Hee-Haugh

5 months in 5 minutes...

2010-03-16T18:53:00.003-05:00

I have about 5 minutes between clients to post some pictures. We have a ton of pictures but this is a quick look at the last 5 months. There has been so much to go on and our lives are crazy. We both go non stop so it's hard to keep this site updated.

So after my last blog about deer hunting....

I shot another deer at dad's property

Dad and Uncle Randy both shot deer

I caught a huge rainbow trout

Cass caught a fish or two

Cass made some great treats

We got snow

We began renting a house with a pond/lake

I finally got a picture of the house ( I am more excited about the pond so I only took pictures of it, not the house)

Graham fell asleep

I went jug fishing

AND WE GOT A PUPPY!!!

This is Sawyer! She is the best thing.

Okay my 5 minutes went a little long but there is so much more to our lives. This was just a highlight. If you really want to know how things are going, come visit us! We have a downstairs you can stay in and a ping pong table where I can beat you. My client is here...

First Deer of the Season

2009-11-16T09:45:00.003-06:00

I harvested my first deer of the season Saturday. It was the opening day of gun season and we had just run out of meat so the rule applied "if it's brown, it's down". I have been bow hunting pretty hard at a friends property for the past 2 weeks. I've seen deer almost every time I go out and half of those times I have seen shooter bucks. It's been very exciting but also a little frustrating. There have been probably 4 or 5 times that I would have been able to take one of these nice shooter bucks with a gun, but as all the bow hunters that's why we do it this way. I'm going to tell you the story in a bit but I need to tell you what I've learned first.
I strongly believe that God will and can work in your life in what ever way possible. I have found that one of the ways He shows himself to me is through hunting. Notice I said hunting and not killing because as my dad would said "If you killed something every time you went out it would be called killing, not hunting". Over the last 3-4 years I have been spending most of my hunting time by myself. This is due to school and moving and lots of other reasons. When I was in high school I always hunted with my dad and we had those great times together going in and coming out of the deer woods. Those times are very special to me and something I will always hold "deer" to my heart. But since I have been "out on my own" I have learned that every one does not bow hunt and in fact most people don't bow hunt and on top of that the ones that do are so protective of their locations and knowledge that there is no way of building relationships with them. I have been blessed to meet a couple really good guys that like to bow hunt here in Searcy, AR and we have been able to share some of the joys of hunting together. But with school and work schedules going every different direction it is hard to coordinate times to get in the woods together. So again this year I have found myself driving to and from the wood alone. Now that everyone is done having their pity party for me I would like to tell you the most prolific positive that has come from these experiences.
I love to wrestle with thoughts on God and meanings of what ever is happening around me. I love to get to experience the relational side of God. I love to talk to God and ask crazy questions and beg for miraculous answers. So, for the past 3-4 years I have loved being alone in the woods. Don't get me wrong, I miss so much spending every hunt with my dad, uncles, grandfathers, cousins, etc. but because I love all of the things stated before, I love being alone with God. I am a funny creature (as I think every human is) in the fact that I ask God the same questions over and over and he gives me the same answer over and over. The difference with God is that he doesn't seem to give me the answers in the same way. I see it like this... "Okay ZACH, you didn't get it that way, let me try to explain it to you this way." And when I think I get it and still ask again He just smiles and laughs and tries again. I guess you could say I am think headed. Well here I am, another deer season, same old questions. I can't really put into words what God and I talk about but if I had to it would sound something like this "God are you active in my life... specifically in my hunting life?" I know this might sound a little crazy and believe me as I reread that I think it's crazy also. Of course He is active in my life, how many times do I need Him to prove that? But, I still find myself in a tree stand wondering what role God plays in all of this hunting stuff. He plays a BIG ROLE! This goes back to what I said earlier about how God works in our lives in whatever way possible and He knows that nature/hunting/His creation/quiet time are all ways that He can reveal Himself and speak to me... personally! I say this because there may be some hunters out there that disagree with my for lack of evidence in their own hunting lives but my response to that is maybe hunting is not the optimal way for God to reveal Himself to you. Maybe it's through your job or family or church or anything, because I strongly believe He can use anything.
I do need to add that God has been so faithful to me in so many areas of my life and I am abundantly thankful for Him. But, there has just been something incredible special for me, personally, in the way that God uses hunting in my life. With that here is the story of my first deer of the season.

Every year around the beginning of November the "men" from our church get together and have a camping trip. We usually leave Friday midday/evening and set up camp, go to bed really late and then get up and hike to some beautiful spots (yet another way God can reveal Himself to us). Cassandra and I have been going to CrossWalk for over a year now and last year was my first camping trip with the boys. It was such a blast that this year I was pumped to go until I found out that it was planned for the opening day of gun season. Here is my dilemma, I can't remember ever missing an opening day of gun season and I know I will love to go camping with the guys. I talked to the head of this operation and he said we would be camping on the Ouachita Trail. I looked up the spot and found that it was located in a WMA (Wildlife Management Area). This meant that it was a public hunting area. I first told them of this and asked if they still wanted to camp in an area that hunters would be shooting at anything that moves. They still wanted to go. Now I'm stuck, miss the camping trip and go to my friend's property for the opening day of gun season where I've seen shooter bucks almost every day, or go camping with the guys from my church and get up early to wonder some woods I've never seen before and have no idea where the deer might be? I decided to choose the latter and just spend the following week hunting my friend's property hard. As I was packing for my trip I grabbed the last of the deer meat from the freezer and marinaded it for a couple of days. Last year I packed in some deer steaks and we cook them over the firer and the boys loved them so I wanted to do that for them again. There is nothing like eating back straps over a campfire. With the last of the deer meat in hand I hiked to camp site and met up with the guys who were already there. We ate so much as almost got sick and we loved every minute of it. We stayed up really late and I was the second to turn in for the night right behind a guy who had to run a 17 mile marathon the next day (yeah I know he is crazy). The next morning I heard him stirring around 5:40 AM and I laid there until 5:55 or so. Then I got up, stoked the fire so they would have some warmth when they go up, put on my orange, and head began walking into the wind. I didn't get 50 yards from camp when I realized it was still dark enough that I couldn't see very far so I wait 15 minutes or so for the sun to come up and give me a better understanding of where I am. At this point I noticed the lay of the land and could see a large bowl shaped developed out of the hills. I decided to hunt this seeing as it was exactly how we hunt in West Virginia. I moved down into the bowl until I got to a spot the was about half way down the hill and in a small bubble shape. I sat on the edge of this "bubble" and could see the entire bottom flat. This was at about 7 AM when I sat down and began listening.
I looked at my watch at saw that it was not 7:39 AM and I told myself that I would wait until 8 before getting up and moving a little because I was getting cold. No more that 2 minutes later I hear the crunching sound that gets your heart going 100 MPH. I look to my right and coming off of the steepest part of the hill was a brown body. I jumped up and get really excited because I knew it was a deer and the freezer was empty so if I had the chance I was shooting. I noticed very quickly that this deer was on a mission which means one thing.... it's a buck in rut. I pull my gun up and check the head and sure enough there is bone. Now my heart went from 100 MPH to 150MPH and my adrenaline shot through the roof. You have to remember now that I thought there was no way I would even be able to see a deer let alone possible take one, and a buck at that. So I do not have anything on me that I usually carry like a grunt tube or water or anything. Just me, my orange, and my 30-30.
As the buck walked through the bottom flat I noticed the direction he was headed would take him almost directly uphill to the camp site. There was a 30 second window where he dipped behind the knoll I was on and I took this opportunity to slide 20-30 yards closer to the point that I thought he might come into view as he headed uphill. Sure enough he was on the same path and I pulled my gun up as soon as I saw his head again. The next chain of events seem to take 10-15 minutes but in reality it was closer to 10-15 seconds. I put the scope right on him and he stopped, just like all good bucks do, directly behind a tree. He was looking around and then started walking again. He stopped one more time and what do you know he was right behind another tree. This time I almost shot anyway hoping to make it through the brush, but before I could make a decision he began walking again. Quickly I realized it was now or never because he was headed uphill fast and this was my only window. So as he was walking I aimed for the front of his shoulder and at about 80 - 90 yards I pulled the trigger. He folded up and fell like a sack of potatoes! In my joy and excitement I still practiced gun safety, just like dad taught me, and I ejected my shell and put the safety on. I half jogged over to him and at 10 yards or so I noticed a leg kick so I pulled up and finished the job. The next flood of feelings can not be described, only experienced! After 5 minutes of some serious fist pumping and muffled cheers I decided to go to work.
The story does not end here... I was so excited and the adrenaline was pumping so much that my thoughts were a little scattered. The next thing I know I was elbow deep in a deer with no gloves and no water to clean off. After this was all done I threw my gun over my shoulder and hung my jacket on my head and began dragging this deer back to camp. Now there is a fine line here between prideful and being proud of your accomplishments, but let me tell you it was a good feeling to get to drag an 8 point into camp with all of my friends there waiting. We cheered and high fived of a while and took some great pictures. Then I strapped him to my back pack and drug him back to the car. I hung him up in Searcy that evening and skinned him, then Cassandra and I got up early Sunday morning and quartered him out so we could put it on ice. Now I'm not sure if it's called "redneck" or "appalachian" (I like appalachian) to get up before church to quarter up your deer. Cassandra and I cut it up last night after church and we still have to find someone with a grinder to make the burger.
Needless to say it was a great weekend! Here are the pictures my the deer.

And just a cool side note... dad was able to take a nice 7 point Friday evening so the Haugh boys are officially "The Bone Collectors"! Here are a couple pictures of his deer.

Don't be mad at us.... it has been a long summer.

