Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing every one a bright and happy holiday. Cheers!

Tree "hunting" with the Sisk's when they were here.

Our traditional Swedish Santas

A holiday essential, homemade fudge and cookies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we are greatful to be getting a visit from Whitney's parents once again. We're looking forward to a long weekend full of good food and family. I have so many things to be thankful for, not to mention a successful hunting season and the Grizzlies unbeaten regular season. Here's hoping for a similiar outcome from the playoffs! I found this picture of Whit's family with us at a playoff game last year.

Hopefully everybody out there is enjoying the season, in good health and happy.
Take care and stay in touch.
KJ
P.S. Go Griz!

My Veterans Day Bull

This fall I was fortunate enough to harvest my first elk. To make it even sweeter, I got this nice 6x6 on Veterans Day. I had spent several days hunting this area, always getting near elk but they always out smarted me. Finally my luck turned and I was able to make good on the opportunity. It took us one long night and half the next day to pack out, but it was worth it. My thanks to Whitney and my good friend Doug for helping pack it out. Catch me for a beer some time and I'll tell you the rest of the story!

Take care and Go Griz!

KJ

Whitney's First Buck

Whitney's First Buck!





Whitney bagged her first buck this fall, a beautiful mule deer 4 by 4. Whitney did a great job hunting this buck and made a very good single shot. We are both very greatful for this successful hunt and I am looking forward to the rest of the hunting season.
I hope you are all well and happy, and of course, Go Griz!
Kyle

Antelope Country

Whitney and I took our second trip to antelope country this year, here are a few pictures from our adventure.

This picture shows some of the area we were hunting. Anyone who says central Montana is flat has never hiked it!

This is a bunch of antelope we watched quite a bit. There was some very nice bucks in that herd, but of course they never came anywhere near the property we could hunt.

After a lot of hiking, we found a bunch that we could hunt. We managed to belly crawl within 130 yards, and each made a goot shot. This is the view from where the shot was taken looking at me standing where the animals are.

Whit's first animal wasn't the big buck she was hoping for, but she made a good clean shot and can certainly be proud to have filled her antelope tag.

The dogs were very excited to come with us to retrieve the game, wearing orange of course!

I loaded both critters on the game cart, and we made our way back to the truck, about 1.5 miles.
It was a great trip, and fun to see some country new to us. Now both of these animals are cut and wrapped in the freezer, and we are looking forward to the general season opener on sunday!

That's all for now - Kyle

Summer photos

Wow, it's hard to believe its almost fall already. With the cottonwoods turning yellow and the threat of a freeze tonight, I decided it would be fun to upload some photos from our summer.

In June, after the whirlwind of wedding activities was done with, we took a trip to our favorite moutain lake to fish and relax.

In July, Whitney and I celebrated one year in our new place, and had a wonderful crop of cherries!

I thought it was wonderful anyway, Whitney thought it was a terrible lot of work. Either way, we got several gallons put up for pies this winter. One thing we really love is putting up fruit to have in the freezer for later on. We also put up several gallons of apples off our trees in the backyard.

Another thing that happened, I adopted a mare. This pretty little critter was needing a home and while Whitney and I didn't need a horse, and certainly weren't looking for one, eventually I decided to take her on.

"Tess" as we've come to call her, is a 5 or 6 year old Arabian x quarter horse with plenty of attitude. She's showing good progress since I've taken her on, but there's a lot of work yet to come.

Of course one of our summer projects is filling the wood shed. Being that we heat mostly with wood, it's a good feeling to have plenty on hand since we're expecting a long winter.

One of my most time consuming projects of the late summer has been log oiling the house.

It took 20 gallons to cover the whole place with two coats, but I'm glad to say the job is done! I hope that it will last several years before I have to do that again.

This year we tried an actual garden. Whit actually started many of the plants from seed, and it's been a lot of fun watching them grow and mature.

Today we are enjoying corn, tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, green onions, lettuce, yellow onions, carrots and strawberries from our garden!

Looking back it really was a great summer! With any luck we have a few weeks of warm weather left, but how can I help being excited for Grizzly football, hunting season and fall?

