Just gonna throw this out there.... MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!
With some music for your pleasure!

2013 School year pics

I promised to post some pics of the boys. I'll let the images speak for themselves. ;)

Life is never boring in the Hergenrather home! With Alex just turning sixteen, Halloween just around the corner and then the holidays, we have many things on the agenda. Parties, gatherings, friends, family. November and December are shaping up to be busy as usual. I was able to get some photos of Alex two weeks ago, but the weather hasn't been good enough to get Zach's yet. You might have noticed that some of the old images on the blog went missing. That was because Photobucket, the web hosting service I use for this blog, was claiming that my account was getting too much traffic in a month and wanted to charge me a fee. I decided not to do that. I am all for free stuff, but we aren't made of money for frivolous purchases coming out monthly. So I deleted some of the pics to spare some traffic. I tried to keep the more recent. Hopefully no one feels shorted! I plan to update soon with pics of the boys. David will only take pictures with the family now, maybe his brothers if I twist his arm. Can't believe he is turning twenty soon. He is enjoying working at the library and is putting in for another job there, a part-time librarian position. It's better than his current job, though he has gotten a raise and gets all holidays the library is close paid, whether he works or not. He's happy. Wish he'd get a car and his license with winter coming up, but I can't push him or he thinks I'm nagging. haha. Not my style to nag but I worry he will not be able to ride his bike all winter and my truck doesn't have brakes. So he could lose that job he loves so much, but hey - I can't nag him! :P Zach is doing better in school this year. He's not had a lot of zeros on his homework and he's passing all of his classes. We find this a relief! He has decided he wants to become a cop, and realizes a college education is required. So he is trying more, which is great. Alex is getting good grades and is happy to be in Newspaper this year. He's also taking classes to prepare him for Engineering classes that he will take his junior and senior years at an off-site school, half days. When he graduates he will be hitting the ground running. I just wanted to hop in cause I was thinking about the blog. I know, I broke my pattern of only posting once a year, but hey! Why not? Sometimes it's good to just say hi. :)

2012 - Not the End

So another year has come and gone and I continue to be bad about updating this blog! Sorry about that, truly. Life, as we all know, has a way of drawing us in and distracting us from our good intentions. I make no excuses beyond that. I'm not big on excuses anyway so it works better this way for all of us. :) I also neglected to take pictures until Christmas this year, too, which is a true travesty since my lovely husband bought me a wonderful new camera for my birthday! So hopefully when it gets above 12 degrees and I can get the boys to stand around outside for more than five minutes at time without having to wear hats, gloves and coats, then I can take some good pics for their freshman and sophomore years. David is out of school now, so I'll not enforce taking photos of him every year now, but I did make him stand in for the family photo. He didn't argue ... much.

So Christmas was lovely. Thanks to a generous donation to the Christmas fund by my parents and a care package from John's, the boys were able to have some very nice things! David had his eye on a waist length wool peacoat in navy which we were able to obtain for him. COSTCO memberships do have their privileges. Jason (previously known as Zach) was able to get the glow poi he had been wanting for a couple of years (though on Christmas morning he just got the confirmation paper that it was on its way - it had not yet arrived in the mail!). Alex, being so interested in video gaming lately, received new headphones that include a microphone for him to play with friends on Xbox Live. They were all incredibly happy with everything they got, even the clothes! John bought me a bunch of clothes, which was a good thing this year, and for him I remade the playa coat (the fur coat you see in the photos). It needed a makeover after having been used for the last 5 years and gotten pretty worn. So I included 12 pockets in the new liner, including a camel back pouch, and replaced the red, green and blue fur with the black, purple and turquoise. He seems pretty thrilled.

Scoobi liked her Christmas present, too! She is still working on that bone today, but it's effectively in two pieces.

After Christmas, John and a friend took off to snowboard at Jackson Hole in Wyoming. Another friend of his whom he met at Burning Man his first year works there through the winters and had a free lift ticket good for three days. He offered it to John for free and invited him to enjoy accommodations at his place while he was there. It had always been on John's Bucket List to snowboard the Tetons and I was happy to send him off as another Christmas gift.

