Sessions Family Christmas Poem 2009

Sorry for the electronic version, but life has been nuts. Merry Christmas to all.


Well here's how it starts.
That old western yarn
about our little outfit,
and what's up in our barn.
So just take a minute,
and sit back in yer chair.
Relax and do nothing.
(Obama won't care)
Please read this note
to find out what has happened
to us this past year
in the form of my rappin'.
On the 20th of May
we added kid three.
Our little Bridger
He's a sweet little pea.
Remington still whirls
like a tale from Dickens.
We wish he'd sleep longer
and not get up with the chickens.
Our princess Lizzie
is so happy and sweet.
She turns five in January
she sure is a treat.
As for ma and pa,
we just keep on groovin'.
raisin' these young'uns
we're always a movin'.
It'll be interseting to see
what twenty-ten brings.
Is Tiger done golfing?
Or will he keep whackin' those Pings?
Will Harry Reid
continue his storm
and cram down our throats
health care reform?
I know I should quit
these politcal jabs,
but what of the deficit
and Israeli land grabs?
It seems like the world
is headed down the ole' shute.
but during Christmas
who gives a hoot.
With friends and family
and our Savior's watch
Lets kick up the cheer.
At least one more notch.
And be thankful for everything
that makes us happy
Lets dwell on the good
not on the crappy.
So don't drink too much nog
or your belly will swell
We hope the old fat man
finds you and yours well.


Merry Christmas. We hope all is well on your end of the pasture.

Hiking Craters of the Moon in Flip-Flops

The last time our family went to St Anthony we decided to take a "little" pit-stop at the Crater's of the Moon National Monument. We thought we could drive around in the park, see some cinder cones, and be out of there in an hour. Well, we were hustling and it still took us 2 1/2 hours and could have taken us a lot longer. O.K. here's my pitch for supporting our National Parks. They are really COOL! We couldn't help ourselves. We had to get out and explore a little bit.
Jeff and the kids hiked up to the top of an old cinder cone. It really was much steeper than it appears in this picture.

We also enjoyed some cave exploring and we'd like to go back if only to do more caving. It was very cool, but next time we'll opt for appropriate footwear instead of flip-flops, and maybe we'll skip the skirt for Lizzie. We arrived in St Anthony 1 hour late very juicy and grimy, but happy for the exploration.

This trip has fine tuned some of Jeff's life goals. Instead of visiting places in an RV he'd like to visit ALL the national parks in that RV.

That's one crazy fan

Well you may have heard that the Boise State Broncos are playing the Oregon Duck Sept 3rd. The Tickets are very hard to get but thanks to James Hess our revered brother-in-law and current BSU student Jeff has a general admission ticket in hand and is ready for the big game. All he had to do is sleep on the sidewalk Sunday night, with this crowd, saving a place in line in the first 200 hundred students. The afore mentioned brother-in-law was then able to purchase the tickets, and Jeff was free to go teach a very effective day of History and English. I needn't add that Jeff was the oldest crazy on the sidewalk that night. To continue in his celebration and to politely throw the gauntlet down to our Western opponents he painted this welcome side, and posted it over the highway.
Two police officers were waiting for Jeff as he was coming down from this walk way, but gave him the thumbs up, and told him to watch out for the Idaho State Police (they're Vandal fans). The man you see in this photo is a city worker taking it down. All that hard work and arrest avoidance and he only was able to advertise his BSU spirit for about 5 minutes. He's trying a second banner placement tonight! Here's hoping he can show his artistry for longer this time.

Go BSU! Beat those Ducks!

Where My Peeps At?

A couple of weeks ago we were given some abandoned Quail eggs. Not knowing how long they had been without a momma we didn't know if we would even get any baby quail. However Jeff borrowed the incubator, hatchling cages, and other needed apparati just in case. He's been very faithful about turning them morning and night, and last night when he went to turn them he was greeted by PEEPS. We have thirteen little fluff balls, and a video to prove it. Enjoy!

