Category: Ashton Anna

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Ashton Anna Epic Barn Project Ranch

Epic Barn Project: Walls are going up

It’s been another crazy week. Anna’s family came to visit and work as been keeping me busy.

Clayton came over for a few hours yesterday and a couple hours today to help put up the cross braces. After a couple “planning failures” and taking out some tough nails, we got a pretty good hang of it.

This pole barn is extremely simple. There are three horizontal cross-braces between each pole and then we’ll nail boards vertically to them to create the wall. Here’s the first side of the barn we got the braces on:
First barn wall up
That was what we got done yesterday in almost 4 hours.

Today, we got the other short wall done in under 2 hours. We had one measurement failure that caused some of the middle boards to not be perfectly horizontal. Anna and I managed to fix it after the pictures were taken.
second barn wall up

Here’s what the epic barn project looks like now:
Ashton Anna's Epic Barn Project

So far, everything is going as planned. Tomorrow Bryon will be coming over to give me s hand getting the other braces up.

-Enjoy,
Ashton Anna

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Ashton Anna Family Horses Ranch Summer

2009 Family Trip in Images

Hi All,

Here’s a picture diary with some notes of when my family came to visit this year! We had a great time.

One of the many projects everyone worked on was putting up the fence around the “foal paddock.” Everyone pitched in and worked hard. It cam out looking beautiful. Grandpa Joe even took time to help spread the weeds. =) (Just kidding, he worked on it more than anyone else.)


Here’s some family photos:

Continue reading “2009 Family Trip in Images”

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Ashton Anna Epic Barn Project Ranch Summer

Epic Barn Project: First 10 Poles

As I’ve mentioned before, this is going to be a “pole barn” which means the entire structure relies on poles sticking into the ground. This epic barn will have (and had) 16 poles. We dug 16 holes, and now we have got to fill them.

8/4/2009: Bryon Harrison helped a lot in this stage. He lined up the poles with the appropriate holes:

Epic Barn Project:

Epic Barn Project:

Here’s the first four corner poles up and braced. (If I could do this again, I would have measured these corner poles to make sure they were placed perfectly (and square), plum them out and then fill them in.)

Epic Barn Project:

8/5/2009: Then we started bracing up the inside poles. Once they are all plum and centered, we braced them with the old purlins.

Continue reading “Epic Barn Project: First 10 Poles”
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Ashton Anna Trips & Activities

Maui Pictures 2

*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:

AshtonAnna

Now that we got that out of the way, time for some babies:
Maui babies
Maui babies
Maui babies
Maui babies
Maui babies
Madeleine
Maui
Maui
Maui
Maui
Jace
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Mason
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Turtles
Maui Turtles
Biggest Single Tree Ever
Maui tree
Maui tree
Etc.
Maui
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset
Maui Sunset

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

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Ashton Anna

Ashton’s 23rd Birthday

Hi Guys,

Thanks to all you great friends who sent me “Happy Birthday” messages. It’s great to have so many good friends, even if many of you live states away.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we did for my birthday.

On Thursday (the 25th), we had a grub-club birthday party, where we ate good food, talked and watched Constantine. David made a great chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, and Anna made cupcakes!

AshtonAnnas Cupcakes

Then, on my actual birthday (Saturday the 27th), we went to an authentic Montana estate auction! (Last year we got a truck-load of stuff for $36.) It was good fun. This was AshtonAnna’s second Auction; both of which were hosted by Roshon’s Auction Service. Here’s a picture of the “parking lot” for the estate auction:

Montana Parking Lot
Roshons Auction Service
It did get a little crazy… this saw for example. Guess how much it went for?
Roshons Auction Service
$80… Heck no, I didn’t bit on it.

They have two auctioneers, and they are both very entertaining. This guy’s our favorite (I don’t know his name.):
Roshons Auction Service

I won two “auctions.” My first auction was for a set of three tools: a Sledge Hammer, shovel and spud bar. All for $12. I bid on it for the spud bar, as I’ve been needing one for a month. If you’re not familiar with a spud bar, Here’s a picture of it after I used it to lever two (ginormous) rocks back into place:
Spud Bar

My second auction was for a pile of wrenches. I got this set for $20. It wasn’t a steal like my first win, but it will come in useful.
AshtonAnna's new wrenches
(We went to Ace Hardware to get some price comparison, and they had a huge wrench similar to mine for $19.49, and a full set of smaller wrenches for $27.99, so it definitely was a good deal:)
wrenches

Then we came to relax, and play with some horses. I played with my (ridiculous-looking) Maple pancake. Her baby fur was much much lighter than her new fur, which makes for hilarious shedding stages:
AshtonAnna's Pancake

Anna worked with Ossetteon the hill (which has become the latest AshtonAnna Header image.)

AshtonAnna's Ossette
AnnaAshton working with Ossette

Then we introduced them:
Ossette and Maple Pancake

After feeding and playing with the animals, we went to Carols for dinner and a movie (V’s Favorite Movie: The Count of Monte Cristo). The sunset over the lake was fabulous (as always):
Flathead lake sunset
So was dessert:
23rd birthday brownies

It was a great Birthday.
Thanks,
AshtonAnna