Sharon's Clan 2017

Sharon, Pam & Ray

Hello everyone       mom and I are doing our letter together this year .As a lot of you know we moved mom here to the great state of  Montana in November It was quite a move , Jeff and Sandra came to help also .don't know how we did it but if it hadn't been for Kim we, would probably still be there .     Not a great year for 2017   as far as weather goes winter went on endlessly and then when  it got nice we were on fire , lasted till about first snowfall.  This didn't help Rays health at all but he did squeeze a couple one day fishing trips to Helena.    I didn't get to do a lot this year but am looking forward to 2018   and seeing as many of you as we can.            Here's some from mom   

Ok its my turn sure k
MISS EVERONE IN STARVALLEY especially neva and marisella  .the house and truck still haven't sold in case anyone is interested.  As soon as it sells I’m gonna buy the old house and fix it up as a bed and breakfast if marisella will sell it to me.  Looking forward to the family reunion in Hill city S.D.  when bob and I were there before Chris took us thru the park you could almost reach out and touch the presidents.on the dirt banks you could see speckles of gold.  Sure was a lot of buffalo.  Be good to see you all.  - Love Sharon and Pam and Ray

Kim and Bryan

Dear Humpherys Family

I just received Barry’s email about the family news letter and decided now was as good a time as any…let’s get er done!

2017 was an eventful year.  January thru March was the usual waiting for winter to end and the babies to start arriving.  We both spend our evenings looking at stud books together  and discussing  (arguing haha) who would compliment each mare.  We have a young stallion and we are feeling pretty good about his off spring so far.  One of them I will start running this summer.  We have a couple of others who are getting some training now, and we look for good things from them. All I know is, if we were doing this for the money we would be in trouble, but the happiness it brings to both of us keeps us going.  It takes a long time to build a reputation and get a few out there running and proving themselves.  Although I do my best to help with the chores when I’m off on the weekends, Bryan keeps everything rolling.  He puts up all the hay, does the daily chores, and puts up with me.  I’m very lucky to have him. 

I had a fun season barrel racing.  Years ago I read an article in the quarter horse publication about a mother, daughter and grand daughter barrel racing together.  When I read that I thought…we need to be doing something with all of these horses.  It took awhile to get it all going, but this year, mother, daughter, grand daughter and grand son all competed.  Sawyer and Sophia both did the pattern on their own, while Mandy, Chris and I stood on the side lines holding our breath.  Of course they wear helmets and we have put them on a very safe horse, but as anyone knows…things can happen.  They have both gained so much confidence and it will be fun to see where it all goes.  We have met some wonderful friends with kids and it’s a good family thing.  Chris is a saint.  He too helps keep things going.  I will brag on Mandy a little because I know she won’t in her letter.  She and Josie are a site to be seen!  I love watching them run.  She always gives me pointers and I listen because she’s a dang good rider.  I’m not going to lie…I’m living a bit of a dream getting to do what I love with my daughter and grand kids.  And I’ll repeat the part about being thankful for Bryan and Chris because none of it would happen without them. 

Bryan and the crew had a good year hunting.  His daughter Kresha got a nice buck this fall. We had hunters come in to hunt the pheasants.  Although the pheasant numbers are down in the state, our hunters have had some good hunts.  Bryan has done a lot over the years to help the population.  He plants food plots to help them winter and he is conservative about not over hunting the land.  No big game this year, but he did fill the freezer with a steer we traded for hay.  Bryan fattened him up with corn and he’s pretty good eating!

The other big event this year was moving Mom from Wyoming to Montana.  This was not an easy thing for Mom.  We got the entire house and contents moved in about 4 days.  Jeff and Sandra, Pam, Bryan and I along with help from the church and family dug in and worked till it was done.  A pending storm in Montana caused us to kick it up several notches and knock 2 days off of the initial estimate to get it done.  It was hard.  It was especially hard for Mom, but I’m proud of her and I’m thankful that she is in Montana and can enjoy my wonderful sister and Ray.  I wish she would have considered coming here, but let’s be honest…Eastern South Dakota is a far cry from Wyoming.  I’ve grown to love it, but if it weren’t for my family here, I would pack up and head for the mountains.  I think you always long for the type of area you grew up in. 