2009-10-12T11:06:00.003-05:00

So, we haven't exactly been keeping up with the postings. Life has been a world wind of a blast and it's kind of weird to think that what just happened could be called a summer. Whatever happened to summer vacation and trips with the family and feeling so bored because it had been such a lazy summer. My mind is about to explode trying to think about what I need to update everyone on. There is so much that has been happening that I will inevitably forget at least 15 things so bare with me. Cassandra and I have moved from Maumelle to Searcy and we are renting a nice little house on 604 N. Hussey St. you can google maps the address and get a street view if you so desire. We actually live 3 houses down from cousin Tara but because we all are going 150MPH in different directions we never really get much time to see each other. The last few weeks have been swamped with getting the house ready. We are starting to feel more comfortable in this house, but poor Steve (our lab) is not fairing to well on the wooden floors. One of the main reasons we were talking about moving was because the drive and the cost of gas was getting out of hand for me and this semester was only going to be worse. We still had to figure out what to do about money and just like always God comes through for us and Cassandra lands a job with Capstone Treatment Center in Judsonia. This is were I work on Fridays and were I hope to be working after this program is over. I went from at least 2 hours a day in the car to only getting in a car once a week or so. I ride my bike to school and anywhere else I can and I love the change. Here are some pictures from the summer. I hope to do better at updating in the future.

There was a lot of fishing this summer.

Cassandra fishing the culverts at Gin Creek

Josh and I with a bass he caught and a gar I shot with my bow

Me at Lake Willastein

Steve taking a break from fishing on a sandy beach on the Arkansas River. He hasn't been doing to well. He is back on steroids which seem to be the best for him right now.

Steve taking another break on our blow up mattress. We had to use this as our couch for the first few weeks but we have a nice couch now from Cassandra's brother Nick.

Cassandra and I went back to Jasper for our 3 year anniversary and stayed in the same cabin as we did on our honeymoon.

We went camping/jug fishing with Matt and Lindsay and baby Graham on a beach on the Arkansas River.

These are some flowers for our new house. Hopefully we will be able to post more pictures of the house later.

Then we went to The Avett Brothers concert in Little Rock and let me tell you something, it was awesome! They are such a great band and if you haven't heard them you need to quickly.

Our seats were dead center, second row. We hadn't planned on going because of the price of tickets but at the last minute a friend called and told us she had 2 extra tickets we could have for free!!! I know, crazy!!! Anyway, they might be my favorite band right now.

We do not have internet at our house so whenever we do blog again it will have to be done here at the counseling center but hopefully that won't be to long from now.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

2009-07-14T16:16:00.002-05:00

It's mom's birthday today. She is turning 30 today so call her and wish her a happy 30th birthday! I love you mom!

Arkansas Twisters

2009-07-12T21:48:00.002-05:00

Claire, Justin, Cassandra, and I went to an Arkansas Twisters game. It is arena football and it was fun. There weren't many fans there but we had fun. They won and we cheered.

Here is a picture of Cassandra, Claire, and Justin with some expensive nachos.

This is a shot of the field. It was a neat experience.

We have a lot more to blog about but the computer is moving slow so keep checking and we'll let you all in on the cool things we are doing.

Dinosaur Cake

2009-05-10T21:05:00.008-05:00

Compass group, (our church's version of small group) was at our house this week and I thought that I might try to make a really cute cake I found online. Here is the product of this little thought.....

The original cake was a chocolate one I think, so I substituted blueberries and strawberries for the chocolate decorations. A little bit more summery and a little healthier or so I tell myself. I had to have something to balance out all the cream cheese.
Blueberry Cream Cheese Cake...baked fresh in the stoneware pan Mamaw gave me. :)

Green cream cheese frosting

The two round cakes after I free-hand carved them into the dino shape.

The finished product!

My bowl of fresh blueberries, the frosting, and my hot cup of water with which I cleaned my spatula between smoothings. Ha! What a professional, right? :D

So, if you know anyone in the market for a cheap, specialty, cake made with great love in the central arkansas area, send 'em my direction. :D

It sure was fun to spend the day in the kitchen. The cake turned out pretty cute and it was pretty tasty. I felt that it was a rewarding project. :)

Dr. Moore's Pond and the latest Bowfishing trip

2009-04-29T14:40:00.001-05:00

Rachael and Blake's Wedding

2009-04-19T20:29:00.014-05:00

Zach and I went to the wedding of a VERY good friend of mine from high school last weekend. Her name is Rachael. It was nice to catch up with some old friends and the wedding and reception were beautiful. Here are some pictures.

Zach and I in the car between the wedding and reception.

There were so many people there that the reception hall was full as well as the outdoor patio tent. This is the tent before it was filled to the brim with guests.

The bride's cake. Notice the bowls of water filled with white flowers holding up the glass platter for the cake. Cool, huh?

A view of the gorgeous satin covered chairs in the reception hall and the calla lillies and tulips at each table. WOW!

Zach and I in the dark reception hall in one of the sitting areas. Sorry it's blurry, the flash on our camera is broken. (Please refer to the rock climbing blog from a few months ago where I dropped the camera off a 30 foot cliff).

Rachael and Blake being serenaded by her family, "I say a little prayer for you!"

Here are a few pictures of the gift I made for the Jones'. It's a magnet board. I bought flat sheet metal and an open-backed frame, cut the sheet metal to size, fit it in the frame and then, I made personalized magnets for them of their engagement photos and some quotes about love. It was fun, easy, and between you and me, pretty cheap!

And, to finish...A picture of some of the flowers growing in our yard. In my favorite hand-made vase. Come visit us and you can see them in person! :D

Camping at Petit Jean Mountain

2009-04-16T09:11:00.004-05:00

"If it wasn't for Zachary...." that is what most of my sentences begin with. But, this particular sentence ends with, "you guys would never know what was going on in our lives."

Zach and I went camping with our very good friends, the Powells. Justin and Claire are friends of ours from church. I went to high school with Justin, but didn't know him very well. His wife Claire is the sweetest thing. She is from Mississippi and she sounds like it too. Her name has two syllables according to her. 'Clay-air.' :D LOVE HER! Anyway, some pictures from our camping adventure:

Zach and I were up before 7am and I think Justin and Claire slept until 9. :) We enjoyed some alone time. It was sooooo beautiful!

Stick biscuits of course. Zach likes his with little smokies inside and I like butter and strawberry jam. mmm :P

Ah, yes. The glory of campfire cooking. We had hot dogs for dinner and then, for breakfast I made scrambled eggs, stick biscuits, little smokies, and coffee. That's better than when we're at home and I make cold cereal for breakfast.

We were camping at Petit Jean mountain, so the next day we went hiking! It was really breath-taking. A little bit for the scenery and a little for the hiking. The view from the top of the trail.

The only picture I got all weekend of all 4 of us. Not a great picture, but that's the whole gang.

I love this mess. I'd like to plop a house on the side of this creek. Too bad you'd have to hike in with your groceries. No easy unload from the car.

Aren't they cute and sweet? We are so glad to have some good friends here.

This is Zach's happy face. You want to know how I can tell? He has a fish in his hand. That's how.

This was at the end of our hiking trail. Cool, huh? Claire and I sat on a rock in the middle of the river and chatted and just listened to he waterfall while Zach and Justin finished fishing. It was very relaxing.

There were A LOT of people there that day, so I had to crop little heads out as much as I could without making the waterfall look squatty.
Good trip. Pretty things to see, some good exercise for our bodies, good friends. God is good.

BOWFISHING!

2009-04-15T18:30:00.002-05:00

Over the past year or so I've really been interested in bowfishing but I haven't had much of a chance or much knowledge to really get out there and do some damage. Well the best way to learn is to get out there and try so I have been. I've went a couple times since I've been in Arkansas with no luck. But this time was different....

These are the four fish my friend John Madill and I shot. He shot the alligator gar and the smaller of the other three. I shot the two big ones. We don't really know what kind of fish they are but we think may be bonefish.

More pics. Anyone have any ideas what they are?

I didn't get to weigh them but they were definitely bigger than anything I've ever shot before.

This was a very funny story.

We were in the canoe and one person would paddle while the other stood up and looked for fish. Well standing up in a moving canoe is really hard and it gets even harder when you are excited about a fish, as Madill was. He was the gar and shot at the same time he almost tipped our canoe and fell into the canoe. We laughed about that and he said he had missed to the right and started collecting himself and bringing in the line. When he got it in he pulled the arrow up and to our surprise there was the gar on the end. We started laughing even harder. He had hit it through the head so we assumed it was dead and the threw it in the boat. It wasn't. It went crazy and we both started trying to pin the fish down with our feet. After we gained control and stopped laughing from that we looked and Madill had dropped his bow in the water during the escapade. I lost it at that point and couldn't see I was laughing so hard and the tears were rolling and he pulled his bow in with the line that was still attached to the fish. So he caught a bow with his fish, fishbowing. When he pulled it up I had to snap this picture and relax from laughing so hard.

All in all it was one of the most fun and most memorable times I've had on the water. I'm pumped to get back out there and try again! Dad, you have to get down here and try this!!!

School Update

2009-03-28T15:18:00.006-05:00

School is great... I've been spending a lot of time there. We just continue to get busier and busier. This week was a kind of milestone in this program. I had an ethics test on Tuesday, which you have to pass before you can move on. I studied hard for quite a while and it paid off, I got an A. Then Wednesday was the big Pre Practicum Interview.
This is were you get interviewed and your professors decide if you're ready to move forward in the program, redo some things in the program, or just plain leave the program. As customary in this program they didn't tell me one way or another (I think to make me squirm) but I felt very confident afterward. Hopefully I'll be seeing clients within the next week or two. The other big thing that happened this week was on the same day as the interview one of my professors asked to talk with me and to make a long story short asked me if I wanted to work part time at Capstone Treatment Center.
I've really wanted to work there for a while and its such a blessing to get the opportunity so early. Hopefully this means I have a better chance at staying there after this program is over. My first day of work was yesterday and it was a "potluck"
of odd jobs. Normally I'll be assisting on adventure days where I help drive the boat on fishing trips
, belay guys rock climbing , keeping them safe while caving
. You know all the normal stuff people do. I think its going to be a great experience. The program just continues to roll and I still have lots of big papers to finish
, books to read , and theories to debate
. Its all really exciting, but I do really miss WV
. This might be the longest I've spent away from WV and I think I'm starting to feel it. I can't wait till I get to be back on the Cranberry River (click on this picture to make it big and look at the fish jumping out of the water!) or Seneca Creek Trail

or Jay's pond . But until then I'm keeping my foot on the gas and my eyes on the wonderful things God has given me here in Arkansas (You know its the natural state).

