2012 in Review

Wow. I can't believe it has been a year since I last did this post. Time sure flies, fun or no. Granted, making time fly by throwing that old broken-down clock out the window is loads of fun, but then you have to go outside and throw the silly old thing away in the proper place.
Anyway, time flies around here. I certainly can't call it a bad year. I mean, I'm still here blogging aren't I? So everything seems kinda menial to the fact that God is still letting me live and hasn't gotten fed up with me yet. In that light, life is good, and this year has been good.
I'll start from the beginning of the year and work my way forward.

In January we had church shoot day, and had a blast. Who wouldn't?

My first time firing an AK-47. Nice weapon to say the least.

My friend's .40 Llama

 A .22-250 that can take apart anything the cross-hairs touch. 

Using a 30-30 taking metal cans to task.  

Not to long after we went on a nice little 8 mile hike with our friends (You all have seen goofy shots of this hike before methinks....) 

A rather sane and civilized shot of all of us before we began. 

The peak of our victory

In February I went on a road trip to Oregon to be the Best Man in one of my best friends wedding.  

For some reason my mug doesn't quite seem to fit in a tux.....

Shortly after was our annual Men-and-boys camp-out. 

Some of us looking rather worn and warm during the hike.

In March, me and a great friend went camping just the two of us for the night way out in the desert.

Our lowly camp site.

Following shortly after that was the yearly Men's Prayer Advance.

Sometime in either February or March, I made it into the top 12 pencils drawings in the national HSLDA Art Contest. I never placed, but made it to the final round and have my picture on display at the HSLDA headquarters in Virginia. 

Presently this picture is framed and a long ways away. 

In May, we had a nice Birthday for my dad, and did a neat small photoshoot with some friends, and got some gnarly pictures. 

The three musketeers.

This one was so neat I did a little photo-shopping and added some text. I have it hanging up in my room actually.

In June, our church had a whole-church camp up north, and me and my sisters (with a few other friends thrown in here and there) had a riot of a time. 

She said grab a tree and pose. What else was I supposed to do? 

Swimming in Blue Ridge Reservoir - cold, rocky, but more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  

We thought we were just gonna look at the creek then leave. Then we found crawdads......

We kicked off our shoes and waded in, and came back to camp with 9 crawdads, and ate 'em up

In July my sisters cooked up the scheme of hooking mini horses up to boogie boards, as opposed to carts. Horses get exercise - we stay cool and have fun.  

Surfin - AZ style. 

In August, we took playing in the water to the next level. Forget the horses, just use the boogie boards! 

We all three ran and landed on our boards at the same time. Epic fun is an understatement. 

Throwing my board under me and landing on it on the water. It made for another epic shot and scripture picture. 

Shortly after was our Church water day, and the congregation got wetter than they have in a LONG time. Yeah, we had young and old, parents and kids, the sheep and the shepherds all getting extraordinarily wet together.  

Yes, that is me on the right, going belly down, feet first.  

A rather soggy shot of yours truly. Not a bad shot, if I do say so myself. 

In September, We went back to the creek we were at in June, and celebrated my sister's B-day kayaking and catching crawdads in the rain and cold. 

Oh and BTW, having a crawdad crawl over your toes is about one of the most disturbing feelings in the entire world. Ask how I figured that one out.....

My sisters and I tried to see if we can boat along with a person sitting on both the front and the back of the boat, at the same time. If the boat had rode higher in the water, we could have done it. As it was, we kept sinking the boat. :)  

Right after, we went to Colorado, for the third year in a row. 

Our favorite lookout and photo spot on our Colorado trips.

At our friends house, I bumped into a fellow blogger from the other end of the country. Paul Leavitt, through a seemingly random set of circumstances, was staying at our friends house as a place to stay during a conference he was attending. Two people from vastly separate states, both being in a different state at the same time. What are the odds of that? 

Afterwards, was our annual Church Family Camp. This was the best year yet, with a great speaker, and I set my personal best record of how many bass I caught that weekend.

See? Don't I look much better in camo than in a tux? 

There was even another one, the proverbial "one that got away". However big he was, he was bigger than all the others, a lot bigger, and snapped my line in about 2 seconds. *Sigh*
Going back for that guy next year....


In October, I birthed my first Mini horse all by my lonesome. Well, at least, with no other "experts" around. I was horse-sitting while my "sisters" were out of town, so nobody else around knew much about birthing. Nerve-racking yes, but overall it went real well - I guess. I mean, he's alive and well today, so I guess that counts as success!

At the end of October, I officially went on my first deer hunt. A long looked-forward-to experience. We put in nearly 40 miles of walking, and now are pretty familiar with that section of the wild. :)

Ah yes, perfectly at home. Under a tree in the wild, in camo, heavily armed, waiting for a deer.  Wouldn't that tux just completely ruin such a perfect scene?  

November 1st, this little guy walked a little to far towards the watering hole....

Two tired hunters, posing for the victory photo.

 November was uneventful, but December bought a much looked-forward-to event.

 

I officially saw it in IMAX 3D, an amazing experience to say the least. Best movie I saw all year. 

During the year I also The Avengers, another great movie, but as a fan of the book, the Hobbit beat it out without much of a fight. :) 

This year was also my best bird hunting year ever. Period. I easily doubled or tripled my bird count from the previous year, and getting my limit on birds (thankfully...praise the Lord) became the norm. At one point, I got the drop on a whole pile of birds, and got 18 in one shot. I think I had 6 or 7 birds before that shot, and when all was said and done, I took 25 birds home. My friend says I may have set a world record, I just can't tell Game and Fish. :) Whoops. So far though, my best bird-to-bullet ratio is 10 birds, 16 shots. 

I also have grown tremendously in my walk with the Lord this year. I have been convicted like never before of my sin, and my need for Christ and his work for me. It has been an amazing year of spiritual developments. While before this year, I thought I was doing pretty good in my spiritual walk, this year I got a better view of exactly how bad I really was, way deep down where only God sees. (Sorry guys, couldn't find a picture for that one. : / ) 

And I think that about wraps up the year! I am going on another hike tomorrow (like the one at the beginning of this year) so we'll see how that goes. The same goofy crowd is going, so I kinda can guess as to the results. :) 

So, it's been quite the year. First Tux, first deer, first IMAX, friend got married, loads of of fun, loads of other valuable lessons - all in one year. Bad year? I think not. 

How's your year gone?