My Mom turned 75 on Thursday, November 12th.
She was born during The Great Depression, and grew up on a little farm between Wing and McClusky North Dakota with her seven sibs.
She spent most of high school at St. Mary's, then graduated from Wing. She moved to Jamestown and worked in the Farmer's Union state office, which is where she met Don.
The rest, as they say, is history. She retired recently (yes, really) and just decided to sell her house - home for 45 years - and move into a condo near the KXMC-TV tower up on south hill.
Pat volunteered to coordinate a birthday party and we all made it. Poolside at the International Inn or whatever its called now, the little kids swam and ate and the big boys (and men) watched Bismarck High win their second straight AAA football championship.
Lots of Mom's friends from work and bingo made it for beers and food, as well as some of the in-laws. Amanda and John were there with friends so a good time was had by many.
Last but not least, Bob the R@kfink and wife Nancy were there. Great to see and talk to you two! I will try and pick up the phone and/or e-mail you next time we head to the magic city.
I took a little friendly ribbing for leaving early for deer hunting at the Huff farm. As this picture shows the deerslayer (and his Dad) were up to the task.
We were in the same elevated deer stand, and had seen a few does and fawns and one little buck. I decided to wait as we had about 40 minutes left in shooting time. This on walked in at 5:08 P.M. and I put a single shot through his chest. He ran about 75 yards up the fenceline and died. Since Hunter still had 36 minutes left and my deer was out of the way I quickly got down and headed for the cabin to get the truck and necessities. There was another Hunter about 3/4 of a mile to the south of us so I didn't want to drive in and mess up his last few minutes so I sat in my truck at the corner until 5:45 (one minute past legal shooting). I thought I heard a shot a long way off but I had the windows up (26 degrees) but as I was driving out to the stand Hunter texted me that he had a deer down as well. Some does had shown up almost under his stand so he made a little noise and they ran off but stopped 150 yards away. He picked out the biggest one and dropped her with a single shot to her heart and lungs.
Grant was driving home from duck hunting and saw the lights in the field so he came and helped us load them up and then coached Hunter through his first field dressing of a deer.
I'm working at the State Penitentiary tomorrow, but should be home by 1:00 or so and will take them in to West Dakota Meats for processing. There will be lots of venison country style sausage, pepper sticks and jerky for the next year.
Stop on by and we'll have a treat.
I was wondering if we'd made a big mistake deciding to go snowboarding over the boys' school spring break. It tends to be all or nothing this time of year, and when we drove up to the dropoff point the first day the ground was bare and the temp was in the high 30's. Thankfully, the snow on the mountain was pretty decent. Hunter, of course, was off right away while Luke and Will had to get their snowboarding legs under them. We spent most of the first day on the easy blue and green runs off of the main chairlift. Luke and I finally went up to Lazy M, a long dramatic blue run with an incredible view of the plain that runs all the way to Billings. He did have this slight mishap, but we got down OK, including taking a black run called the Face of M. After that adventure and a few more runs I had a well deserved Bent Nail Pale Ale brewed right in Red Lodge. It was quite busy for a weekday so we knew Saturday would be wild.
When I got back to the front side Will decided it was his turn to try Lazy M. 
Saturday night we were all pretty tired so went back to our lovely log house rental on the golf course and had pizza and played "Keesdrow" which is a "Scrabble-like" word game we recently got. We woke up Sunday morning to a couple of inches of fresh snow so made sure we were at the mountain for first chair. Luke and Will had never boarded in powder so were skeptical, but Hunter and I had to agree it was probably the best conditions we'd ever seen. He went up to Cole Creek again right away while I introduced the other two to the wonderful silence of powder skiing. There was about 6 inches of fresh snow on the front side and more like 8 on the back side. Absolutely terrific conditions and there were very few skiers. Hunter made a dozen runs on Cole Creek and didn't see anybody else, and only had his own tracks to deal with. By midday we had gotten together with our good friends the Goodmans from Bismarck. 
This got Luke and Will a partner and I took off in search of Hunter. Needless to say, I can't do the things that Hunter can do on a snowboard and every time I tried to push it I crashed. Eventually I worked my way back and did a few more runs with the younger boys. The final highlight was watching Hunter come down "Lodgepole" a double black diamond that drops down right to the backside of the main lodge. I'd have wet my pants (and then crashed). After three hard days of boarding we were in need of some relaxation. We invited the Goodmans over , and they brought pizza and we drank a few good beers and pops and played a large game of "Apples to Apples." 
Monday was reserved for the long ride home. It was 50 something in Billings, where we did a little shopping, and then I drove home while Hunter did his homework and Tami and Luke and Will watched "Slumdog Millionaire" and some other movie. I checked the weather on Tuesday and it was almost 60 degrees in Red Lodge, so barring a big Spring storm there won't be much snow left. Luke and Will are officially converts so we may get to do this next year, but I think we'll try to go earlier in the year-depends on the snow, of course!
So we all took Friday off and headed to Fargo to watch the world famous Midori Goto conduct a master class with four young violinists. She was very attentive and patient and really focused on the players despite their obvious nervousness.