Earlier in the year I attended my first Burning Man with John. It was largely what I expected and I enjoyed spending the 11 days with John and meeting people from all walks of life from around the country. The art was fantastic and beyond imagination, which is particularly something I was looking forward to seeing. The experience was similar to camping through the days, albeit with intermittent dust storms, and clubbing at night. I love dancing and enjoy camping and visiting with new people, art, dressing in silly costumes, exploring and, in general, most things the event had to offer. The braids I put in my hair to save it from the damage of the dry environment helped a lot, too, and if I go again I'll be sure to have them. If it weren't so incredibly expensive to attend the event, it might be a fun yearly getaway. As it stands, we'll have to see where finances are to know if it is plausible from time to time.

Aside from that there were no huge adventures (not like Cabo last year!). We had many small ones though, including a spontaneous trip in October to Seattle to enjoy a weekend with some friends we met at our Burning Man camp (called Stag Camp). As always it was a ton of fun spending time with them.

Jason is the first of the boys to have a steady girlfriend, and he enjoyed taking her to his first Homecoming dance in October. Alli and he are still together and plan to stay that way. Some of you have asked for a picture of her and I thought I'd toss one in here before I closed. :)

We miss our family back in Ohio and wish it were easier to visit, but we know we're in the right place right now here in Idaho. Maybe this year will bring us the opportunity (and finances!) to make it back for a visit - or for some of you to visit us here! For now, may you all have the very best of winters and may all your dreams come true for you in 2013! We love you all!
Steph

Time keeps on ticking...

And December got away from me. Then it was January - oh what a January! So much happened last month I barely had opportunity to breathe. Mom, wish I had called you more, and I plan to do it more in February. Truly I do. In the meantime, I promised pictures and I intend to get them up before something else pries my attention from what I am trying to accomplish! First, let's look at our anniversary trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We took the trip the last week of October through the first few days of November. John and I got to celebrate 20 years of marriage in a tropical paradise, snorkeling and going on a dinner cruise, spending time at the pool and often with the friends who joined us. So, without further ado, let's see the slide show!

In the fall, I always take pictures of the boys for their yearly milestones. This year was more rushed with the time constraints of our busy life, (namely the vertigo I came home with from all that snorkeling! Thankfully that passed within a month or so and all is well.) but it got accomplished. John's mom helped me with David's senior pictures while she was here when we were in Cabo. So some of the images you will see include ones I took as well as ones she took of him. These are just the highlights. Over a hundred were snapped! The younger boys also have pics, but theirs were standard for the year and didn't number nearly as highly. In the slide show you'll also get to see the Christmas family images we never did send out in the Christmas cards which are still sitting unopened on top of the refrigerator.... Sorry about that!

But since we're talking about Christmas, how about that last slide show? Might as well see us in our Christmas morning best! Since we had no boxes to speak of, each kid got one huge box that contained all their gifts. DJ ended up with basically a new wardrobe for work. Zach's big gifts included ski boots and a leather jacket. Alex got a laptop John refurbished and was thrilled (though he has since contracted many viruses and it's not functioning. OOps!). On with the show!

Beyond that, The Artist Formerly Known as Zach (who now prefers the name Jason over what we have always called him) is playing clarinet in concert band at Centennial High where he also takes acting. He really enjoys it and seems to be taking to it as easily as he does everything else that requires physical coordination... So jealous of that gift of his!





We finally got our first snow a couple of weeks ago. It was close to 8 inches, which quickly melted within a day due to temps rising. We were quite disappointed to say the least, especially since we haven't had any snow since!



Lastly, just Thursday Alex started at a real public school, citing he wanted to get ahead in math and couldn't do it without the change to Lowell-Scott across the street. He knows he wants to become an architectural engineer and it will require lots of math. We applauded him for his forward thinking and withdrew him from Connections Academy (the online school) and enrolled him at the jr. high all in the same day (Wednesday). He has been enjoying it but also hates the early schedule!