FYI: We are now running a very small zoo. Along with the Thirteen Quail we have two new Betta fish (Lola and Cottontail), our dog Getty, and a garden full of gophers. Remington alerted us to the gophers, by saying "We have a bunny in our garden. I sawed it's bum-bum" Lizzie then said "Hey we have a rat in our garden." Jeff is still battling that problem, and Getty is still digging the yard up trying to exterminate them as well.

Wilber Turns One

Last May our familiy went on our first family vacation. The grand end of the trip was going to the Portland Zoo. I might add that our children were over tired from being dragged all over the Pacific NW, hungry, mad at their parents, and did not enjoy most of our outing there.

On our way out after the last meltdown/Remington pass out we stopped at the gift store. There our little Lizzie found the love of her life. A stuffed animal that she orginally thought was a polar bear, but later decided was a Lion. She was immediately adopted as a member of the family, and named Wilber.

As Jeff was going through his travel journals one night, we discovered that Wilber (who now resembles more roadkill then Lion) has been with us one whole year. Well, if that doesn't deserve a celebration I don't know what does. Here are picture of Wilber's first birthday, as hosted by her adoptive momma Lizzie.

Happy Birthday, Wilber!

Bridger Reed Sessions Comes Home

Our little man cam home from St. Al's RMC yesterday. He was born on May 20th at 12:17 am. He weighed in at 7 lbs 13 oz. and had all ten toes and fingers. We are so glad to have him here. He's a little stud...even though he sleeps 22 hrs a day, eats 2 hrs a day, and craps many times in between. I (Jeff) am keeping track of how many diapers we change on him in his lifetime. If he has to wear diapers when he's an old man, he will be responsible for his own talley then. We have already broken the 50 mark on the 3rd day of his life. We love Costco for this purpose. Heather is doing well. It was a tough pregnancy, but she kicked through it. I am so proud of her, and I love her more everytime she pulls off this feat. Way to go H...P.S. We really love this little dude. Lizzie calls him "Baby Angel"...and that he is.

Scoutmaster of the Year

Well if you haven't heard yet, Jeff was nominated and won the Scoutmaster of the year award for the Bigfoot District. He has sat on several committees for scoutleader training, and has helped as instructor for several scouting camp outs. He's done all of these extra things, and still made sure to keep all the boys in his troop motivated and advancing. We are very proud of our Jeff.

Remington and Lizzie Tag Team a Bass

Friday after work the kids were restless, so we decided to run over to a fish pond near our house to try our luck. Heather is super pregnant but decided she could manage a sit down session by the water. I rigged the poles, dug some worms, and away we went. We were not there for long when Lizzie's pole began to bob. I told her to reel it in because she had a fish. This freaked her out a bit,so she handed me the pole. I told Remington to come over and reel it in, and in no time, there was a little ten inch bass flipping and flopping on the shore. We took a quick-pic to mark the event and returned the bass to the pond. Remington wanted to eat it. That was the one and only fish of the evening.

What you don't know about Dilophosaurs

Lizzie finished her Dilophosaurus report, and did better than most of Jeff's students (according to his information.) Here are her words about what she learned.

1. Daddy Dilophosaurs have double crest, but the Mommy Dilophosaurs doesn't.

2. When he tries to frighten someone he roars loudly and display his crest.

3. He is 20 ft tall. That's taller than two daddies.

4. He eats Meat, Elk, People, Hamburgers, and Deer. He doesn't make a good pet!

5. His bones are really, really old.

6. He walks on two legs, and grabs things with his claws.

7. He has sharp teeth and likes to eat meat. (On a side note, we recently heard this conversation: Rem: "We aren't meat." Lizzie: "Yes Rem! We ARE meat.")

8. His crest poke up, and looks like a cowboy hat.

Lizzie wore a cowboy hat for her presentation. We are so proud of our little scholar.

