Christmas Letter 2010

Dear Friends and Family, 12/13/2010

What a year! This year we moved again for the 7^th time in our 11-year marriage, 2^nd time in 2 years. But don’t get me wrong; I actually love the new adventure that comes with each new location. We are now in a beautiful and tiny little Haida village called Kasaan. We have thoroughly enjoyed the visitors that we’ve had here so far and are looking forward to more when the salmon return this summer.

Sammie will be turning 5 this week. She got to start Kindergarten this year and she loves it. She spends a couple hours a day actually in class and the rest of it hanging out and playing at the school. She still enjoys hanging out with Mom, but has decided the big kids are more fun and will follow them around whenever possible.

Josh is 7 now. He still loves spending time in his room playing with cars, but is getting slightly better at playing with others also. He has a pretty good group of classmates to play with and the area around our home is a little boy’s paradise. They have a stream, forest, beach, and a basketball court, plus plenty of places to ride bikes.

Liz is 9. She is a great friend with each of her siblings. She has a wonderful imagination and is always the one to get them all started on wonderful games of pretend. Liz shot her 1^st deer this year, a large doe. She especially loves primary this year because two of the families in the branch have brand new babies that they often let Liz help with.

Caleb will be 11 next month. He seems to be growing up very quick lately. He shot his second deer this year, and helped Grandpa Richmond find a great one during his visit. He’s become his dad’s best hunting and fishing buddy. He’s also getting pretty good at splitting and stacking firewood. We nicknamed him Eeyore for a while, but lately he’s developed a much more cheerful, optimistic attitude.

Stewart is even busier than usual this year. He’s the lead teacher for the 14 students at our school. That means he basically acts as both principal and teacher. And because the school has kindergarten through 12^th grade he does a lot of lesson planning and organizing besides the actual teaching. Luckily he has the help of some great aides that help him cover multiple classrooms. He drives our older students 45 minutes each way to sports practices in Thorne Bay at least a couple times a week. He is working on a master’s degree on-line and serving as young men’s president at church. I’m not sure how he fits it all into the day, but I know he sleeps good.

I’m staying quite busy myself this year. I’m working full time at the school as an aide. I love the social interaction with the other aides and getting to be with my husband and kids all day everyday. I’m also STILL working on my teaching degree. I should graduate about this time next year. With my graduation will come another move. We’ll need a school that at least needs two teachers.

This past year has left me feeling extremely blessed. I am very thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and the amazing blessings that come with it. I am very thankful for our extensive group of family and friends. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season!!

Love,

Stewart, Carrie, Caleb, Liz, Josh, and Sammie Hughes

The Rut

OK, this post is a little slow. A month ago my Dad and brother came to hunt black tails. Stewart was able to take the week off to hunt with them. They also got some wonderful help from some of the high school boys. Stewart and Regan got these two nice four points on the same day.Then a day or two later Caleb and my Dad managed to find a trophy of their own. Caleb spotted it and got a couple shots at it, but Grandpa was the one that was finally able to hit it.

The three deer together are pretty impressive. I would've been happy with those three, but they also managed to bring home a 2x3, a spike, a doe, and a fawn (it was a buck- but barely). I'd say it was a very successful week of hunting.

Thankful!

On this day before Thanksgiving, I'm taking a short break from making pies to write a brief thankful list.

• My family - here and far away
• My warm home that I love
• A wonderful new aide at school
• my husband that is blind to weight (lost or gained)
• my four year old that calls me her buddy
• three other children that keep me busy, tired, and happy
• computers to connect me to the world
• phones to call home
• good books
• a comfortable bed - and the chance to sleep in tomorrow!
• a car that continues to run - most of the time
• a long weekend
• prayer - and especially answers to prayers
• my health

Times up, I need to take pies out of the oven.

Competition

Ok, most of my readers have already heard this, but just in case, I'm going to repeat it.

My amazing sister-in-law is in the finals of a competition to go on a once in a life time hunting trip to New Zealand. She was in first place for a while, but has slipped to second. Everyone can vote once for each e-mail address. If you have multiple e-mail addresses please use them all!! She needs all the votes she can get. She's an amazing person and she deserves this trip!! Please pass this on to everyone you know!!! (in fact passing it on to strangers would be good too!)

PLEASE VOTE for PAULA RICHMOND at http://www.tahoefilms.com/poll.php?poll_id=6

My reader!

Caleb has never been really behind in reading, but it hasn't ever been something he enjoyed. This year he's suddenly reading chapter books without being pushed into it. I went to wake him up for school the other day and found him reading. I was so excited I took a picture! I hope he's hooked.

Halloween

We got to go to two different carnivals this year. One with our church group and one with the community. Caleb was the only one that chose to use the same costume twice. Mostly because it's the only one I own that fits him. I'm going to have to get some new ones next year. This is The crew at the church carnival.

The next week was the community carnival. We invited the missionaries out to help us run the booths. We ended up having plenty of help and they just got to hang out and visit with people. I think everyone had a good time.
The kids also went trick or treating, and with only 14 kids in town there was PLENTY of candy to go around. Sammie took an ice cream bucket and filled it to the top with the first 8 houses. I don't think of my kids as sheltered from most of life's experiences, but it came to my attention this weekend that my children had never tasted pop rocks candy. I wish I would have video taped the event. But you'll just have to take my word that it was pretty entertaining!!

Our Mighty Hunter

My little girl shot her first deer today! It was a very nice sized doe. She shot it right through the neck and didn't ruin any of the meat. She was almost as excited as her dad, and wanted to share a picture.