So that's as up to date as I can make things in a nutshell! Hopefully we can all get on some online chat soon and speak in person. I'm sure we all have a lot of catching up to do!

Love you all tons!

Summer Vacation 2011

Well, this year we decided to let David decide where the family would go for vacation. It is his last year with the family before graduation in 2012 and since we didn't know if he would be around next August to join us, we thought it would be a fun little tradition to start. That means that in 3 years, Zach can choose, and in four years it will be up to Alex. My how time flies!

David chose to go inland this summer and visit one of the most beautiful places in America: Glacier National Park in Montana. Now, I still have several other places to visit in North America, but after visiting Glacier I have to say it is definitely among the top spots. The mountains within the park rise from the earth to reach the heavens and all around you is such natural beauty it's difficult to describe. Hopefully you'll grasp a little bit in the photos I share, but really - one has to visit to grasp the scope of its majesty. God is truly awesome!

Before we went to Glacier, we took the boys for a day at Silverwood Amusement Park in Couer d'Alene, Idaho. It's the closest amusement park we have to Boise, but still took us close to seven hours to drive it. Likely we could've made Seattle in about 8 or nine hours and hit up Six Flags, but this was on our way! It included about 5 roller coaters as well as the other usual rides, plus a water park. It was a wonderful day for it; the weather was perfect!

After spending the night there at an adjacent park, we traveled across the state and into Montana to get to Glacier. It was another all day trip but the views were lovely and we stopped several times along the way.

A couple of the highlights of Glacier include the day hike John and David did across the "Wall". The wall is a range of mountains in the center of the park that separate the east from the west in a sliver of sharpened rock that reaches far overhead and slices into the clouds. It's truly gorgeous and looks so much like a mountain wall it's crazy. They hiked along the "Highline Trail" about 3/4 of the way to the top from Logan's Pass, across a glacier where they ate lunch and then the trail took them downward into a meadow that included a chateau which was a nice rest stop near the end of the loop. After resting, they plunged about four thousand feet over just a few miles to the road where they grabbed a shuttle back to camp.

The family went on many hikes together. One of our favorites was the trail to Avalanche Lake. There were several waterfalls tumbling down the mountains on the far side and we all trekked along the lake to get closer. Once there, John and the boys had a bet going as to if they could find the foot of any of the waterfalls, but every one they tried seemed to lead them too deeply into -obvious- bear country! They finally gave up but the landscape was awe-inspiring with or without the find of the falls. And we were perfectly content not being eaten by a grizzly.

We did get to see a grizzly when on the other side of the park. We also saw a black bear just a few feet from our truck but we were too slow to snag a photo. We caught some longhorn sheep on the road from Logan's Pass on film, however, and you'll also see pics of us on a boat trip on Lake McDonald. All in all, it was a wonderfully memorable vacation!

Hope you enjoy the slide-shows - hopefully they all work...

Christmas Day 2010

{If you are just getting your Christmas Card and are looking for the Christmas Message and 2010 wrap-up, scroll down below this post!}

Ah, Christmas morning. The gray skies could do nothing to diminish the child-like excitement of a 13 year old boy as he came in to wake up his father and I, jumping on our bed (as his wonderful Uncle Trae taught him this summer), and hollering in a sing-song voice, "It's Christmas! It's Christmas! It's Christmas!" (Thanks, Trae.)

Personally, I wouldn't have minded sleeping a bit longer since I stayed up making Zach's pajama pants the night before, but that was simply not in the cards for me. And while I like to complain a little here, I am in no way upset about it because I know it won't be many more years that I will have my kids at home to come wake me up with fun-filled glee on such a day of celebration as this.

And so with little more ado, let me show you the great hour spent opening gifts this Christmas and a little of the day around it. Everyone got their own personalized gifts this year instead the large family-style gifts we often prefer - and perhaps that's why Alex was so much more excited to wake up this year!

