Kikki in hats

I told you I would be posting/bragging about my niece. She looks adorable in these hats!! I got her the purple flower one, and the camo one (every Copsey baby needs a camo hat, it's a rule), and I couldn't wait to see her in them. Whoever made the crochet one I hope remembers me if I ever have another baby. It is adorable!!! She is adorable!!!

6 Years

In 1986 I was 6 years old. I was in first grade.

In 1986 Rick was a Sophomore in high school. What a handsome devil!!
Then 16 years later we finally met at the Memorial Day Parade, and Picnic in Lower Lake, Ca. The sparks were flying. It seemed like I was comfortable with this man from the start. Man do we look young in this picture or what?!?!

Then on January 25, 2003 we got married. We look at this picture to this day and try to remember the great wedding we had. It was a fun wedding! But looking back, what we both remember most was that we were excited to go to Hawaii the next day. I get all relaxed just thinking about Hawaii!

Two years later, Katie was on her way. We had decided that it was time for our family to grow, and she has been a highlight of our lives ever since. Not a day goes by that we don't laugh, and feel so lucky to have her in our lives. Even if she is walking like a penguin and snorting around the house. Weird I know. She gets that from her dad. The weird I mean.

We are a happy family of three. We hope to add to our family some day, and hope that it happens, but if it doesn't we feel so lucky to have, not only one another, but Katie as well.

We have been married for six years today, and it has been a wonderful six years. We hope the next 44 years go and smoothly as the first six.

I love you, Rick. I still feel honored each day to be your wife. I know that life takes us on new and crazy adventures, but I am only so happy to go through this life with you beside me!

Love~
Amy

Snow, Snow, Snow

All morning it snowed, but with the temperature up to 39 degrees it wasn't sticking. The flakes were nice and fat though. So pretty to look at!
And then he left... Rick had to go to work, and boom, the temperature drops to 20 degrees, and 3 inches of snow stick to the ground in a matter of 2 hours. When it finally let up Katie and I went outside to shovel. Leave it to a California girl to shovel snow for the first time, when all of her neighbors are outside doing the same. I have learned that once the snow stops it is really important to shovel. That way there isn't too much to shovel later. Well here I am shoveling, trying to look like I know what I'm doing, and Katie is "helping" me. She got bored quickly though, and began to make snow angels all over the front yard. Her specialty. Only I kept telling her to do it on the grass area. What grass area?!?! There was so much snow you couldn't see the grass, so Katie made snow angels on the driveway, the sidewalk, and a few on the actual grass. The neighbors dog came to observe her artistic ability, and enjoyed sticking her freezing wet dog nose in Katie's face, making her yelp, and unable to get up. Being a good mother, I watched laughing. My neighbor Gloria and I were shoveling the sidewalk when the guy down the street started up his snow blower. Showoff. We decided we are getting a snowplow attachment for our 4 wheelers ASAP. I just need to get the 4 wheeler first. But then watch out. Seriously, if you ever come visit me in the snow, watch out. I am not that talented at shoveling with a shovel, can you imagine me on a piece of machinery, with a plow attached to it. Shivers!
Anyway I hope you all enjoyed your Sunday. We sure did.
Love
Amy

Kikki, and Big Sister K

Disclaimer: The names in this blog have been changed. Most of you know who they are anyway.Miss K is a big sister now. I can't believe she is a cheerleader. Just yesterday she was 5 and I had just met Rick and she asked us if we wanted to play wiffle ball with her at the ranch. Miss K you have grown up too fast.

Here is her little sister. Kikki, as I will call her, looks a little swollen in this picture. But give the kid a break, she was born big. 11lbs 13 oz (I may be a little off on the weight, maybe her mommy will comment correctly for me), and 21 inches long (again I may be off a bit, correct me someone, anyone). She broke her Uncle Rick's record of 11 lbs straight up. Yikes with all these big babies in this family I am a little nervous. I call her Kikki because I was having pregnancy dreams for her mommy, and dreamed that she was named that at birth. But her parents chose a much more normal name, thank goodness.

Oh yeah, and Kikki's birthday??? December 25th. What a great Christmas present for all of us.

She is getting so big so fast. She is almost turning over, and look at that smile. 10 days old. That's pretty amazing! It doesn't even look like gas. I have never seen a baby smile so young. And turning over almost. What strength. Must take after her dad in that area!! We think she has her daddy's nose, and maybe eyes, but we can see mommy and Miss K's coloring . But I'm not so good at that stuff.

We love her already and we are so sad that we can't be near them to get these smiles in person. Congratulation's Mike, Leahna, and Miss K. We can't wait to meet the new addition to your family.

Watch out for future Kikki posts. I am a bragging aunt. Her mommy is terrible at sending me new one's but I'll cut her some slack. We mom's all know what those first few weeks are like, when you look at the clock and see it is 3pm, and you haven't showered, brushed your teeth, or even gotten out of your pjs. You can't imagine how fast time flies with a newborn.

I'm Goin' to Jackson...