Steve Schwarzenegger AKA Steve-Rod AKA The Juice

2009-02-23T12:22:00.005-06:00

First, I have to say that I understand there will be some people reading this blog who might hold the belief that dogs are dogs and that is all they are...I agree with that belief for the most part but when it comes to Steve I feel a little different. This dog has been by me throughout some of the lowest points in my life and right there for some of the highest points also. Steve is K-9 Therapy on steroids for me, which leads us to how he's doing...

So here is the update about Steve. He hasn't been doing very well lately, so we took him to the vet. They wanted to watch him for the day so we had to leave him there, which was a little weird. We got a call later that evening with the diagnosis. Doc thinks he has Wobbler's Disease which fits him well. If you want to read on the link you can find out more, but in short it is messed up discs in his neck which makes it hard for his brain to communicate to his back half making him walk drunk. We have him on steroids now and in three short days our pup is back. He can't jump and swim like he used to, but he is motoring around the yard and getting into the trash. He wants to play more and enjoys walks over 5 minutes. We don't really know what the future holds but we're hoping things continue in this direction. When we find out more we'll let you know...but for now enjoy the pics of our dog.

Outdoors With Friends!

2009-02-18T20:51:00.005-06:00

Two weekends ago Cassandra and I had the privilege of enjoying the great outdoors with some great friends. We went to Jamestown to climb the first evening and this is the road we came in on...

It had rained recently and the road was so muddy that we had a hard time making it in. Both cars are only two wheel drive so we might have been in some trouble if we would have gotten stuck. We made it pretty far in but made the choice to park short of the end because it only got worse.

This was the crew in the front car... Michael, Emily (AKA Em), Amber, Matt.

This was the crew in the second car...Me, Cass, Steve. Here is the issue, Steve hasn't been doing to well lately (we'll blog more on the in the future) so he really didn't appreciate the extra distance we had to travel. In fact he really couldn't make it at all...

Because it was so muddy Steve wasn't able to stay upright very long and it wasn't 100 yards into our walk he was down for the count. He really just couldn't make it anymore. We couldn't leave him in the car by himself for that long so the only option was to carry him...

He only weighs 65lbs but boy do you feel every one of those pounds when you have to curl him and balance in mud. I carried as long as I could then Michael came and took a turn. We went back and forth until we got him there. Once we were there we found out that to get to the bottom, where we were going to climb, we had to shimmy down a crack and there is no way Steve was doing any shimmying. So we decided to leave him at the top and one person would stay with him and we would rotate dog sitters so everyone could climb. Cass stayed with him first and I climbed first and when I got to the top I traded her places so she could go down and hang out with the crew. Steve is so worth it...

Em, Matt, and Amber at the top...

Cass, Em, and Amber

Matt and I on top. Matt just finished leading this route and I am pulling the rope up so that I can belay Michael from the top and he can top out with the last of our gear.

Michael, the last to climb, has the rest of our gear.

DON'T MESS WITH CASS!!!!

Cass and her baby

Matt and Amber

Like I said earlier Cassandra was the first to dog sit and I was the first to climb. When I got to the top I gave Cassandra her harness and she began to rappel off of the top. As she slipped over the edge the camera slipped out of her hoodie. It fell from the very top! Cass said, "Well if you thought we didn't blog enough before..." It was in its protective case but lets get real we all know the manufacturers didn't design the case with a 40-50 ft drop onto rocks in mind. It could have been a lot worse. There is a dent in the top of the camera and the flash doesn't work but as you can see we can still up load pictures and if we are really really nice to it we can sometimes get a picture out of it. But because the flash is now broken the rest of the story will just be told and not seen.... use your imagination.
We were all on top of the rock and Steve had a long rest so we started out. We made it about 100 yards when Steve quit again. I tried curling him and that didn't go to well because of climbing and being tired. So, I threw him over my shoulders, holding with front paws in my left hand, his back paws in my right hand, and his belly on my neck. That went well for a while but I'm not Hulk so that ended and we weren't at all near the cars. I then remembered I brought my parachute hammock so we laid it out and put a very tired dog inside. Michael took one side and I took the other and Steve just relaxed and enjoyed his escort service to the car.
We were very tired and hungry so we all went to Sonic and had a blast there.
Then we went to a camping spot outside of Cushman Ar. There is a cave there and we had plans to go inside that night and explore for a few hours but we spent a while at Sonic and then had to cut some trees that fell on the road to our camp site. We got there a little later than planned and after camp and firewood were all taken care of we decided it was to late to head into the cave. This was all on Saturday and the group decided to go into the cave early Sunday morning and Cass and I would have loved to do that but we have a really really neat Sunday morning class we love to go to. What we did was go to bed after midnight then get up at 5 and break camp and get on the road. It took us over 2 hours to get home and we had just enough time to get a shower and dressed before church. What a great weekend.

As for the rest of our lives....Cass is still working hard everyday and I'm still buried in books and papers and class and observation hours. Life is good and moving fast. Steve has had some recent complications but he's doing alright and we'll blog more about that later when we know more ourselves. We love you all!!

Funniest Story You Have Ever Heard!!!!!!

2008-12-13T19:03:00.008-06:00

Please take a second to prepare yourself for the funniest story you have ever heard!

In this crazy world it fairly common to think the worst of people. I also think that movies did not help this situation.

Cassandra left the house today around 2 PM to go shopping with her mother. I went hunting around 2:15 PM and Steve laid down in front of our great christmas shrub around 2:16 PM. Cassandra bought a pair of jeans and I saw 5 deer, all does, and steve slept. Uneventful, I know, until...
I got home around 5:45 PM, without a deer, and there was a package on our porch. I walked up an noticed that there was no address on it. I looked closer and something that looked like sawdust was coming out of the bottom. I look all around and the package was totally unmarked. I grabbed steve and took him out to pee. While I was out there I called Cass and she talk to her mom who relayed it to her dad who ask a few more questions. After some debate we decided that we pay taxes so why not reap the benefits and call the Maumelle Police. PS They pulled Cass over the other say so I think they already hated us. Well one guy came out and we talked to him for a while and he looked at it and didn't feel comfortable about it so he called the Fire Department and thats when it all took off. They came flying with their lights on and guns a blazing. One guy came out and put on gloves and began looking around this suspicious package.

Let me recap for you. Package, police, firemen, and cass and I thinking how crazy this is and how out of hand this has gotten.

The firemen told us a story about how in California a guy took a package into a bank and it blew up so we should be safe here and call the Chief of Police. Yeah not kidding. So it took him a while to get there and we all sat around and talked about police stuff. Finally he got there and asked us questions about if we made anyone mad recently or if we are part of PEDA or abortion clinics and we said no. Then he asked what we did for a living and if that would upset anyone and I said my job was to fix that and her job was to help the good guys out. So he backed everyone up to the street and grabbed a knife and did what I should have done 30 minutes before. He walked up there and cut that thing open, which took a while, then turned around and said "Girl Scout Cookies", then walked away. I didn't understand either. So we walked up there and looked in and saw cookie like things and we picked them up and cass actually took a small bite. We look closer and they had paw prints on them and we came to the conclusion that someone brought steve some treats. So police x 3, firemen x 2, Chief of Police x 1, by-standers x 3 and a ton of cookies. We apologized to them and they left. No big boom, just a happy dog.

What we have decided happened was this.... when cassandra had her yard sale a nice man wanting something but didn't have any money. He asked to trade some dog treats for it because he saw we had a dog. Cass was happy about that and since then we have seen small gourmet cookies show up in nice packaging on our side porch. We think he got some extra scraps and gave them all to us. Thanks dog treat guy! HAHAHA! Good times.

Here is the BOMB!

Fire Truck!

Fire Truck AGAIN!

Firemen and Policemen getting ready to be blown up by the cookie BOMB!

Here are the ingredients for a crazy BOMB!

See the paw prints? Sorry everyone....we watch to many movies.

Side story: One of the policemen that came was the same one that pulled cass over the other day and he was scared and hiding behind a tree, plus his fly was down, so there jerk. Now we're even.

Oh Christmas Shrub, Oh Christmas Shrub how spindly are your branches...

2008-12-07T08:36:00.004-06:00

It's Christmas time at the Haugh's! Our thoughts are, why pay $50 for a tree when God gave us all this ground to go find one ourselves. This has already become a tradition in our little family, and I think we all know how serious traditions can get. At the bottom of the tree you can see our little singing penguins that Grandmomi got for us. They are fun!

Our Shrub

Front view of the Shrub

This is the mantel above our fireplace. Cassandra made the ice sickles from sticks in the yard.

The whole fireplace and Ice sickles

Now this is one of the best pictures...what a good boy!

Yet another of our lovely puppy.

MasterCard

2008-12-06T10:21:00.001-06:00

Best Commercial Ever! I could watch this 100 times I think.