On Christmas Eve, before traveling to friends for dinner, we let the kids open up a gift. David already opened his big gift on the previous Tuesday because he received a new, fully reversible coat that was perfect for the bonfire we went to on Winter Solstice. (Fur is the new "in" thing. You'll notice - Zach got one too 'cause I found it Christmas Eve while shopping!) So the pic of David wearing his new coat is included from that Tuesday, along with the other two opening their gifts Christmas Evening.

WARNING: Christmas morning, we all know none of us look alive let alone well groomed, so bear with our bed-heads and pajamas. The following may not be safe for the unprepared! Here's a slide show of our day - sans all of the eating. (*FYI - the slide show views are in random order. If you want to see things progress in order, you'll have to visit the photobucket link to the album.)

After the gifts were opened and food was had, we played with a couple of my new gifts! Dance Dance Revolution for the Xbox 360 and the 2 hula hoops that John made me. (Can we all say Yay! for getting off the couch?!) What a great and generous husband - for real! The boys all played their news games as well, but I failed to get pics of that. (Bad Momma!) Anyway, I hope you all had as much fun as we did! (A day late) Merry Christmas to all and much love and kisses!

2010 Update and Christmas Message!

Oh how you have to love the digital age! I didn't need to print out a bunch of pictures or a long letter to reach our world of friends and family with this message of not just Merry Christmas, but a brief history of the year designed to drag you fully into the days of our lives. All I had to do was tell you to look here in the simple Christmas card I sent the old fashioned way. Do not be deceived by this subtle gimmick to grab your attention, however. It's truly an insidious ploy to get you all re-involved and interested in what is going on with us way out here in Idaho! So sit back, relax and travel with us though the year, then feel free to come back and visit often anyway - not because I've been clever and trapped you here, but because you want to!

Now, on with the show!

The year 2010 was brought in with family back in Ohio for four of us. John could not travel with us because he had no time left off of work, but he worked hard to ensure we had 2 weeks to spend the holidays with family, giving up his own unselfishly over both Christmas and New Year's Day. What a man I've snagged! While there we visited with everyone we could (showed several pictures of this trip in my last post). We saw my family, John's family and a few of the extended relatives. Sadly, I saw very few of our friends outside the family - but I did get to see Valerie and for that I'm still eternally grateful!

January and February flew by. John and I attended a couple of parties with friends, but overall it was a lazy Winter. The boys went to Winter Camp with the church, but we have no pics to share of that. They truly enjoyed it, though, and David actually had fun snowboarding for the first time in a long time. (Don't look for him to do it a lot more though. He's stubborn like that.)

March came and John took Zach to Park City, Utah to go skiing. He'd planned on taking him white water rafting for his birthday the July before, but it fell through at the last minute. This trip was the compensation prize. Zach seemed all too happy with it, especially because it was the best snow EVER on a mountain that was super tall and challenging! He is a very advanced skier so he adored the experience. The following day they went snowmobiling in the eastern Idaho mountains with a good friend of John's who lives in Lava Hot Springs. After snowmobiling, they got to soak in the hot springs there, then they headed home. It was truly a memorable weekend for them both!

April brought the usual showers, but it included metaphorically in my case. My MS relapsed for the first time in almost seven years. I lost all motor control on my left side and saw several new doctors. Thanks to God, I recovered fully, and thanks to friends we survived the ordeal. Our small group came together to help with meals and others always offered to help John with things. I was especially grateful he was able to get some time off of work to help me out as I could do so little for myself. I made a full recovery in a month or so and have since undertaken a new diet regimen, learning I have a wheat intolerance and candida issue that requires I not eat sugar, grains or take in much dairy - maybe for years. The upside is I lost a lot of weight this summer. Hooray for that! And I've felt pretty darn good since I changed my diet. Just yesterday, I was given the go-ahead by my doctor to try an off-label medicine for my MS that that I'd researched and requested. It wont harm me like the other drugs but can only help. God is good!