...What song is that? Who sang it? If you know the answer to that well... good for you. No prizes sorry!

Rick, Katie, Grammie, and I went to Jackson today to see the Elk herd at the refuge. It was AWESOME!!! The elk come down to the refuge in November and hang out, eat, and rest until spring. To see the elk we had to take a horse and sleigh. It was pretty neat, and something we will have to do again. There is lots of other wildlife on the refuge, including about 800 bison, wolves, coyotes, eagles, swans, ducks, and much more. The wolves, and bison stay up on the Northern edge of the refuge, and are only occasionally seen.

Elk have four stomach's like cow's and have to chew their cud after morning meal. That is what most of them were doing this morning.

We saw elk of all kinds, and the sleigh driver explained all about their genetic abnormalities, such as this poor guy who is "non typical" wouldn't you hate to be called "non typical"?? I would. See his rack. One is up, and one is almost straight out in front of him. He is a spike, meaning he is only about a year or two old. Each spring his horns will fall off, and new ones will grow. The new ones will have more points on it, such as:

..this guy. We don't know exactly how old they are when they look like this though. The only way to really tell is by extracting a tooth and counting the rings, like on a tree. This one looks like a 6 point on one side and six on the other. He is a large bull elk, but he isn't a trophy elk. Trophy elk go in a record book called Boone and Crockett. They measure the horns, and if they score over a, I think, 380 then they qualify for the book. The current record bull elk measured in at 440. He must have been a monster, and must be sitting on someones wall.

As I said earlier the elk "drop" their rack each year. If they do it on the reserve then the boy scouts come and pick them up, lock them in a barn, and they go up for auction each year. The horns are rather valuable, some going for $2500 for a set. People use the dropped horns to mount on the wall, make into knife handles, chandeliers, etc. The money goes back into the reserve to buy feed, and other supplies needed to feed these beauties for the next year. There are over 500 reserves of this type in the US. I have seen two since I moved here. This one being the COOLEST!!

This is a cottonwood tree, and you'll see in the next picture why it is so cool...

A bald eagle flew into the tree. He or she sat there and let us take lots of pictures from under him/her. It was really neat. I have never been so close!

The team of horses that pulled us around the refuge was really neat. The elk are used to the horses, and sleigh because they have been pulling people around these elk for almost 100 years.

But, and I mean BUT, if you get out of the sleigh the elk will stampede to the hills. We are one of their predators after all.

A couple of miles past the refuge we entered the Grand Teton, National Park. Rick wanted to get a couple of pictures of the mountains. They were gorgeous.

This is the town square in Jackson. Each corner has an elk horn arch. I am sure some of you have heard this place called both Jackson, and Jackson Hole. Jackson is the town. Jackson Hole is the entire bowl in this mountain area. This was Jackson's (and I'll have to get back to you on his first name) hunting hole. Jackson was a mountain man in the area.

I know this post was full of exciting facts, and you are feeling much smarter than before. I hope you can come visit sometime and see some of these awesome sites we are exploring. Just think, if you visit, we know better what to show you. We are the modern "explorers"!!!

Home Tour

Well now that we are mostly settled, boxes are almost all unpacked, and the list of things I can't find, that I know I had before we moved, is getting shorter and shorter. Pictures are hung, and we are finally feeling like this is home. We still are in a bit of a daze, I just got to sit down for the first time in months and watch part of The Real Housewives of Orange County, during the day, drinking a lovely cup of HOT, not luke warm, coffee. Eventually we will get into a normal groove of things, and I may get to see more than that half of an episode.
But now it is time for you all to see the house. NOTE: if you don't like clutter, if it really makes you cringe, walk away now. It isn't pretty at times, although I did clean up a little before I took the pictures. But of course it isn't as immaculate as I usually keep house. For those of you who know me my house is always dust free and sparkling. And for those of you who don't know me well enough, you must know that I am joking.


Anyway this is the entry way and I had to add this in the blog, because the painting you are looking at was done by Nikki. She gave this to Rick and I a couple of years ago, OK like 4 years ago, and we never had the right wall to put it on. But this spot we knew would be perfect. It is a very peaceful piece and we love looking at it. Thank you Nikki, come and see it whenever you and Dela get the urge to come out here!

This is the other side of the living room. Right now it is our office/living room. So please come visit and sit and chat with me in here. There isn't a TV, and I may make is kinda girly, so the deer head, and duck may have to go. We'll see.

This is the kitchen. Notice the my little slave doing her chores, yet again. She is "sweeping" with the swiffer, although it doesn't have the swiffer pad on it. That offends her. She doesn't like the pad. So it is more like a toy. She must not know that if she doesn't sweep well, then it's up to the dog.