Aphex Twin / Bright Eyes Mashup - Jack Conte

2008-12-04T16:15:00.001-06:00

Good stuff

The past month in a nutshell

2008-11-02T08:11:00.002-06:00

We haven't updated recently a little because of lack of willingness but mainly due to lack of time. Our lives just get going and it seems hard to stop and let everyone know how we're doing. The next several blogs below are a small snap shot into the past month of our lives. There was so much more that went on but these are the event we got pictures from. Cassandra is still working hard and I am still making my trips to Searcy for school. I really love what I'm doing and my heart is ready to get out there and start working but I know my mind isn't there yet. That is what this schooling is for. I begin going into sessions with a co-therapist within the next week. It's exciting and scary at the same time. Between 12 page papers, presentations, and entire books to read in a couple days I have been hunting pretty hard. I had been hunting for over 2 weeks with out even a glimpse of a deer when one crazy Tuesday morning it all came together. To make a long story short I ended up seeing 4 deer, 3 of which were bucks. One of those bucks was a huge wall hanger and I missed him. Sad story but there is a good ending. 10 minutes after the miss a smaller 6-point walked in and within 20 minutes I was up to my shoulders in gut piles! I'll get some pictures up of the deer as soon as I get some because I had to be at school right after I shot him and I had no time to get any pictures. A more in depth story will come with pictures.

As for these next few blogs, I'll try to do my best at explaining most of the pictures...Yesterday Cassandra steve and I went to petit jean mountain and it was great! It was beautiful and I was able to fish and steve got a lot of exercise (maybe too much) and cassandra was able to take lots of pictures. We all loved it. There is a picture in there where steve was so hot and tired that we took a break and I fished while cassandra and steve laid by the water... well steve actually laid in the water which was pretty cute...he's still a lab at heart even if he can't run around like one. One of my favorite pictures is of steve in the car with his ears flying...he loves the back window open.

The next blog is of a crazy experience we had this morning. Cassandra took steve out to pee at 6am (we thought it was 7am b/c we forgot about the time change...o well) and there happened to be two young black puppies running around. They ran up to steve and cassandra grabbed steve so he wouldn't fight them. After a struggle she was able to get steve inside and I went out to look at the tags and call the owner. They wanted to play so bad I couldn't read the tag so I held one down and pulled his collar off and called the number and no one picked up. They hung out around our house for a little longer then wondered off.

Trunk or treat was great. Pat brought his big nice new Pilot and we play a movie in the car and had dry ice and candy and we were the best car ever!!! Cassandra was scary in one of those pictures. I was a hunter and cassandra was the deer.

The last blog is of cassandra's birthday party. It was so much fun. We played pin the tail on the TV and cassandra smashed up a pinata. We kind of cheated with the pin the tail thing. Then the following Saturday we went to the farmer's market and then walked on a bridge in Little Rock. We got to see the actual "little rock" the town is named after. It was fun. Then we went to a park by the river and there was a huge slide we went down. Good times all around.

There is a month in a nutshell. We'll try to do better next time at maybe spreading this out over the entire month instead of all at once.

Petit Jean (but mostly Steve)

2008-11-02T07:51:00.007-06:00

Our Crazy Dog Friends

2008-11-02T07:41:00.002-06:00

Trunk or Treat for real

2008-11-02T07:37:00.001-06:00

Cass' Birthday...Oct 18...Yeah a little late.

2008-11-02T07:06:00.004-06:00

Tanner is 4-years-old!

2008-10-13T18:06:00.010-05:00

We all went up to Jonesboro for Tanner's 4th birthday last weekend. There was racing, cake, presents, decorations and DRUMS!

The boys line up and they're off.

Easton is winning!

Our AWESOME decorations!

Me and Zachy at the par-tay!

Tanner's super-cool snare-drum cake.

Tanner and his drumming cake.

We all had a great time, missed you Matt and Lin!

This is for Papa Haugh

2008-10-11T19:43:00.003-05:00

Sad Day

2008-09-18T20:34:00.004-05:00

Well, the time has come. As you might know I am in the Marriage and Family Therapy Masters Program at Harding University. I was told that my hair was not an issue and that my character spoke loud enough. I was also told that it was in the counseling room it was easier to obtain respect with a clean cut look. I took some time to think about it and they are right. It was a good time having dread locks but I think there is a time when you have to abide to societies rules and norms. It is a totally different feeling without dread locks and I have to admit I miss them a lot, but I know this will help me in the future and it is more socially acceptable.

This is what they looked like from the back. Don't they look so good?! I think they do. I never was able to see this side of them and maybe if I had I wouldn't have cut them.

Another view from behind. I think they look even better here. That is a lot of hair. Looking at this picture makes me realize that it was two years since I cut my hair. That's a long time to get use to long hair.

Sad Sad me.

The first dread is officially cut off and the trimming commences.

The back half is gone! :(

One dread left...

It's so sad I know. That is a hand full of hair!

36 dreads! I can't tell you enough how much hair that is... They are all lined up there with a side of buzzed hair so that my head looked some what uniformed.

And here it is... the final result. It feels really good but I do really miss my hair.

This is the look from behind and I have to admit I like it but like I said before I really miss my hair. One really good thing is that I was able to wear a hat for the first time in 8 months.

This was really hard to do and I have to thank my wife because I know it was hard for her but she gave me support and encouragement. She has worked so hard and helped me out so much in this new hair dew so I know it was hard for her to watch it all go. This is just a new chapter and I hope good things will come.

There is a lot more going on in our life from Cassandra's new job to my schooling to Steve to the great condo, but right now the biggest thing is the new hair cut.

P.S. I really do like wearing a hat.

The New Personal Best...

2008-09-05T12:38:00.003-05:00

Let me tell you a story.... I was fishing at the pond near our apartment where I usually catch 8 to 12 inch catfish by the bucket load. I have seen some big fish in this pond but have never been able to catch them so I went to the local bait shop and inquired on how I might find myself fighting one of these monsters. The guy took me over to the big hooks and gave me the biggest treble hook he had and said "if he won't bite, hook em." So that's what I set out to do. One full lap around this pond is 1 mile and I had made 1 and a half trips around it before I finally saw the big one. He was swimming out from under the wood walk way the city has built on that side of the pond. I tossed this hook out there and ripped it back until it was were I figured he was and I pulled one hard time and wouldn't you know it I had no control over what happened with that fish. I usually fish with 4lb test line but I wasn't going to be that crazy...yet. I had 15lb line on just in case and I needed every bit of it. He took me half way around the pond. It must of been a sight, me running with a pole bent in half with a crazy look on my face of excitement. It was 20 mins. of pure bliss. Once I got him in close enough I realized my next problem, he's huge and the bottom of the walk way is still 4 feet above the water. So another funny sight is me on my stomach trying to figure out some way to get a hold of this fish. Oh I forgot to tell you that toward the end of the fight he broke my reel!! Yeah I was pulling in line and letting it out by hand. What a fight. Finally I was able to get a hold right behind both gills and hull this monster onto the walk way. The battle is over right? Wrong. There is no way I'm throwing this fish back in without knowing how much it weighs but dumby me didn't bring the scale, what was I thinking. So the next funny sight, I am running 1/2 a mile with a 20lb fish back to the other side of the pond where my car is parked. There was one other guy fishing and he was cheering me on the whole time. I got within 100 yards of the car when I had to stop because I was tired, he was heavy, and he was dieing from being out of the water to long. I know what you fishermen are thinking right now "Just put him on your stringer and tie him to a tree." If I would have remembered the stringer I think I would have remembered the scale so needless to say it was also in the car. So I did what any other respectable fishermen would have done, I hooked him in the mouth again, released my bail, set him in the water, and ran like Usain Bolt. Luckily he was so tired that by the time I made it back he hadn't conjured up enough energy to swim off. I picked him up, took some pictures, and let him go. I'm happy to say he survived the ordeal and swam off. This was such a great experience and I can't wait to go try to do it again.

Here it is folks.... all 20 lbs 38 inches of him. This is by far the largest fish I've caught.

You can see how big he is compared to my pole and fishing gear.

Look at how small he makes my trout magnet box look...

This picture is blurry but for good reason, he was so heavy (and my adrenalin was pumping so much) that it was hard to not be shaky. But if you look close that is right at the 20lb mark.

Nose to tail he was 38 inches...

There are two more picture, one of me holding the fish and one of my broken pole. They won't upload right now so I'll try again later.

2008-08-26T07:59:00.001-05:00

http://fightmusic.com/mp3/bigeast/West_Virginia__Hail_West_Virginia.mp3

God Is Good

2008-08-03T19:52:00.003-05:00

It is such an amazing feeling to know that God is here at camp. I understand that God is everywhere so that's why I said "to know" because here at camp we try to take away as much of the world as we can and just listen to God. It is so amazing what he says too. I pray that as camp comes to a close I will still be able to hear God through out my daily life. This place is a wonderful and I'm thankful to be able to be a part of this. Here are a few more pictures. Can't wait to see everyone in WV in a week!!!

Cass and I went to the Wife Life Center in Gray and I was able to see my first Maine Moose! Okay so it was a cheap way to see one and I still want to see one in the wild but hey you take what you can get.

Big Black Bear. I have seen one of these in WV.

Dad saw 3 of these in Colorado

Baby fawn....Cass actually was petting him. We also saw some "big bucks" but they were to far off for pictures.

This is a white (obviously) large mouth bass. 22 inches and only 2 lbs. He was very sick and I'm afraid there might be a disease going around because he is the second one like that we've seen this summer.

Here is James and Noah Clark. James caught this 3lb 18inch bass on a banjo minnow frog. See they really do work!!!! Sorry Uncle Peter, I think this one might be even bigger. One really quick funny story about this catch was that after james hooked the fish it ran under the canoe so Noah looked on the other side to see where it was and out of no where the fish jumped eye level with Noah, no more that 2 feet from his face. He jumped back and said "OH NO NO. I DON"T WANT THAT THING IN HERE!" Good fish, great story.