Remington Finds a Career as a Farmer

Our boy wants to be a farmer, or rather a consumer of farmed goods. Don't we all? Yesterday was a nice day, and Heather let the kids into the backyard to play. After a few minutes she overheard Lizzie say, "No Rem! Don't do that." Being the good mother that she is, she looked out the window to see what was going on. She saw Remington pulling up my freshly planted cabbages and tossing them away as he discovered that there were only roots and dirt to be found. She quickly went outside to get him to stop. When she asked him what he was doing he said, "I'm looking for carrots." Apparently he had watched an episode of Curious George earlier in the week where George had taken carrots from the fridge and replanted them for The Man in the Yellow Hat, who had just planted carrot seeds. I guess Remington figured George had done the same to our garden.

I came home from work later in the day and went outside to plant some more stuff. I had the water going in the potato rows and the kids were poking sticks into the mud. I told them not to get into the water or mud, but I didn't really care if they poked it with sticks. That's what mud is for...stick poking. Right?

I went on shoveling the compost and remembered hearing Remington sing a song about his shoe being stuck in the mud, but I wasn't really paying attention. It didn't register to me that he probably really was stuck in the mud. If there is mud a two year-old boy will get into it. It wasn't until Lizzie said, once again, "Hey Rem! Don't do that." She's always the big sister and I looked over to see Remington up to his knees in muddy spud rows singing his lost shoe song. One of his Crocks was floating down the row, and the other one was missing. I went over and pulled him from the mud and sure enough, his missing shoe was stuck in the mud underneath the water between the onions and potatoes. I put both of them out on the lawn and hosed them off. I think the spuds will be fine.

Best of the Last Year

Yes the Sessions' are joining the blog world! As an introduction, and to catch up, here are a few of our favorite events from the last 12 months:

We finally decided to treat the family to a vacation. In the spirit of our crazy trying to do too much in too little time we saw everything imaginable in Seattle, including Julianna's Family (thank-you so much for the hospitality), A Folk Festival including hippies and free spirited dancing (suprisingly this wasn't performd by Jeff), The Famous Fish Market, a Ferry Ride, and the retired Air Craft Carriers of Bremerton.

From there we went on a ocean front camp-out craze starting with a tour of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. For you Twilight fans out there we opted out of seeing Forks for the family's sanity. We did see the biggest black bear ever, have a family of Raccoons eat all our food during the night, watched Remington take an unintended morning swim in the ocean, and had a major blow-out diaper on a hike to the local lighthouse. All this happened at Cape Disappointment WA. If you don't know Lewis and Clark history like Jeff does this is where L & C finally finished their trek, but were disappointed in the winter hunting and had to return to Astoria to winter over. (Just in case you're ever on Jeopardy!)

The rest of our camping took place on the Oregon coast, and other than breaking camp and moving to a new spot each night, our trip was less eventful and we enjoyed moments of rest and tranquility. If you ever have the chance, I recommend renting recumbent bicycles that can go on the beach. We got a little bike trailer for the kittens, and off we went. Fun, fun, fun! We also meet up with Adam and Rychelle for a seafood cookup over a campfire and tide pools. As you can see we found a starfish, which Rem was not afraid to touch. Now the babies are always asking when we can go on another "cation".

Other notable events that have happened recently: Jeff, as you may have guessed from our coastal camping mania, is a happy camper. Which is good because he's a scoutmaster. He's prided himself on camping 24 days in 2008. Some of these campouts have been with the scouts, but we've had our fair share of camping as a family. Remington decided that he wanted to camp on his birthday, so off we went to Silvercreek plunge. This is a remote hot springs/camp ground, and other than the obvious swimming that we did in the hot springs pool, we're proud that Lizzie caught he first fish, Remington took a bath in the great outdoors, and we all have eaten our fair share of marshmallows.

Lizzie has been announcing, by way of introducing herself, that she is going to have a baby sister named Addison with rainbow hair. She made this announcement with such certainty that we started to think that maybe she knew something that we did not. As Heather started training to run a 5K, and was finding it harder and harder to do, her prediction became more and more plausible. Well, folks if you didn't know yet, we are having a baby! However, Lizzie is getting a baby brother due around May 27th. (The hair color is yet unknown.) We'll keep you posted.

Well, I hope that you have enjoyed our abridged journal through the last 12 months. We're looking forward to being as cool as the rest of you bloggers out there and keeping up on the posts on a more regular basis.

~The Sessions'