We bought a House!!

After a LONG time of renting, Bess and I are officially "home owners"! Although the process was a long, slow, tedious one we are very excited to be putting money into something we own! The house is in Asotin, Washington - keeping me close to the local fishing, hunting, boating, etc! But it is much more quiet than Clarkston! The home we bought is a 2 story home with the asotin creek running through the back yard! It has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, two living/family rooms, attached 2 car garage, great storage space downstairs, and all new windows and doors. The upstairs dining room and living room both have french doors to a deck overlooking the backyard and asotin creek. It needs a little work, but we will tackle it all slowly but surely! We are currently sanding the decks to redo them. Siding the house will be next. Then we are thinking we will repaint a couple rooms inside, retile the bathroom and kitchen floors and countertops, and eventually I want to turn the garage into one heck of a work shop! That will be my "pride and joy" project! Well, here are some pictures...I will put more up as we get them, I want to eventually get some before and after shots of the house once its all fixed up (that way I can brag about Joe's work!) Here are some pics though...

The living room (we have rearranged since then, in these pictures things are sort of thrown into the house as we moved in!)The upstairs bedrooms....The kitchen/dining room... The front door entrance way.... The bathroom (and emily).....

Winter Fun!

Sorry this has taken me so long, we've been busy! Aside from all the great winter holidays, Katie and I were able to sneak away a couple of times to hit the slopes. I ski, but Katie has taken on snowboarding. she is getting really good at it! A couple of times we were able to go on some really beautiful days, the weather was nice, the snow was perfect - we have a lot of fun (plus Katie likes skipping school to play!) Here are some pictures:

Superbowl 2009

Thought I would throw some pictures up from Superbowl this year. We held the party at our house (as usual) and had a weeks worth of good food to put down during a single game!! We had a good turn out this year: Me, Bess, Katie, Conner, Dad, Russ, Lori, Riley, Emily, Joe, Kaleb and Cameron!

well thats good for now...I have more pictures on my camera (these came from Emily's camera) that I will add later! Like some pictures of the food!!

Christmas at the Whitneys!

This Christmas eve we drove up to Emily and her family's house in Troy Idaho. We settled in while Joe built a fire and we all sat around snacking on good food in good company. Right before we put Kaleb down for bed, we read "The Night Before Christmas" and then put him down. We carefully placed all the "Santa" presents under the tree, stuffed the stockings, and watched some tv and talked. We had a really good time. Around 11:00 pm or so we all went to bed! Around 6:00 am there began to be shuffling through the house, we woke up and got some warm drinks and sat down for a minute while Emily woke Kaleb up. When he walked into the living room and saw all the presents under the tree he lit up! First he noticed a giant blue 4-wheeler sitting in the corner, he KNEW it was for him! He ran and jumped on it and began playing with the gears...Forward, backward, forward, backward...then he hopped off and began tearing into his presents. We all had a pile to open up! (Bess went Christmas shopping CRAZY as usual!) The kids loved it. Cameron had a blast touching and feeling all of the cool toys she got, and occassionally she checked to see how one tasted! After we opened presents, I took grizzley (our black lab) outside to play in the snow. We had some fun throwing a stick into a pile of snow and he would head dive right into it!! Then I came in and Emily's landlord came up (joe invited him since he couldnt drive to Portland as planned) and we watched some basketball! Bess cooked Christmas dinner and we all ate! We had a juicy spiral ham, potatoe casserole, green beans, and dinner rolls. It was delicious! Perfect way to finish up the day of snacking on chips and dip, salami and cheese, and little smokies! After dinner we hung out for a little while and then decided to head home. We had a very nice and relaxing Christmas. The kids went wild (especially Emily with her new digital camera we got her!) and Kaleb couldnt have gotten more spoiled! It was a lot of fun! Hope everyone else had a great Christmas too!

A Job For GRANDPA!

This summer Kaleb was the perfect age to start going out fishing. As a member of this family he has to know how to fish!

We hold our own pole

we patiently wait until a fish comes we catch one!!we reel it in quickly

we examine how great of fishermen we arewe have FUN!Yep!! He definately is MY grandson! Before too long he will be out-fishing me!

Together in November...

It was really nice to have some of the family together in November. That was probably the first time in five years that we were able to do that! Breakfast at IHOP was good too!

I look forward to spending more time with family in the future, hopefully we can do this a little more often than every 5 years!

Spokane, Washington - November 2008

The Grand Ronde

This summer we spent our second camping trip
on the Grand Ronde river. We managed to pull together the entire family: Me, Bess, Katie, Pregnant Emily, Joe, and Kaleb all loaded up our two vehicles and found the perfect spot to camp and fly fish. We had a blast spending two nights away from civilization and enjoying the great outdoors! It was mid June and the weather wasnt super hot yet, but good enough to keep the water warm enough to stand in throughout the day. The nights were pretty cold but we had a blazing fire that kept us nice and warm. It was really a fun trip.

We had a really good time showing Kaleb how to fish. This was pretty much his first time catching fish and playing with the fishing pole. He caught on quickly! He's definately my grandson! Joe had a really good time showing him how to fish as well. He let Kaleb take his fly rod and reel in the fish on most of the fish he hooked. Kaleb loved it.

We had such a great time that it really paved the way for the whole summer. We ended up camping several more times with the whole family again (including the newest addition, Cameron Joyce Whitney born June 30th, 2008). We camped all over and participated in lots of activities from fishing, gold mining, riding the honda trail 90, and just being outdoors! We all cant wait to get out next summer and make another summer of camping! (once I get back from Alaska that is!!)

Steelhead Fishing

I love to fish! Here are a few pictures of me and my family steelhead fishing. This year has been pretty good, we have caught several fish and kept the smoker busy this year!

Every so often I can talk Emily or Katie into fishing with me (they love anything to get them out of school or work!). They are good company though and we enjoy the time together.

This year I have been going with my son-in-law Joe. He caught his first steelhead this year and has been hooked since! We have a lot of fun on the boat making jokes and waiting it out! We can even usually talk one of our wives to go get McDonalds for us and deliver it to the dock! First class service!

Although fishing has been really good already this year, we look forward to getting out there even more and enjoying the fight of the catch!