For those of you that are wondering where all on my big fish are at I need to let you know something. God blessed me last year with a ton of big big fish here at camp and I have the pictures to prove it so I have officially turned in to the camp guide. I bring people out to the spots and help them catch these fish, and I'll tell you what I honestly could do this the rest of my life! I have so much fun watching people catch monster bass when they may have never caught anything bigger that a 3 inch blue gill. I might look in to guiding Raymond Pond after I retire. I've got some time to think about that.

We love you all!!

Pictures

2008-07-22T08:11:00.004-05:00

Cass on the lake

My first "over 3 inch fish" on a fly rod

18 inch Pickerel

Uncle Peter's 3lb 20 inch large mouth bass

GAGA!!

Tatum and Emma holding our water balloons for a crazy game

Slip n Slide bowling

Kali and Emma

All the counselors (including Cass and I) singing the proper version of the Gander Brook song

I hope you enjoy the update

2008-07-14T08:02:00.005-05:00

Camp has been so great! We love it here. The activities and games have been going great and the kids seem to be really enjoying it here. We've done so many things in the past few weeks that it's hard to fill you in on all of it , but here are some things....

Cassandra and I usually teach a Ropes Course merit badge everyday but this past week we were asked to teach an archery merit badge and it was a lot of fun. Here are some campers enjoying the mystical flight of the arrow.

As a reward for everyone passing their tests to receive their merit badge Cassandra and I filled the area with balloons and let them wack a couple.

This is after a round of arrows from our campers for their performance test. I'd like to say I think they did pretty well. I think thats 3 in the yellow from 15 yards.

There are so many more things that have happened and we have so many more pictures to put up but the pictures from our camera are to big so we have to figure out how to condense them so we can share more with everyone.

Now, on to one of the more important things... fishing.

This is the first Pickerel I've ever caught and I ended up catching one more that day.

I have more pictures of other big fish and I hope to get them on here soon.

Aside from that we have been to a Seadogs game and were asked to be part of the fun. We had a tricycle race and received prizes for our embarrassment. We went to Chuck e Cheese and the new Cabela's, and this was all on one of our days off. It's been great and I hope that the next blog will be a ton of pictures and videos.

Ganderbrook Begins!

2008-06-30T07:16:00.002-05:00

Zach and I are here in Maine. We made it safe and sound after the 25 hour drive from Arkansas and an extra hour added for Connecticut traffic at 5 pm. We were welcomed with open arms and are sooooooo happy about being here and we know God is blessing this place and these campers. Here is a group picture we took on our day off to Two Lights State Park and the Lobstah Shack.

We're in Italy and you're not so there...

2008-06-05T16:01:00.002-05:00

Okay so that title is a little mean but lets get real, it's pretty stinking cool here. We left London on the 27th and rode the Chunnel to Paris We spent 4 days there and ate crepes
and spoke French. We then left and rode an over night train to Rome The train was neat because of the beds and the entire experiance and the fact that it took us to Rome. We've been here since and have done so many things its crazy. Our apartment is a stones throw from the Colosseum
Pretty cool I know. We went to Pompeii
today and are planning on heading back to the Vatican city http://www.romaviva.com/Vaticano/st-peter.jpg tomorrow. We are going to Florence
on Sunday and then to Venice
, followed closely by Geneva
and then home to start our next big adventure south . That is all I can do for right now, sorry so short. We need to get to bed because tomorrow is another day filled with extremely old things that are new to us. Here are my final thoughts...

I Dare You To Look At This Blog...

2008-05-24T10:22:00.003-05:00

Hello Everyone! Zach and I are in London and we're having a great time. Sorry for the lack of updates, we have just had so much going on lately with graduating, summer session classes, packing for the big move and preparing for our overseas adventure. We will be in London for 5 more days, then we will be in Paris for 4 days, followed by Italy for 12 days. We have done a ton of fun stuff and we still have so much left to experience. We love you all and miss you a lot. Thank you for your prayers, please continue to pray for our safe travels and for our families while we away from them. See you soon!!! Cheerio, Aur Revoir, and Ciao!

Here's What's Happenin'

2008-04-28T19:29:00.015-05:00

Some more fun fishing.....Catfish this time!

Zach went with me, (after much convincing) to the end of the year school banquet. Here are my sweet silly friends; Meghann, Mallory, and Allyson.

Zach and I took some cutie cute pictures of Steve wearing Zach's coat.

We've been having fun. Looking forward to graduation, family visiting, and our upcoming Eurotrip!

Fishin' in a bathtub

2008-04-20T20:25:00.005-05:00

There is a lake....well, a man-made lakeish pondish bathtub type hole in the ground filled with water on the hill behind 'Dandaddy's' house in the neighbor's yard. The neighbor has stocked this pond with 1,400 pounds of trout, some bass, some blue gill, some catfish, and some coy fish. We fished for about 5 hours and between me, Zach, and Kevin we caught about 3 dozen fish!!! Zach caught two golden trout, some bass and several rainbow trout. Kevin caught several rainbow trout and some bass, and I caught about 3 rainbow trout and 2 small bass. They were jumping like crazy all afternoon and not a one was under 15 inches. They were fat suckers and reallllllllyyyyy slimey.

First fish of the day...

Zach's first golden trout.

Me with a huge trout...probably 18 inches close to 3 lbs.

Zach caught this one with a fly-rod. By far the biggest trout EVER caught on a fly-rod.

Okay here it is the 20 inch 4 lb golden trout!!! Unreal! This is the biggest trout Zach has ever caught and its a golden one. If you look close you can see the Panther Martin spinner laying there, compliments of my dad. He told Zach it was the best thing he has ever used for trout fishing and he wasn't lying!

This is another picture of the big goldie. This fish was huge! It was the last fish caught that day...what a great way to end. If you look close it looks like he's eating me.

2008-04-15T21:07:00.002-05:00

GOOD NEWS!!!!!

Zach received a letter from Harding this week. I just wanted to share the nice things they said about him in the letter.

Dear Zach:

I am pleased to inform you of formal acceptance into the Marriage and Family Therapy/Mental Health Counseling program. The faculty is impressed with your desire to help families and the personal gifts you have to offer that process. It is our opinion that you will utilize God's gifts to benefit families and ultimately the quality of life itself.

Sincerely,
Lewis L. Moore, Ph.D.

Hooray!!!!! It's official, we're moving to Arkansas and Zach will be going to Graduate school in the fall. We jumped up and down and squealed when he read the letter. God is good. Praise Him. :D !!!!!!!!

Slackline

2008-04-06T22:45:00.007-05:00

Cassandra and I took Steve to the park the other day and I was able to set up a slack line. Cassandra didn't have a place to sit so I made her a swing out of my extra webbing. It was a very fun afternoon and I was able to take some videos on my phone.

Here is the swing I made Cassandra and the slackline I set up and our puppy...

The sit start....

Here is the 360. It's not really a full jumping 360 but more like a walking 360. I had to try a few times before I got it but here it is.

A Break in the Weather

2008-04-03T11:39:00.005-05:00

Finally! We have had some nice days for the first time in a while so I believe first things first....CLIMBING! Cassandra and I took our puppy to a secret climbng spot (shh don't tell) and spent a couple hours there before I had to go to work. It was a beautiful day and there really is something theraputic to me about being outside and hanging by the tips of my fingers from a big old boulder. I really hope the weather continues to cooperate because I have many plans to get back out there and climb some more along with trout fishing with dad and atleast one backpacking trip to Seneca with my wife. Cassandra and I have a very busy summer coming up so I hope we can keep you all updated as much as possible.

The secret spot

I like this one because Steve is just being Steve and hanging out where ever he wants. Yes those are dreadlocks....I guess I need to post a blog about that soon...

Just a Little Smile

2008-03-24T10:02:00.002-05:00

Here is a little blast from the past. My 3-year-old nephew Tanner does not mind being the center of attention and here is a video I took of him when he was still a little guy. He wasn't even talking yet, but he was dancing. And that is my dad's voice in the background encouraging him. I posted this video because I miss Tanner Pants and his crazy antics. I hope it makes you giggle a little.

Mommy and Me

2008-03-12T21:16:00.008-05:00

Steve and I had a family outing this afternoon. Zach left his phone at home today, so Steve and I drove out to Mountwood State Park to get it to him. We took a little walk along a cute shallow stream and talked about what a pretty day it was. And took a few pictures. It was a quality time spent together. I enjoyed it, I don't know about Steve.

This is the cute little stream and bridge.

This is my sweet puppy and his pretty smile in the car after our outing.

Steve wanted to splash around in the stream, he loved it.

Steve loved being able to roam freely and check out all the best pee-spots.

And here is a video of the stream for everyone to enjoy. I hope you get some serenity from the trickling sound.

Sorry the video is pretty bad. I didn't realize it until after I posted it. But the audio is calming, which is the point.

Rant

2008-02-26T10:23:00.005-06:00

Well, we had stupid Expressions last weekend. 2 years in a row now that Sigma has come in 3rd place, after a 6 year run of 1st place.
Here's Grandma Myers-Bergstrausser getting serious with the "evilman."

Grandma is shakin' her groove thing. "Headin' for the Grand Canyon, how did we get so off course? Oh, all we wanted was a fun time, with adventure, some sun, no guns. Get me off Route 66, before Grandpa tells us more! We're the Myers-Bergstraussers, with that bum over there. It's this family adventure, Grandpa's wet underwear. It's this western shootout, It's ummm...you pick! This trip, this trip! Don't get car sick. This trip, this trip!" Our song, to the melody of "This kiss" by Faith Hill. It would probably make more sense if you knew the plot of the skit. Oh well.

After all the hard work it is so disappointing. Ontop of that I was getting really sick the last night we performed. I still have whatever it is. My doctor that I love and that sincerely cares about me so much is not covered with our new insiruance plan.

