A cool thing about our property is that half of it is pretty steep 20+ degrees, and the other half is almost completely flat. This allows for lots of different activities. Well, that melt off that I mentioned in my last post drained down our steep hill and made a small pond in the middle of our “flat pasture.” And the latest cold snap has frozen the pond into a small ice pond.

If you’re interested in more back story: The previous owners lived in our current house for 1 year. The winter that they were here, the father had this great idea of dragging his children behind his vehichle on a tarp. I bet they had a blast, and it ended up killing a lot of the grass in a long strip. So now we have a fairly flat, slightly lower strip of land going through the middle of our pasture. It was this strip that now is home to our frozen puddle.

I think that’s enough details to enjoy our video. Donald and I (Ashton) took our friend’s ATV out into the pasture and had some fun:

Ashton:

Donald:

Here’s the video we made:

Wahoo! What a blast!
-Ashton

We have had 3 to 4 feet of snow fall here in Montana so far this Winter. Right now there is about a foot of snow on the ground. And since I’ve never gone sledding for more than a couple of feet, we went out and hit our neighbor’s hill. Anna purchased a sweet snow tube at the beginning of last summer, and we had some 1 person tubes we used on the river. Here’s Anna and Ashton in our river tube:

We’d estimate that this slope is 300 feet long. Here’s a video of some of the crazy slopes we took:

Then we got tired of hiking that ridiculous hill, so we had Cory pull us behind his old Toyota Land Cruiser.

Happy New Year,
Ashton Anna

*Edit: As brought to my attention by the newlyweds, I forgot to mention why Anna and I went to Maui in the first place: (I blame lack of sleep – that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it )

Anna’s father & step-mom decided to get married in Lahaina, Maui and invited all of his children and grandchildren to celebrate with him at a large house right on the beach, which they kindly paid for. (Most of the sunset pictures below were taken from the back porch!) We had a great time. Thank you John and Lisa for inviting us and providing such a great place to hang out and relax.

After Anna and I got married, we decided that we’re going to go on one vacation/honeymoon a year. And since we were married on September 21st, going to Maui for John and Lisa’s wedding in October was a perfect “Honeymoon Version 2.0.”

I think I have finally gotten all of my blog-worthy Maui Pictures cropped and uploaded. I’m not going to lie: I’ve posted way too many pictures, but it’s better than the alternative. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to add captions to all of the images, but I’ll try grouping them.

Anna’s sister, Diana Henderson, is an amazing photographer and posted some of her Maui pictures on her photography blog. I definitely recommend checking those out. (You may have to scroll down a little.)

Okay, let’s get started with a picture of us:

Now that we got that out of the way, time for some babies:





Madeleine




Jace




Mason



Turtles

Biggest Single Tree Ever


Etc.

Just because it was ridiculous, Anna and I will tell the story of our trip home to Montana from Maui:

On Sunday, we helped pack up the cars, and drove to the airport with the family. The family left on a 2:00 PM flight, and we left on a 7:00 PM flight. After dropping off John’s rental car (hehe), we “relaxed” in the airport until we could check our bags at 4:30.

We got on the plane in Maui at 6:30 and landed in Kona, Hawaii at 7:30. After sitting in the plane for another 45 minutes, we left again, arriving in Seattle Washington approximately 5.5 hours later at 5:30 AM (Ashton got 2 hours of sleep, and Anna couldn’t sleep.)

We switched planes again and finally arrived in Spokane, Washington at 8:00 AM on Monday. We got in our car, and drove for 4 1/2 hours arriving home at 2:30 PM (with baggage and lunch).

Yep, ridiculous.

Enjoy,
AshtonAnna

I have sooo many pictures of our recent trip to Maui, I have to split up the pictures into at least two separate posts. I’ve decided to do a post of all the amazing Sunsets we had at Maui.

First here are some sunsets with the newlyweds (and “almost-weds”). All of these pictures were taken from our pack patio.

Here’s Matt walking out into the ocean. It was about 2-3 feet deep for at least 50 yards.

I also got these two random pics I thought you’d enjoy:

While my sisters, brother-in-laws, niece, and nephews were here in Montana we went to a circus here in our little town of Polson. I was pretty impressed by the acts, animals and production they put on. We got to see a zebra, snake, hippo, llamas, elephants, ponies, clowns, dancers, acrobats and a contortionist.

Enjoy the photos!!