We are in charge of the family reunion this year.  I will send out a separate email with details.  We’ve decided on Black Hills of South Dakota.  I am hoping that many of you will be able to come.  The Black Hills can rival the beauty of Montana, Idaho or Wyoming.  Mt Rushmore is in the Black Hills, along with tons of other activities.  Mt Rushmore is truly something that I think everyone should see at least once in their lifetime.  The High Country Ranch, just outside of Hill City will be our central location.  I really love this place and have stayed there many times over the years.  I am actually going a couple of days prior to the family reunion so I can make sure everything is ready, plus enjoy a few days to ride.

So as a wrap up…it’s still pretty much the same thing.  Work, hunting, horses and do it all over again until we can’t anymore…which hopefully will be a very long time.  Like all of you…sometimes life is great and sometimes it’s a challenge.  I’m thankful for my Humpherys family roots, which I believe makes us tough.  Bryan and I recently saw a movie called 12 Strong.  It was a great movie, but more importantly it made me once again appreciate the sacrifices our military has made for all of us.  I have told the story to many how Grandpa enlisted while still having a young family at home to go and fight for our country.  That patriotism runs deep in our family.  Let’s make sure all of those young ones know the sacrifices that were made by Grandpa Dean and Grandma Neva and other family members. Let’s never take it for granted. 

Thank you Barry for doing the news letter.  Thank you Kenny’s family for a great family reunion.  It was so fun and well organized. 

Looking forward to what this year will bring. 

Love to all!  Kim and Bryan

Mandy & Chris
 Wonderful Family,

Can’t believe it is newsletter time again and that another year has come and gone!  Here are a few highlights of what happened this last year in the Williams household!

Sawyer and Sophia turned six in January.  Can’t believe that we sent our babies off to Kindergarten this year….seemed like we blinked and they were starting school!  They have really been enjoying school this year and are doing extremely well.  We are very proud of the polite, smart, kind kids that they are!  A few new things that they have enjoyed this year together are t-ball, swimming lessons, horse riding lessons, and they also participated in an American Ninja Warrior class at our local gymnastics gym.          

Sophia is my little spit fire!  She has a zest for life and likes to be lovingly ornery to her brother!  She loves to tease him that she is the older one and took full advantage of this status back in January.  We were at the Black Hills Stock Show celebrating Mom’s 60^th Birthday and Sawyer entered into a roping contest for kids his age (which he did quite well and roped the steer dummy 3 out of 5 times!).  There was a little girl that wanted Sophia to play with her while the competition was going on.  Sophia kindly said, “I can’t right now because I need to watch my little brother rope!”  Oh my!!  I’m glad she takes that two minutes older in life thing pretty seriously and makes sure that Sawyer knows he is her “little brother”!  Too bad Sawyer is about 3 inches taller than her so it appears that she is the “younger sister!” HA!:)  Sophia also really enjoys singing along with her karaoke machine.  She has quite the little voice and loves to put some dance moves in while singing to her Kids Bop CD.  Sophia also has a love for making arts and crafts.  She got an art table for Christmas and you will find her quite often sitting at it designing and creating very unique things.  I was blessed beyond measure to find a whole basketful of birthday gifts that she had been lovingly creating for me for quite some time and secretly storing them until it was time for my birthday!  I felt loved for sure!:)  Sophia is quite the little smarty pants and has self-taught herself how to write her first and last name in cursive just by watching me write.  She also started reading the chapter book Charlotte’s Web here recently.  Needless to say she loves school!             

