, he overcame his aversion to the tree and got more and more daring in his pursuit of the ornaments.

The day before Thanksgiving we went up into the mountains to get our trees. Here Hiram has discovered a beautiful one.

Ellen wouldn't appreciate this picture much as I caught her with her mouth full. Here she is laying out our lunch--soup in breadbowls.

A very successful trip. Three perfect trees.

I've had a lot of time to read since we've been here. I reread the Twilight series for starters. Then, I've the first two books in The Hunger Games series (SO AWESOME...can't wait for the third one!), The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society (LOVED it!), Ender's Game (phenomenal book...just SO good), Wing's and Enthusiamsm on Stephenie Meyers recommendation (not exceptional but quite enjoyable), and three juvenile books of Richard Peck's: A Long Way From Chicago, A Year Down Yonder, and A Season of Gifts (wonderfully fun).

We thought it would be fun to go down where the water was frozen in the ditch and try to skate...or at least slide around a bit. Our timing wasn't great though. It had freshly snowed and there was too much covering the ice. We had fun playing with Israel in it anyway.




Here are some pictures from our more recent explorations:





Wild mustangs


And the ward Christmas party:


Though Israel didn't initially care for the tree, he did LOVE the decorations. Here is grandma was letting him play with the beads.

He is such a beautiful little boy.

Most of you have seen the shepherd shots we took of Israel for the family nativity DVD. We had so much fun with them that we decided to take a few more pictures. Here's Israel as the baby Jesus and an angel:


Here are some of the pictures I've taken around the ranch:



We read in Mormon Doctrine that whenever you see a rainbow, you can be sure the Second Coming is going to occur that year. It's true. Go look for yourself.

I completed my quilt! Isn't it GORgeous?!


Proof for Megan that this house is haunted.

While I sat on the couch you can see in the background watching a movie, little mischief maker found a box of tissue and completely emptied it. Looks like he had fun. Now I have a grocery sack of tissue to use up.