Our Time in Wyoming...

As many of you know and some may not, Derrick and I are filming for our own TV show on the Sportsman Channel, Ranch Hand Horizons. It will be airing the last week of December through June 2012. Ranch Hand Truck Accessories, Leupold Optics, and Bison Barrels are our main sponsors and we just got home from a trip to Wyoming where we harvested 4 beautiful animals and got them all on video for the show. We were blessed with a great stay with Hazer Bulkley with High Velocity Outdoors in his home with his wife and beautiful lil girl. Wyoming is unique country, but its gorgeous. Here are our harvest photos. Derrick was quite proud of me :) Which is the #1 reason why I do this. I don't love the killing part, but I enjoy the time with my husband and I appreciate his appreciativeness. I love him so very much, and this whole TV thing is a part of his dream. It is nothing short of TONS and TONS of work. I know most people thing we just get to galavant across America on cool trips, but if everyone only knew how much work we have put into this. First, we spent an entire year earning the opportunity to do this. We competed on North American Safari Challenge on the Sportsman Channel last year which cost a lot of money and tons of time, and then the Sportsman Channel approached us to have our own show. Now, we have full time jobs with this on top of it, which is definitely another full time job. We have the traveling time & expenses, sponsor relations, media kit creations, filming, video editing, scheduling, finding outfitters across America, handling everything at work while we're gone, etc etc which pretty much requires us to work from 6pm to 1am every night after we get home from work. Its extremely stressful, but Derrick wants to see it all through, and I will support him as long as its important to him....

Derrick's Beautiful Mule Deer

Derrick's Trophy Antelope along with Hazer, the best guide we've had!
Check out our Schnazzy new Horizon T-shirts!

My mule deer...may I point out he's bigger than Derrick's :-D

My antelope...ok fine, he's not as big as Derrick's

If you want to follow our adventures, please "Like" our facebook page. The more people we have, the more valuable our page is for sponsors and such. And, we can communicate with everyone as to when the show airs. We'd surely appreciate the support!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ranch-Hand-Horizons/139740802765765

Argentina Days 2 & 3

Whatever your concept of what Argentina looks like, I'm guessing you're wrong if you are anything like me. Holy schmoly...Bariloche, Argentina is BEAUTIFUL!! It is the Swiss Alps of Argentina. In fact, the original European founders of Bariloche were Swiss! They must have come over and found this area and settled here because it reminded them of home! Yesterday we met in city center to meet up with Tarek & his wife, Kate, and us ladies went to Rapa Nui while the guys went to iron out some traveling details for our return flight. Rapa Nui was a chocolate paradise (as Bariloche is known for) and we had a pleasant lunch with Kate and her beautiful kids, Marianna & Sebastian. Interpreting menus here has been a challenge, but a lot of fun. I Love the Spanish language and so wish I was immersed in it in some portion of my life so I retain it better. I've actually been amazed at how much I've pulled out from my high school days as well as my banking days (thank you MaryLynn & Lucy!). We then spent the afternoon visiting the shops & artisans looking for souvenirs and such. We then headed out of town around 5:30 to do some off road sightseeing of the countryside of Bariloche to see some unique parts of Patagonia. Later that night, we ate dinner at a neat little restaurant that had great ambience AND great prices! Argentinians typical schedule is work starts around 9-10. Siestas occur & business shut down between 1ish and 5ish. Then business open back up between 5 and 10 and restaurants open around 8pm but most people don't eat dinner til 9-10pm. That's my kind of schedule!! :) Below are some pictures of our first couple of days adventures!

My first taste of Argentinian chocolate! Thank you Tarek for our welcome here gift.

Lunch at Rapa Nui with our new friends Kate, Marianna, & bebe Sebastian

Just the beginnings of LOADS of chocolate we would see!

Beautiful Helado (ice creams) 

Chocolate!

Did I mention they love their chocolate! :)

A gorgeous Catholic cathedral with a gorgeous view overlooking the lake

Offroading in Patagonia!

Our first dinner out at Bahia Serena

The next day Kate took me, Aunt Laura, & Mom on the Llao Llao hiking trails. It was a GORGEOUS day!

Marianna with her baby, Rosie

We hiked to the water's edge....what beauty!

The Llao Llao hotel...an internationally known destination

We had tea at the Llao Llao...tea was open to anybody who wants to come! See the two 3 platter trays filled with desserts?!