(That's not my doctor leah, but she looks nice too.)
So we had to go through the phone book and we called like 15 doctor's offices. All of them were note accepting new patients, except this place that I knew was a last resort called, Quickcare. It's one of those places that you go and everytime you get a different doctor. I personally am not a fan of that. I want a doctor that knows all of the stuff that is happening to me and can give me an an overall synopsis of the crud in my chest. No, this place you hand the nurse a $20 bill and the doctor comes in, doesn't say anything, listens to this, looks at that, touches this and writes you a prescription for an antibiotic.

I hate antibiotics, they don't even do anything good. And my sweet Dr. Leah would have known that and she would have hugged me and said she was sorry I wasn't feeling well and that I should try drinking some herbal tea and blah blah blah. This guy wouldn't even let me ask questions about how to keep Zach from getting sick.

Well, needless to say, it was $20 down the drain. I'd rather pay the full office visit cost with a "real doctor" than get a discount for a stupid spooty-head doctor. Then, Zach had to go to work, so I was on my own to get meds and lunch. I drove out to wal-mart at 2 o'clock after I dropped the prescription off at 10 AM and it still took them an hour and a half to pour cough syrup in a little plastic bottle. I was feeling so sick, I had to sit down in the aisle at wal-mart to keep from falling over or throwing-up until my script was finished. Yowza. I just wish people still cared about other people. Especially in the health field. My mommy lives too far away to take care of me.
my mommy :) and her girls.
I just needed a grown-up to tell me I was going to be ok and make me some buttered toast with strawberry jam cut into thin strips the way my mom always did. I have soooooo much school work I need to get done before I leave for Little Rock on Saturday, and it is not helping that being sick makes my brain feel like mush.

Valentine's Day

2008-02-21T21:10:00.005-06:00

This is pretty delayed, but I've been busy with Expressions and Zach has had a sort of rough work schedule this week. I just wanted to share with everyone the sweet things my sweet husband did for me on that special day.

He got me the cutest pink tulips, a funny card, and who would have thought...a hunk of chocolate shaped like a rainbow trout. :)

This is a picture of the really special valentine's day gift he got for me this year...:D!

For those of you who don't know the story...this is a replacement engagement ring for the one I lost only 6 weeks after we got married. It is such a sweet special gift. This is what it looks like on my hand with my wedding ring. :)

Something New To Read

2008-02-12T23:56:00.000-06:00

Okay so I'm checking everyones' blogs and noticed that a lot of people havn't posted in a while and I thought what the heck what am I supposed to read? How am I supposed to know whats going on in others lives? What kind of pictures has Tiffany taken lately? There is no way of finding out unless it is posted on a blog. Calling, writting, emailing... not good enough. It has to be on a blog. Then the light bulb went off... I havn't posted in a while and I am just as guilty as the next blogger. So here is a lot of nothing to read and look at. But hey its new....

I am pretty upset with the weather lately.

I used to love the kind of days that we are having here becuase it ment no school

but now it just means cold wet days at work. Cassandra and I are really needing some sunshine
and warm weather so we can get outside and be active.

Steve is alright.

He seems so happy all of the time but his body just dosen't want to work for him. He is taking more meds than I've ever taken in my life.

Cassandra and I worry about him but we're also just enjoying him now.

I have yet to actually take my bow fishing kit out for real,

but I have taken down some pretty mean bottles with it.

I have been able to enjoy my sweet new air rifle.

But lets keep that on the down low...it's not excatly street legal.

Let me leave you with something I hope will make you all laugh a little bit.....its on the previous post. Watch it once then give it a few seconds to sink in and let it play 3 or 4 more times. Funniest 5 seconds on the web.

Dramatic Chipmunk

2008-02-12T23:51:00.001-06:00

Little Women

2008-02-01T22:50:00.000-06:00

Zach took me on a special date to the "Smoot Theatre" to see Little Women last night. It was such a magical evening. I love the theatre as it is, but this was amazing because it was the off broadway traveling cast from New York! Needless to say, the acting was wonderful and the singing blew me away. I sobbed through the whole thing because it was sad and beautiful. WHAT A NIGHT! Thanks Zachary.

The Smoot Theatre in downtown Parkersburg.

Here are some pictures from the play...I didn't take them, no cameras allowed.

We dressed up. :) I even bought a boutonniere and corsage.

Pressley Ridge

2008-01-17T21:19:00.000-06:00

I thought I would write a quick blog to let everyone know that I am loving my new job at Pressley Ridge. I have been intimidated by the kids but at the same time I have already grown to truly care for these kids. They have been through so many things that I can't even imagine and I hope that my time spent here can help change them for the better. This week and most of next week are filled with training so I don't get to interact with the kids as much as I would like, but I will soon be on a steady shift were I can have a routine with the kids. Pray that I will have the strength to talk to these kids about my faith. Most of these kids are so far from God that they don't even know what it would be like to know Him. I hope I get the chance to show them. I'm heading into work tomorrow morning for some more training but I'll be back tomorrow night. Then I have a 3 1/2 day schedual next week where some of the day is in more training and the other part is with the kids. I'll be back Thursday evening so keep Cassandra and Steve in your prayers also.

Love Letters

2008-01-09T21:24:00.000-06:00

Zach and I were concerned about losing a little bit of our connection because of the time we will be spending apart. We are so used to being with eachother constantly and we talk about EVERYTHING...probably too much talking sometimes. :) He also does not get cell phone service out at Pressley Ridge. Needless to say, much less talking than we are used to. So....to counter our lack of communication we are writing love letters. A couple weeks ago on Oprah there was a married couple that had been writing eachother love letters everyday since they were married. I took their idea and ran with it. We each have a notebook in which we write our letters to eachother while apart. There are 3 things that we address in our daily letters to eachother. 1. "I love you today because..." This statement is followed with a thing we appreciate about the other person. Whether it is the sacrifice he is making by being away to help support our family, for doing the dishes, or for his cute smile etc... 2. "God taught me today..." to be patient with Steve, to love a neighbor etc... 3. "I need to tell you what happened today.." This is basically anything I want to remember to tell him when he gets home. I've only written 3 letters so far because he has only been gone for 3 days, but already I can tell that I appreciate Zach more for specific reasons, not jsut generally speaking and it helps me look for what God is trying to teach me because I am aware that He's doing that in my life and I'm remembering what I've learned because I'm writing about it. It's a neat experience so far and I can't wait until he gets home tomorrow evening so we can share our letters. I miss my friend.

2008-01-07T12:56:00.000-06:00

SOOOO....
Zach started his new grown-up job today.

He left this morning at 8am and he won't be home until about 5pm on WEDNESDAY! AHH!! I cleaned house a little today and ran some errands...but, it's 2 o'clock and I have nothing to do. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm looking for a good book to read to take up some time and do something other than watching foodnetwork. If anyone has any ideas of activities to fill some of my new free time, please let me know.
Bored and sad without my husband.

TEA IS COOL!

2008-01-02T20:56:00.000-06:00

Zach got me a BEAUTIFUL glass tea press and cup set for Christmas.

I have been drooling over this tea press since I used it at Border's while studying for finals. I had an earl grey tea blend, and it was such a wonderful experience. I'm new at this teat thing, but I am so fascinated with the process and flavors that can be created. Let's just say I am smitten with tea. So, just like any person seeking information...I got online and found this WONDERFUL website called specialteas.com. We're waiting for Zach's first paycheck from his new job, but he said he'd like to buy me a tea sampler from this website. As I browsed the site I found cups, kettles, different tea concoctions called yerba mate and oolong. I LOVE IT! Something I found interesting...it might jsut be because I knew nothing about to tea, but did you know that ALL tea comes from the same plant, Camellia Senesis or Camellia Japonica.

What makes it different is the process it goes through before it is dried! NUTS, huh?! Here's a quick lesson on how different teas are made if you are at all interested.

Also, Zach and I will be moving to Arkansas in about 7 months and I am already daydreaming about how I want to decorate our next living space. I found this tea pot and cup set on this website that have a great simple pattern that I think I would like to freehand paint almost like a border around the kitchen, maybe a little more random than a border. The colors in the kitchen will be sage green and light brown.

Just a little too excited, huh?! ha!
Side note...I got new glasses while Zach and I visited my family in Little Rock over the Christmas break. Lindsay helped me pick and they came to me in the mail today. I really like them. I wanted something a little more grown-up looking than my old plastic frames. More importantly I hope my migraines will go away because of the new prescription. Also, notice the beaustiful opal earrings Zach's parents gave me for Chrsitmas. Thanks mama and papa!

Casa De Esperanza

2007-11-29T18:18:00.000-06:00

SIGMA is holding a fundraiser for "Casa De Esperanza," a Christian home for orphaned children in Honduras. Here is the website... http://cde-hopehouse.org/ We are doing a push-up challenge. Zach and I are expected to do as many push-ups as we can in 5 minutes. We are accepting donations...like $0.10 for every push-up we can do in 5 minutes which would come out to like 500 million bazillion dollars for me. So, be careful when you bet on these guns, baby. Bigger donations can go to Zach's wimpie arms. :) We would really love it if you guys could pledge a few cents per push-up to support us in sending money to "Casa De Esperanza" or "House of Hope." Thanks you guys!

Tanner's Jonesboro Fire Station Birthday

2007-10-16T16:21:00.000-05:00

"Gick" and Tanner right after we got to the fire station.

Tanner learned to "Stop, drop, and roll."

Tanner in his fire chief hat in front of the fire engine.

Easton getting "tickles" from his Nana.

Oh, hello Easton.

All right kiddo, gettin' a little grabby.

See the grabby?

Silly Pap.

Baby Easton and Pap. Look at all his teeth!

He is a crawling machine!

Mommy lighting Tanner's birthday candles.

Tanner blowing out his THREE candles.

Black icing from his fire truck cake.

Love you, Kiddo. Sooooo glad I could be there AND I can't wait to see you here in West Virgina this weekend!