I hope everyone out there is doing good, and I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Until next time... Kyle

Wedding Week

The wedding week is upon us! It's been so long in coming and yet I still can't quite believe it's actually here. Our first guest arrived last night, Whitney's Aunt Cricket from Phoenix. Today more Sisk's arrive and tomorrow the first of the Johnson's will be in town. It's so exciting for everybody to be congregating in town for our special day, Whitney and I feel very honored.
Our first event will be the luau themed shower/ party thursday night. Alyssa headed up puting this together and we are very thankful, it would not have happened without her. It is going to be a blast and yes I do have a grass skirt and coconut top!
After that, friday morning bright and early we'll head off to Missoula to start setting up the wedding site. This will be even more fun because on Friday I get to see my niece Nia who turned one just two weeks ago! On Friday afternoon we'll have a practice ceremony and then for the family and bridal party, it's off to the rehersal dinner.
Saturday morning we're off to the fort for any remaining preperations. The band will be setting up and we'll be putting the flowers together. Then we go take wedding pictures with the bridal party, before heading back for the ceremony. Then saturday at 5 the big event will actually happen! Although some may argue that the main event will acually be the reception after the ceremony!
We are certainly looking forward to that, a party with all our favorite friends and family, what could be better? By the way, the band told me that they'd play as long as people kept dancing, even if that lasted until sunup, so be prepared!
So after all that, whenever everybody returns to life, we're planning a family gathering at the fort one more time to open gifts and say goodbyes.
It's going to be one amazing week, I just hope it doesn't go by too fast.
KJ

Spring Projects

Ever since the weather has turned nice, every chance we get Whitney and I are outside working on projects around the house. We've really enjoyed getting the yard into shape and getting the place cleaned up after the long winter. I'm excited about the cherry blossoms, the apples are almost there too. I hope we get a good fruit crop like we did last year.
With less than a month to go before the wedding, we can't wait to see everybody in Missoula!

May!

It's almost May! With our wedding just over a month away, we are really feeling the excitement and anticipation. We are working out the final details now, and trying to make sure we haven't forgotten anything. More and more people are RSVP'ing and thanks so much to everybody who has visited our gift registries. To anybody who has not sent the RSVP back, I should warn you that the stamps we included will be short of postage by 2 cents in May. Sorry I don't have more to post, I can't wait to see you all really soon.
Kyle

Jeeps in the Family

Apparently bouncing around in flat fender jeeps has been in the family for a while!

This is a picture of my grandparents in their military surplus jeep soon after WWII. I can remember my grandfather telling us how there were thousands and thousands all lined up ready for sale. I think he paid around $250 for this one.

My brother also has a flat fender, bought a couple years before mine. This was the one that introduced us to the fun of jeeps, and many wild adventures.

There is also a Willys truck in the family, and my Uncle had a canary yellow CJ-7 for a time before swapping for a beautiful Jeepster convertible.

I guess when you get down to it, Jeeps are a family tradition!

KJ

The Jeep gets a new home.

Last November my Dad came out to visit and brought a load of my old stuff (Whitney says junk) from his place. The single best thing he brought was my 1943 Ford GPW, Military Jeep. Some folks may not know (or care to know) that during the second World War, Willys could not produce enough jeeps to meet the need. So Ford produced jeeps on the Willys design and stamped their parts with a script F. The story goes that Ford didn't want anybody mistaking his jeeps for a Willys.
My Dad helped me buy this jeep when I was 15 turning 16. That summer the jeep needed a new motor and transmission rebuilt, and I had a broken leg. We were a good match. Since then the jeep and I have gone on many adventures and even served as my daily driver for the better part of a year while I was working at the LB Ranch. My Brother and our buddies went on many wild camp outs and jeep trips; Just get us all together and the stories will start: "Remember that one time in Cleer Creek"...
The jeep and I had been separated since I left home, but thanks to Dad we are together again. Now I look forward to cleaning "her" up and getting jeeping again!
Hope you like these shots of the day we moved the jeep in to our home.
KJ

Winter Day Photo Post

Throw another log on the fire, pull on your slippers, grab some hot coco and I'll show you a few pictures of me and Whit and what we've been up to this past fall.

As a graduation gift for Whitney last year, her Uncle Larry gave her a 12' fishing boat!
These next few pictures are from a fishing weekend at one of our favorite local lakes.

Whitney and I also really enjoyed the hunting season this year. We had a great time getting out and exploring some new spots in both Western and Central MT.

These photos are from opening morning this fall.

The other thing we did a lot of this fall was go to several Griz Games!

These pictures are from the Thanksgiving Holiday when Whitey's family joined us for a game.

The Griz had a great season and went all the way to the National Championship!

Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Kyle and Whitney (and Sheridan and Rosco)