Christmas Letter

For those of you that I missed...here is our Christmas Letter for 2008 that we sent with our crads. I will get more pictures on here in the next couple of days.



We hope that this letter finds you all well and enjoying the holiday season. We have had a busy 2008 and are amazed that the year has came to an end so soon. We are still living out of town and are enjoying every minute of it. The kids love being able to play in the dirt, eating raspberries, riding four-wheelers, snowmobiles, hunting and fishing.
Hayden will be 11 years old next month and is in the fifth grade. He is doing great in school and was on the A/B Honor Roll for the first quarter and also got Student of the Month. Hayden kept busy this year with hunting, fishing, football, wrestling, basketball and 4-H. The football team did great this year…they had a tough season but ended up in 3rd place. Hayden just completed his 6th season with North Idaho Wrestling League and he did great! He medaled at every tournament and placed first at State with only 2 losses all season. His first year of 4-H was a great experience for not only him but, for all of us. He participated in Market Swine and received a blue ribbon at the fair, he also participated in Cooking and received a blue ribbon in that as well. We started off a little on the rocky side, when his 4-H pig passed away in June and he ended up taking his alternate “Rosie”, he acted very strong all through the fair but was a little emotional when “Rosie” was not coming home with us. He decided that his first year of 4-H went so well that he is going to do it again…this time with 3 or 4 pigs, 2 steer (Toby Keith..aka TK – Taylor named him and Red Rock), Cooking and maybe survival. This kid is a regular farmer….he gets up every morning and goes out and feeds the steers, visits with them and reads the books and magazines that we get on raising them – he loves them too death (we do too) and I can only imagine that if selling a pig and only having it for 4 months was that emotional – how is he going to handle selling his steer “Red Rock”.
Taylor will be 7 in April and is in the first grade. She is quite the reader and math student. She had great grades as well for the first quarter and her teacher put her on some advanced math homework – and she is doing great at it. She is in her 4th year of dance class, and decided that she wanted to take a ballet/tap class and hip-hop class. This girl loves being on stage! She has also just started cheerleading at the Nazarene Church in their Upward Program. She still loves horses, she has not talked her dad into a horse yet, but I think he is wearing down and might give in soon. She participated in the activities at the fair this year as well….She was in Open Class Market Swine and received Reserve Grand Champion and she also participated in Open Class Dog Showing, she received a blue ribbon for showing our dog Darla. She is already excited for the fair next year and said that she is going to participate in the following open class events; market swine, rabbit, dog, cooking and scrapbooking.
Dennis is still busy with the trucks and loaders. He is still loading full time and seems to enjoy it. He also helped coach Hayden and other children in football, wrestling and basketball. I am going on my fifth year as office manager at St. Maries Realty. I have stayed busy this past year with work, the football and wrestling program, 4-H and of course being the kids’ chauffer.
We only went camping once this past year and that was during the week of the fair…we stayed in the motorhome at the fairgrounds. We went on a few snowmobile rides last winter and are looking forward to them again this year. Hayden even went on one ride and rode a snowmobile by himself…he decided that the 60 mile rides are a little long for him. We even got to ride snowmobiles at the house the end of April last year in 70 degree weather and wearing shorts and t-shirts.
We hope that you and yours have a wonderful holiday season and a splendid New Year.
Happy holidays from our family to yours.
Dennis, Mary, Hayden & Taylor Humphrey