This is the other side of the kitchen. We are planning a remodel, maybe next summer, or sometime after that. But for now it works, and I am not going crazy with the lack of counter space. The kitchen I left in Ca. and the one I left at Aunt Carrie's made for some creative adjustments on my part. But I know a good plumber and electrician who might be thinking about taking a nice vacation to Wyoming, while we are doing this remodel, and who happen to take there tools everywhere they go. I may have to bribe them. I'm not above it.
This is our eating area. As I said I didn't clean before I took these, so I am sorry you have to see the clutter, but see it now, or see it when you visit, it will be there. We will hopefully be remodeling this area as well. We want to make it our entry to the backyard, and make it a bit bigger.

This is the room below the eating area. This is the family room. This is where all the deer heads and duck, will hopefully reside when I have the energy and money to do a little remodeling.

The laundry room is in the family room. YUCK. It is loud and messy. We want to put it behind the kitchen.

This is the war zone, er, I mean the basement. We made it into Katie's playroom and storage. The walls are going to be painted, but for now it is a great place for Katie to come play. She calls it her office. She likes to come down to her office while I "clean." I say that with quotes, since I really try to watch a little Real Housewives, when she's down here.
This is our room. I think it needs help. How bare it looks in the pictures. I hear you asking "where is all the clean laundry stacked?" To be honest I moved it off the bed into piles behind me so I could take this picture. My mother and Grams are cringing right now, I can feel it. This room will also need a little redecoration. If you know any decorators who can pinpoint a color for this room (Ahem Kim, and Aunt Lori) please have them call me so I can get some help.

This is my bathroom, and I am a little embarrassed that the toilet seat is up. But in the spirit of showing you my house and trying not to care about all the clutter, I am including it. We love this house, but there are a few things we will change. The kitchen is one, the bathroom another. I think the house was built by little people. The toilets and counters in the bathrooms are so low, that I feel like I have to squat down just to wash my face in the sink. It's almost comical to see how low they really are.

Some come and visit, see our low toilets, laugh at the paint in the basement, and enjoy our new home. We truly enjoy it, and feel like for first time home owners we hit the jackpot. We can't wait to show it off to all of you and get your reactions!

Love
Amy

Chores

Katie is starting to do more chores around the house. She really likes to help out. I take complete advantage of it, and from day one living here I have her raking leaves...
She loves the crunch sound the leaves make when she walks, and jumps through them, so when the little Cinderella finished raking, she was permitted to jump in them.

Shoveling snow...

Besides shoveling snow, which she is pretty good at, much better than me, who shoveled into the wind making no discernible difference to the driveway clearing, Katie is also a talented snow angel maker. We didn't get a ton of snow, but it was enough to give it a try. I just told her what to do and she did it. I haven't made one yet, but when I do I think I'll do it in the backyard...at night.This is one good snow angel. Now back to the chores Katie can do...

Vacuuming...
And making dinner. I don't know how to make pizza from scratch, and thank goodness Katie is ready to learn. Now her Daddy can have pizza whenever she gets the urge to make it. Don't get me wrong, I do chores, but if someone offers to help I say have at it. I will slowly turn into the resident lazy person around here. And who wouldn't?

After all, she sets a pretty table!

Grandma

We took pictures of Uncle Rich and Aunt Jo, albeit a little blurry...

She took pictures of me and Katie...

She took pictures of wild horses...

And Katie in her newest snow garb, again a tad blurry, it wasn't my camera...

But do we take a single picture of Grandma with Katie. No we do not. Katie is seen here at

Rick's graduation party. We didn't mean to forget, but we were having so much fun. Thank you for visiting us Grandma (Rick's mom to all who know her otherwise). Thank you for helping us unpack, rake leaves, shop, visit, play bananas, laugh, and have a great time.
It is always hard for us to let visitors leave, and we wish we could move everyone here, so that there were no more sad trips to Salt Lake. But I guess it makes the visits that much more special.

Love
Amy

PS: Rick and Rosette just stopped back to the house on their way out. I snapped a picture with Rosette's camera of her and Katie. I bet you all are waiting on baited breath to see it, but you'll have to wait until it gets emailed to me all the way from Sunny Ca.

Wild Horses...

We took Rick's mom up to White Mountain to see the Wild Horse Loop. We have never before seen so many wild horses before. There have been a few here and there, when we go up, but I think the mixture of cold weather, and low feed means they are out and about more than during the summer.

We saw wild horses fighting, these two just finished the hoof dancing part of the fight. It was just amazing. There was a mare, and colt standing off in the distance waiting for these two stallions to finish up their man business.

Each time we would round a turn we would see another herd of them, and they would run away. They were really a sight to see!!

Mostly though they were hungry. They look different than domesticated horses, in that they are more sturdy looking. Some are shorted, but most are large.

The Butte on the left hand side of the above picture is Pilot Butte. I imagine that standing on top with binoculars would be amazing. Unfortunately, as you would know if you read the earlier blogs about Pilot Butte, I will not be climbing it any time soon.





Not all of the wild horses were brown. Most were, but there were buckskins, my favorite, and paint, my other favorite, as well. I don't know how well you all will be able to see it, but the horse, second from left, is a paint.

The buckskin on the left was beautiful. We were so lucky to have seen such an amazing sight.