So anyway, in May I attended an MS fund-raiser downtown and volunteered to be their poster child. (That's me up there at the event.) They raised decent money. The only sad part was I could not yet dance - but I could generally walk and that was quite the upside indeed! The downside was I had to cut off my hair so John could take care for it for me while I couldn't do it myself. But, It's grown on me, though I do think I'll let it grow back now, Somewhere in here, you'll notice David cut off his locks as well. He sent them to Locks of Love in the form of a 12 inch braid. Someone will make good use of that!

In June we celebrated John's birthday with a Tiki party (above). A nice Hawaiian theme with a bunch of friends over. It was awesome. Zach celebrated his in July while we were on vacation - something he now hates and requests he get to be home over his birthday this year. Only time will tell! We'll see what Santa brings this next July...

In 2010 however, we went to California, baby! It was fantabulous! We first went to Eureka, California and attended a wedding of some good friends John knew from his Burning Man adventures. After that we traveled to the Redwoods, keeping camp in Eureka for those few days. The trees were towering and magnificent, very humbling. During our time in the area,we visited a couple of beaches - but dang that water was cold! While deep in the forest, David drove the Jeep. It was his first time driving on the "road" and albeit a dirt road, it was an exciting experience!

From the Redwoods we traveled to San Francisco. Exploring the city wasn't David's favorite and he determined not to join us on Day 2, but we go to see all of the wonderful tourist attractions from the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz to Chinatown and Height/Ashbury. We drove down Lombard Street while Alex ran ahead to take pictures. Zach got out his bike and rode up a 45 degree angled street for a couple of blocks, then back down. We also biked in Golden gate park. Except for my bike getting a flat it was a great success!

After that we went to Lake Tahoe and Reno. We stayed with some more friends there and the males all went for a single track bike ride at Tahoe while I red a good book on the beach. It's not an overstatement to say the lake is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. If you ever get a chance - visit!

The rest of August and September flew by like the rest. We enjoyed some days riding the Greenbelt (a bike path that follows the river through town), and John went to Burning Man. We had an influx of people from all over the country, including John's brother Trae! While they spent a week in a desert, the boys and I prepared for a new year of school and enjoyed a bit of a vacation from tidiness and 3 square meals a day. I tried to learn to hula-hoop, and am still learning albeit slowly since I don't own one.

October brought me to 40 and the town threw me birthday parties (although they called them Halloween parties). I dressed as the Queen of hearts and John was my jester. It was a blast as we hung out with friends and celebrated throughout the night. David made me a gluten free chocolate cake and it was super yummy! (Though it did make me crave sugar again - and he holidays aren't helping!)

November brought Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the wonderful food as always thanks to provision from above. We are thankful for John still being employed despite our struggles. We are thankful for our family, both close to us and far away, and we are thankful for every day we get to live and fulfill the purpose set out for us no matter how big or small that looks like on any given day. We are also thankful the boys grew a ton, as much in character as size, and all are healthy and following the path of their destiny!

This brings us to today. It's December and almost Christmas. It's a time to think not just of presents and trees, lights and family, but of the reason for the season. Commercialism has tried to kill the meaning of Christmas. Profit and greed seem to rule in the hearts of many, not just the companies selling merchandise but in individuals grasping for that last item on the shelf during a sale and children feeling entitled to the most expensive things in order to keep up with their friends. The reason for the season is not found in stuff but in our hearts, and of all the things we could give one another that's the only one with any true meaning or lasting value.

So here is my Christmas message to you: Give your heart away this year. Whether it be to loved ones, friends in need or beggars on the corner. Meet your neighbors. Bake them cookies. Get acquainted. Say hi to the mailman. Smile in the checkout lanes. Enjoy life, not alone but with others. Give of yourself and of your talents. Give of your hearts. Together, let's share some love this Christmas!

Merry Christmas and God Bless you in 2011!