Happy Birthday Tanner Pants!!!

2007-10-11T11:28:00.001-05:00

Tanner!!!
I'm so excited about coming to your Fire Station Birthday Party on Saturday. We love you so much! Enjoy the pictures!

Sometimes I feel like an artist

2007-09-29T20:17:00.000-05:00

These are the 4 photos Zach got me while we were in Portland on our anniversarry...It was our paper anniversarry and Zach knows I have a passion for photography. He's so sweet and I was really impressed by how thoughtful he was.

This is our coffee table...the one that I painted about 6 different times since I was in high school. I stripped ALL the paint and sanded it for days...then, stained it this beautiful walnut color. I LOVE it!

More to come...the computer is going soooooo slow.

Here are some Videos of the Aquarium

2007-08-09T09:29:00.000-05:00

Pretty Fish
Uploaded by zhaugh

Sharks!
Uploaded by zhaugh

The Coolest Thing Ever
Uploaded by zhaugh

Big Fish and a Stingray
Uploaded by zhaugh

Boston Anniversarry

2007-08-08T09:04:00.000-05:00

It has been one full year since Cassandra and I "tied the knot". August 5th of last year was the best day of my life followed by August 5th of this year. We started out in Wheeling WV at 4:30AM and left Pitts PA around 6:30AM. We flew to Philly PA for an hour lay over followed by a request from the airport for anyone that could help becuase they over booked the flight. Cassandra and I helped and after all of the computer work was done the man behind the desk looked up and said you'll be leaving for new york right now. If you've ever seen Home Alone (the first one) the scene where the family is running to catch their flight and the "Run Run Rudolph" song is playing...yeah that was Cassandra and I. We made our flight just in time and stayed in New York for an hour before making it to Portland ME. We then went to some art galleries and purchased so pretty local artwork and then down to York ME to stop at my favorite candy store, $7.99 for a pound. Then we made it to our Hotel in Lowell, MA got up the next morning and got on the train to Boston. We stayed in Boston and had so much fun (despite the rain). We went to shops and then to the Aquarium (the pics are below) and to an IMAX movie and finally to Finway Park. Here are some pictures of our Boston trip...there are more stories that we can tell you all when we get to see each other.

Now there is a good lookin couple. That is Boston behind us.

Zach the Navigator

IMAX!!! It was Sweet. We watched Dinosaurs the coolest 3-D Movie ever. Yeah thats right 3-D. Cassandra was jumping out of her seat when the T-Rex snapped at her.

The Subway or for the Boston people the "T"

Finway Park.....It was Sweet!!!

We really loved Boston and the entire trip...we felt like jet-setters flying everywhere and staying in Boston. We miss you all and we can't wait to see you soon.

New England Aquarium

2007-08-08T08:31:00.000-05:00

This is the trip that Cassandra and I took to the Aquarium in Boston and it was sweet. These are just some cool pics from our adventure. They were all taken with the camera on my phone so sorry if the quality is less than par.

The Boston Aquarium

Our Friendly Seals were the first thing we saw

Sweet Jellies...Cass was so impressed with these jellies, they are made up for 95% water.

Little Pinguens... this was a pretty cool display

A Couple Frogs for Tanner

Two Snakes for Tiff

Sea Horse

Cass' pretty Star Fish

Cassandra Holding this "thing"

Brook Trout and Salmon for Dad

Albino Lobsta'

There is a fish in there

Cassanrda at the top of the huge tank

Sea Turtle

Puffer Fish

Big Yellow/Green Eel

Cassandra's Shark Head. This was in the Gift Shop in front of everyone....I was so embaressed....just kidding.

Ganderbrook part 2

2007-08-02T21:04:00.000-05:00

A very few pictures from the ropes course because I'm usually on belay and cannot hold my camera, but we're working on finding special time to take some more pictures. The kid in the yellow shirt is one of our favorite campers, Luke. He's from Colorado and he is now addicted to rock climbing tanks to Gander Brook's wall. We put the slack line up during our rock climbing merit badge and some of the kids really loved it, like Nemo. The bathing suit pictures are at York beach on our day off. It was soooooo cold, but we felt that we needed to grace Maine with our beachtime presence.

2007-07-10T21:30:00.000-05:00

Zach and I have been in Raymond, Maine for the past three weeks enjoying cooler summer weather, the fellowship of Christians new and old, and the presence of God in His revelation of nature. Here are some pictures!

Here is our whole crew after our day off all together.

The girls from the "Dirty South." Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi representin'. Zach and I had this hilarious Beastie Boys style rap we did at opening campfire.

Cass- Yo, my name is Cass...

Zach- And she's here to say...

Cass- That I got mad rhymes in a serious way, I'm from P-Burg...

Zach- Yeah, (304)...

Cass- I'm sick of you fools, I ain't got no more.

Zach- My name is Zach...

Cass- Haugh!

Zach- I rock mikes like a vandal, I like to wear Chaco's...

Cass- They're sandals!

Zach- And my dreams are...

Cass- To punch a Moose!

Zach- Rock Climb!

Cass- And shoot a Goose!

Sweet rap, huh?

Emily and I after our skit, "Pirate Blessings." "I can't fink of anyfing da Lawrd's bwessed me wif."

Zach and Jeremy at Two Lights. They're friends.

Zach and I at Two Lights. We're friends too.

Zach's sweet ocean climbing pic.

We have a million more pictures to share with everyone, but we have limited time and limited computer space. We'll check back as soon as we can.

CATFISHING!!!

2007-05-29T20:51:00.000-05:00

Cassandra and I went to Mannington last week and dad took us to one of his friend's house where he has a big catfish pond. We fished for a while and caught some nice catfish! It was a lot of fun and I think we are going to try to get back out there before we head to Gander Brook.

Cassandra and mom casting out there for the big ones

Cassandra's line wasn't the best out there and it seemed to tangle up a lot and I was helping her get it untangled. I also broke her pole a few days ago on accident....you get what you pay for...$20 Big Lots

Mom just enjoying the evening...she hadn't had supper yet and she was hungry but the mean boys wouldn't leave to go get her something to eat

This is me fighting a big catfish

And here is that big old catfish....good times!

SLACK LINE!!!

2007-05-10T14:31:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures of Cassandra, Kole, and I slack lining at the Haugh House Sunday after church. If you don't know what a slack line is, in short, a long piece of webbing tightened between two anchors and you have to walk across it without falling. It's a lot harder than it might sounds. We set up the line in the back yard and Kole thought that he needed to try it once.

This is me on the slack line...

Half way across...don't worry I finished it.

Cassandra takes a try...

And Kole needed a turn.

He's not bad...

And then Cassandra thought this would be a good idea...not really but no one got hurt. Look how hard Kole is holding on to her head. Fun times!

Some one needs to tell Nick that when we come down to Arkansas in June that he'll need to be ready to get on a slack line. Oh yeah, this was also the same Sunday that we started our hike and there will be pictures of that coming soon...

The Past Few Weeks

2007-04-26T12:06:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since we've last "blogged" and I know there are people out there like my dad who still regularly check out blog just to see if there is something new. Well here it is!! First I want to say that our computers are very very slow and that is the main reason why we can't blog as much as we would like. Anytime we put up a new blog it is because we have had a few free minutes to come to the computer lab at school and put some pics online. We've been very busy with school rapping up and papers due and everything in-between. We have found a little time for some fun and that is where these pics come in...

Cassandra and I have been wanting to go camping for a while now but there has been no time with school and work and soccer so we defied our time consuming responsibilities and camped out in the living room. Here are a few more pics of the tent...

Chaco Twins!

And for the big finish...Cassandra made a Curton family specialty BONELESS CHICKEN!!!!!

It's so good!

She's so good!

And we even had rice bowls and chop sticks.

That's all for now but I hope to have another blog soon with some climbing pics and hopefully some sweet slack line pics. If you don't know what a slack line is then you'll have to try to contain your excitement to find out until we can get some more pics to you!

Here ya go Papa Haugh!

2007-04-01T14:51:00.000-05:00

Zach and I are here in Mannington this weekend...and I found some pictures on Kevin's computer that I could post. For some reason I feel that a post is not important enough to post if there are no pictures.

This first picture was our 'labor day' weekend trip to Deep Creek. The two newly married couples enjoy some hot tubbin'.

Here's a picture of Lindsay and Matt after the feast of '06 and before the kickball game of a lifetime.

I was just telling Zach when I saw this picture that I thought it might be the most attractive picture of the two of us that I've ever seen and I hadn't seen it until just now.

And here's a picture of me and Lindsay at the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding.

Family is so important and God has blessed us with a bountiful amount. When my computer gets fixed, I'll post some more.

Saved by The Bell Goes to Camp

2007-02-21T22:14:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures from Expressions...which we lost. I'd like to think that it was because the judges were biased, because who could dislike "Saved By The Bell"? That's blasphemy in my book. All right, so on with the pictures.

Lisa Turtle and Mr. Belding must have some kind of secret...no wonder she makes such good grades. *wink*

"This cannot be happening. I thought this camp was dork-free!"

The girls from Bayside High!

Here is a picture of Screech and Girl #2 celebrating our great loss.

Oh, this is just my silly boyfriend.

What a terrible week and what a waste of time, but what an experience and a little bit of fun.

Happy Birthday, Lindsay!

2007-02-13T13:01:00.000-06:00

Today is my big sister, Lindsay's birthday.

She and I have always been friends, but more recently we have become very close because we had an opportunity to depend on one another more than usual. Over the past several months we had lots of sleepovers and even more "meet-up/hang-outs" our time spent together also allowed Zach and Matt to become friends, which I love and I know Zach really loves. Our meetings usually ended with great stories that will be fun to tell our kids and have already proved fun for us to tell to other family members. For example,

The tale of Vondegren the campsite horse ,

Stick Biscuits...oops, butter biscuits ,

The LOST marathon ,

Rita's ,

The Suprise Soccer Game Visit ,

The Mattress Factory,

The Aviary and the bird that attacked Dad,
Handel's icecream in 17 degree weather just because we can ,

The Bob Evans Dessert Extravaganza .

