If you want to attract an honorable lady, be an honorable man.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

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? 


20 comments:

  1. You look like you've had a great year, David! :D And you don't look so bad in a tux, though camo definitely suits you better. ;) Your boating/kayaking experiences are strangely similar to some of mine a few months ago...

    My year has been full of awesome times, unforgettable memories, tempered by the low times which in turn brought about great Spiritual growth. All in all, 2012 has definitely been a glass half full. :D I pray the next one is as good, if not better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah Bushy, I figured you would drop by. I was thinking about you guys when I was putting up the pics of shooting. :D
    Well I wouldn't say my year was half full - mine was full all right.
    And yes, camo definitely suits me better. :)
    Glad to hear you all weren't pining away over there, and are still alive and kickin.
    p.s. I got some insider information, and now I *looks over shoulder* know your name! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mine was full too; the glass half full bit was the optimistically so part. :D

      And... O.O Naughty! Lisa told!! :P ;)

      Delete
    2. Ah yes, Lisa squealed, and all of her own gumption too. :D
      Don't worry though, *I* won't squeal...

      Delete
    3. Hey hey hey...I didn't know it was to be kept a secret from family!!! Work with me here...

      Delete
    4. Nah it's all good, Lisa! I'm just being serious. *grin* ;) :D I should probably be more concerned that y'all were talking about me in the first place... o.O

      Delete
  3. Well, it sounds like you had an exciting year.
    My year was full of excitement, adventures, new learning experiences and so much more. I got my first job, I got my licence...after the second try, I have learned to trust God more through difficult times, and God has been so good to me! All in all, I have had a wonderful year and God gets all the glory because without Him I am nothing and can do nothing. ;)
    God bless!

    ~Hannah~

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for sharing about your year! And, hey, you don't look bad in a tux!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mom: (jokingly) David, we have a problem here. Girls on your blog are saying you look good in a tux.
      Me: Well mom, know how to fix that? I guess I shouldn't wear tux's anymore!
      Mom: (jokingly) *glare* No, just stop posting pictures of it on your blog.

      I *almost* had her cornered, and of course she wiggled out of it. *sigh* Better luck next time.

      Delete
  5. My dear brother, are you really comparing us to a barrel of monkeys??? Hmmm....should I be insulted??

    :D

    My post like this looks remarkably like yours....fun stuff!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmmm... barrel of monkeys.....
      No, monkeys are one animal you guys haven't acquired quite yet.
      Besides, I have never seen a 6 foot tall barrel in my life!

      Delete
    2. Never seen one of those neither.
      After all, you are one of the last people I would expect to be swinging around in the top of a tree!
      6 foot tall monkey.....Imagine the amount of bananas!(not to mention the size of the tree...)

      Delete
  6. Oh, and I forgot to say in the post, but in this year I also saw all 6 Star Wars, got my driving license, and got my first official "job", with all the legal paperwork and stuff like that, at a butcher shop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A job at a Butcher shop! That sounds rather fun and exciting! Do you get to butcher the pigs?! ;)

      Delete
    2. I do the afterward chopping-the-animal-into-usable-pieces part, but I did use to do that before I actually got hired full on.
      Fun stuff!

      Delete
  7. Hi David! Feels like it's been ages since I commented on here (or really, since I did hardly anything blogging related..). It was cool to see your year in review! Daniel and I still talk about how much we enjoyed the hike with y'all when we were out in AZ..in fact, the group shot of us up in the mountains is the desktop background on my laptop right now.

    Hmm, 2012 was a very full year for me in so many respects. Some of the most exciting things happened (like the two week adventure overseas!!), so many memories made, so much happiness and in turn, a lot of very hard times. But God uses all of it to form us into the men and women that He wants us to be, and I can definitely look back on it as a year of so much Spiritual growth. I'm excited to see what 2013 will hold!

    Take care, and hopefully it won't be so long before I check back in around here. God bless, David!
    Amy

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi David! It feels like it's been ages since I've been around here (or really, around the blog world in general..)... Fun to see your year in review post! Daniel and I still talk about how much fun it was to go hiking with y'all when we were out in AZ last year. In fact, the group shot of us all up in the mountains is currently the desktop background on my laptop.

    Hmm, 2012 was quite a year for me, filled with a lot of extremes..from very exciting times to very hard times. Filled with happiness and a lot of pain. But all of it goes to make us more and more into the men and women God desires us to be, and I can definitely look back on it as a year filled with a lot of Spiritual growth. It will be exciting to see what 2013 will hold.

    Well, take care David, and hopefully it won't be so long before I'm back here again. God bless!!
    Amy

    (awesome drawing, btw!!!)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Meh. my comment actually went through the first time?? :P Guess I didn't need to go to all the work of typing it out a second time...oh well! XD

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Amy! good to hear from you!
      Me and the girls (d girls) were just talking about you (just mentioned) the other day, when we wen't on the same hike again. You guys should come out again - we sure have got goofier, but a lot more mature - at least I hope I have. :)
      Give a holler to your brother, and I guess I will see you around my little cyber corner soon!

      Delete

Tell me what you think!
I don't care if you disagree, hate me or love me! Just comment!