Sawyer is my little softy.  He loves his family and loves spending time with us!  Even though his sister likes to pick on him, he is her knight in shining armor and will do anything to make her happy.  He is very protective and is always looking out for her.  He is going to make one awesome husband some day!  Sawyer is still my little sports nut.  You will find him with some sort of ball in the house 24/7 at home.  He can’t wait for us to put up his basketball hoop that he got for Christmas so that he can start practicing outside as soon as the weather warms up.  He has quite the arm and did very well hitting and throwing on the t-ball team this year.  It was pretty cute because he went to a kid’s baseball camp that our local town baseball team put on.  They had all the kid’s up close fielding the balls as the kids would take turns hitting the balls either off the tee or pitches that the coaches would pitch to them.  When Sawyer got up there, he hit a smoking line drive at the coach on the first pitch and then one that hit the back gym wall on the second pitch.  Needless to say they had the other kids back up after those two!:)  Sawyer also really enjoys hunting.  He got a BB gun this Christmas and enjoys going hunting for sparrows and rabbits and also shooting target practice.  He is also learning how to rope.  His practice targets are the goats that we bought for the kids a couple years ago.  We thought it would be a “fun” idea at the time to buy these cute, little goats for the kids to play with….they were cute for awhile,… but then we quickly realized they are also LOUD and SMELLY and ANNOYING!!  I guess it’s all worth it when you see Sawyer running around having a blast  chasing them and trying to rope the little buggers!   He is also doing well in school and really enjoys math!

Chris is on his 11th year of working at Trail King.  He very recently got promoted to an engineering manager!  He is very well respected within the company by not only his peers, but also the customers that he designs trailers for.  He and his dad continue to hobby farm on his grandparents land in Winner, as well as still doing a little dirt work with their excavator and custom harvesting in the fall.  I am very thankful for the amazing husband and father that he is and how hard he works to provide for our family.    

Since the twins started Kindergarten this year, I am finally back to work as an educator again!  I am a paraprofessional in the Plankinton School District where the twins go to school.  It is very nice to be in the same school as them.  I thank God for his timing and faithfulness as I turned down a couple teaching positions in other school districts because I didn’t have peace about them and really wanted to be in the same school district as the kids.  He provided this para position at the beginning of November and it has been really nice.  I work one on one with students in the Special Ed room.  It has been the best of both worlds as I am back to working with students but don’t have all the responsibilities, lesson planning, and correcting as a classroom teacher would have.  Getting to leave when the bell rings with the kids is priceless!        

We are looking forward to another year of horses, riding, and barrel racing with the family.  The summer is pretty much spent with all things horses.  It is a blessing that we get to do this alongside mom.  She is my rock and is there before and after every run.  We both had pretty good years!  She started the year off rocking it at the State NBHA finals winning quite a bit of moolah and I had to spend the rest of the year trying to win enough money to beat her amount!:)  Don’t know if I ever quite got there or not….I think it was pretty close!  We aren’t the least bit competitive are we?!  Don’t know where we get that from!?  Mom also won a beautiful breast collar and a couple other prizes at some different races and I was thrilled when I placed 3^rd in the 1D this last summer at the Blazin Barrels Finals and won a pretty nice check and chore cart.  The twins officially “ran” their first race ALL BY THEMSELVES on their horse, Sugar at a couple of the races.  It’s one thing to run alongside with them, but it’s a whole new level as a mom to let your five year old child go out in an open arena by themselves to trot through the pattern on a live horse.  Wowzers!  There was a lot of praying going on!  It was cute because before one of their first runs, I was telling Sawyer, “ Now make sure you look at where you are riding to, and make sure you are paying attention to what you are doing so you go on the correct side of the barrel, and MOST IMPORTANT….and before I could say pull back on the reins if Sugar starts to take off, Sawyer says, “ I know, I know Mom, just go out there and have fun!”  Yah, that too buddy but also PULL BACK ON THE REINS IF SUGAR STARTS TO TAKE OFF!!  LOL! I am excited to see what this summer brings! 

Hoping we get to see as many of you as possible at this year’s reunion in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota!  It truly is a breathtaking area with so many things to do and see!  Love and miss you all! 

With Love, Chris, Mandy, Sawyer, and Sophia Williams