We played on the Llao Llao's playsets...cute big brown eyed Sebastian sliding with Aunt Laura

Whee!

Amazing views!

And then back at the house....Our adorable cabin on the lakeside

Day 1: Argentina

So some of you know and some of you don't that I am currently in Argentina!!! It was a very random trip in the making and was initially inspired by my brother, Jason, whose business partner works down here in Bariloche, Argentina. He had talked my dad into traveling with him just for a new fun experience and after that he had presented the concept to my aunt and uncle who thought it an exciting proposition. After my mom found out that my aunt had committed, she had agreed to go as well. At that point, I DID NOT want to be left out of a once in a lifetime experience so after a small emotional breakdown, Derrick realized how important it was to me to go and he lined things up so that he would have a cameraman on a couple of the hunts for the TV show that would have hindered me from going....thanks babe!
Anyway, we started out on Oct 5th around 4pm. Headed to Houston International for a 9pm flight to Buenos Aires. I am not very good at sleeping on a plane, so I was concerned about this one and sure enough...it didn't go all that great. I slept about 3 hours and froze my tail off the rest of the time. We arrived in Buenos Aires around 9:20am and went through many lines of customs before meeting up with Uncle Doug & Aunt Laura who had gone on a different flight. We found a taxi (remises) service as we then had to change airports from the international to the domestic airport. We bumped along in Buenos Aires traffic for over an hour and finally reached our destination. Buenos Aires is the 2nd largest metropolitan area in South America with ~15 million people!! (Houston has a little over 2 million)....shows you how HUGE this city was! We then boarded our flight from Buenos Aires to Esquel. We were originally supposed to fly directly into Bariloche but there is an active volcano eruption since June near Bariloche and depending on the wind direction, the airport opens and closes due to ash in the air. So, unfortunately, it was closed so we landed in Esquel and then boarded a bus for a 4 hour journey back up to Bariloche. I didn't get much more sleep the whole journey as my plane mate on flight #2 was an elderly Argentinian lady who didn't speak much English and who sat in the window seat instead of the aisle seat like she was supposed to. (I can only sleep if I am able to lean up against a wall). Then on the bus, we were the last ones to board and the only available seat for me was an aisle seat next to a tri-lingual man from Switzerland. That was kind of cool though as my heritage (Kaspar) is Swiss so we talked about the home country for a while :)
We arrived at the Bariloche airport around 9pm where Tarek, Jason's friend & business partner) was there to pick us up. He brought us back to our cabin, which is TOTALLY cute. Reminds me of a little chatel you'd find in Wyoming or Colorado...all made of cypress and overlooking a gorgeous lake. Bariloche is known as the Swiss Alps of South America! This was my morning view!!

Thank you Lord for making the beautiful world of Bariloche, Argentina!

Game On!

"If you could wake up tomorrow and be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do...what would it be?"


I know the limitations of the world stifle this thought. Money. Geography. Commitments. Money. Fear. Pride. Money. Education. Prejudice. I know this isn't a 100% fool proof question as there are things that are unhealthy that we want in life and instant gratification has become the theme for our generation. I also know that certain things are impossible so I'm not trying to use this question naively. One moment that stood out to me in high school was when my English teacher said "Everyone tells you to step out and be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do. Don't let anyone tell you that. That's a bunch of crock! If you're not Catholic, you just can't be the Pope!" ha. She was kind of a bitter old lady, but I remember that thought stuck to me because I tend to be a general realist, and thought it was kind of profound, without being terribly discouraging.


However beyond that tangent....I am talking deep down...not necessarily the day to day stuff as everyone has to deal with the mundane of life sometimes. But, is your heart happy? Are you creating the life you desire for yourself? Are you pursuing the man/woman you love? Are you lining yourself up for a rewarding career (whatever rewarding means to you...probably means different things to different people and that's ok). Are you setting yourself up to live in the place where you want to spend the rest of your life. Obviously different stages of life dictate different answers to these questions, but this quote in the movie I watched tonight stuck hard.
Life is only lived once. I want to live it to the fullest. Looking towards and living for eternity with my Savior, but making the dent in this world that He created me to make. And I believe that nothing delights Him more than seeing us fulfill the destiny we were created for and finding joy in our lives.


Game On! Make a decision today that moves your life towards joy.