I love you, Lindsay and we hope you have a wonderful day!

sorry, I don't have pictures of just you and me.

North Fork Mountain Trail

2007-01-29T21:16:00.000-06:00

Okay so this hiking event that Adam, Eric, and I went on was like a month ago (1/1/2007-1/3/2007), but I havn't had the time to sit down and put all of these pictures on till now...and actually I'm supposed to be doing homework anyway. We went to the North Fork Mountain near Petersburg WV and hiked this trail that runs the entire ridge, its over 24miles or so... Oh yeah we didnt have a map. This is by no means an easy hike. No water in sight except for the water you bring in. A quick run down of what happend: We got to Petersburg late on Jan. 1st and found that we were given wrong directions to the head of the trail. Luckly, with help from Uncle Brian, we eventually found the head of the trail and began hiking even though it was raining and dark. We went almost 1.5 miles before finding a good spot to camp our first night. Good food, good friends, good times. The next day was fun until about 3:30pm when we found a great camping spot and decided to pass so that we could get a few more miles in that day. Bad choice, we ended up hiking for 3 more hrs or so before finding another camp sight in the dark. Good food, good friends, good times. The next day we were fooled into thinking we only had a half a days hike left in front of us. We found out rather quickly that it was a little more than that. We drank the last of our water and ate last of our food around noon, thinking we had to be close to the end. We blanked out from there on and ended up seeing the car alittle before 5pm. WOW!! Great time out in the woods and it was so beautiful. Now that I know whats instore I feel more confident in the next trip to the North Fork Mountian Trail! Now for some pics!

The three hikers in front of my apartment, prior to departure.

Eric at the head of the trail....late the first night right before we started in.

Eric and myself at our first camp sight....I only brought a disposable camera so the pictures aren't very good.

The first morning by the fire. Adam is looking at all of our mugs in the fire where they are heating up some water so we could had instant coffee...yummers.

Adam and I at the first of many breath taking views. We are so high up right now it is crazy.

Adam and Eric contemplating life atop this wonder of God's creation.

Its really hard to see but I'm standing on that rock. The picture is taken by Adam and he is standing where the above picture was taken from.

Eric and I at another over look, crawling toward the edge to find a huge drop off. It was so beautiful, but Eric wasn't to fond of the hight.

Eric and Adam at the same over look.

This is a section that we were walking where the only thing you could see was rhododendron bushes and it was so cool look and the camera, as you could guess, doesn't even come close to do it justice. Think how amazing this would be with flowers in full bloom. WOW.

Same place as above but look back, away from the sun.

Adam at an overlook. Look at those rolling West Virginia hill. No wonder there are numerous songs written about them.

This is me. I know mom and dad not smart, but a great picture. Some times you have to take risks for a good memory. I just can't explain the feelings you have when you can see God's creation like this.

Look close....Seneca Rocks!!! This is our first sighting of the infamous rocks.

Me in front of Seneca Rocks...the back side of Seneca Rocks.

Adam and I with Seneca behind us. (and the wind blowing like crazy)

This was honestly the most beautiful place I have seen on earth. The memories are amazing and the experiance was so great. I can't thank God enough for giving me this personal time to reflect and to stand in awe of what God has done. Time out side like this really help me connect with God and honestly I don't know how it couldn't. I hope you like this Blog...Sorry it was so long. Tell me what you think of the pictures.

Mannington!!!!!

2007-01-29T11:38:00.000-06:00

Zach and I went to Mannington last weekend to spend some quality time with the folks and we had a blast. We made the rounds in Mannington which include:

atleast one meal at a fancy restaurant. this time we picked an all time favorite of mine, Mi Pueblo's.

a trip to the mall which excitingly enough included a trip to a pet store AND a peek at our future baby puppy, "Natalie Portman."

One church service.

Atleast one "kitchen-talk"

Commonly a boardgame of some sort.

A visit from Kole.

AND.....

A trip to wal-mart...

ahh...what a weekend.

Hooray Snow!

2007-01-22T18:09:00.000-06:00

It snowed several inches yesterday morning while we were at church and it didn't stop snowing until we got back to parkersburg at 5:30 in the afternoon. Zach and I were so excited about all the snow that as soon as we got back home, we bundled up and went out to play. We did so much fun snow stuff that I hadn't had the chance to grow up doing. We went snow sledding for about an hour, we built a ramp with snow and jumped it, we had a contest to see who could slide the farthest on their belly, and finally we built a snowman and carried up onto our porch. Sadly, the temp raised so quickly that he melted right away this morning. Here's a picture of our snowman before the sun got him.

Mary and Martha

2007-01-16T11:08:00.000-06:00

Zach and I were reading the story of Mary and Martha last night and with most Bible stories, when we were finished reading it we both said. I just wish I had a heart like that. Zach and I have decided to read the Message translation and it gives such life to Jesus that I've never picked up on before. When Martha comes in to Jesus after she has been slaving in the kitchen and says aren't you going to do something about Mary abandoning the kitchen to me? Jesus flat out says Martha, stop fussing and worrying and getting worked up. this is how the message says it..."Mary has chosen the main course and it will not be taken from her." I get so fussy when serving people. Instead of just doing it and feeling good about it. I worry about whether dinner will be ready on time or if all the dinnerware matches and where everyone will sit...instead of taking my time and enjoying the company and taking joy in having another opportunity to share laughter and my heart and giving my friends the chance to feel good about serving by helping with what should be done for dinner. I just wanted to share this because it's been on my heart and I'm working on it. :) We love you all.

We're Going To Arkansas!!!!

2006-12-13T08:39:00.000-06:00

Hello everybody (Kahzahkstanian accent),

We're going to Arkansas in less than an hour. We have a test at 10 and then we're high tailing it out of here. Pray for our trip and we'll see all those in Arkansas soon!!!

Zach and Cass

P.S. And after that WV here we come. Christmas at the Haugh house is always an interesting time.

Prepare for the river dance...or lord of the dance...or the robot....and maybe even some PYT (Cass)...We'll see you soon!

Hey Tanner!!!

2006-11-29T15:33:00.000-06:00

So, Cassandra and I heard a rumor that a little boy in Arkansas loves to look at pictures of Monkeys Wearing Glasses. In response to this we decided to dedicate an entire blog to this cute young man. Enjoy Tanner!!

And then there is this picture...I know it's not a monkey wearing glasses but I thought it was hilarious and I hope that Tanner thinks the same...
We love you Tanner!!!

2006-11-15T18:17:00.000-06:00

Guys....seriously....I have been meaning to post for a LONG time, but Zach just keeps beating me to the punch. I finally have some time and my flash drive and a computer all at the same time. the planets must be aligned. So, here are some pictures I have been meaning to share:

The beautiful roses Tiffany and James sent me on my birthday last month on our kitchen table. Evidently I have inherited my mother's brown thumb...but, I was able to keep them alive for almost two weeks.

Here is a picture of the doe Zach got back in October...it's sort of dark, but you get the idea. She was tender and VERY tasty thanks to the Curtis family marinade.

This is a picture of Lindsay and Mom and Dad at the Yoder family's farm in Berlin, Ohio (A.K.A. Amish Country). My mom was so excited she nearly wet her trousers a couple of times that day. Not only were there trad. crafts all over the place, but later in the day we also found a yarn store in downtown Parkersburg where they have spinning wheels and teach spinning classes. She was "so sited" to quote baby kole.

Zach and I really enjoyed their stay and it was really fun to get together with Lindsay and Matthre. I thank God everyday that He knew it would be hard for me to move so far away from home and let me have my sister not too far away for a little while. I'll miss Lindsay and Matt a lot when it's time for them to go, but I know God has a greater adventure in store for them than this crazy PA jazz. love you all.

The New Damien Rice CD!!

2006-11-14T12:21:00.000-06:00

Okay, for everyone that doesnt know or even doesnt care, the new Damien Rice CD came out today! I am like a giddy school boy whos so excited for the first day of school because he has just found out that he is in the call room of the teach he's always wanted. Yes, it's that exciting. My friends called me at 9:45 AM and told me to meet them at the bottom of my drive way and that they weren't going to stop so I had to jump in the car. So I ran down there and they weren't there yet so I started jogging toward their house. Little did I know, they were coming down another road and by the time I saw them I was calling Eric and the convesation went something like this..... Eric "Hello" Zach "Hey! I'm up the road from you...I started walking toward your apartment." Eric "What!? What road are you on?" Zach "Emerson or Rosemare, I'm not sure." Eric "Hahahaha!" Zach "I see you. Come out of my driveway and don't stop when you get to the road...I'll be there!" I then proceeded to sprint toward them, cathing them at the end of the driveway and yes, we never stopped moving. After we laughed for 2 or 3 hours we ran in to the store and grabbed 3 copies of one of the best CDs known to man. All this, and it was only 10 Am. We then went to my apartment and listened to the CD while Adam was doing homework, Eric was playing Cabelas Deer Hunter, and I was making coffee. Non of the 3 that I have spoken of missed one minute of class. Today is a good day....I think we all know that.

Our Weekend

2006-11-05T16:21:00.000-06:00

Cassandra and I went to visit my family this weekend and we had so much fun. We really like to be with family and to spend time strengthening relationships. We got in late friday night and sat around the living room, visiting with my parents. We ended up sleeping in Saturday morning and having a nice big breakfast when we got up. Dad and I went hunting for the evening while Cassandra and Mom did their "crafty" things (they were getting things ready for Thanksgiving). Kole Grayson came out to spend the night Saturday and we had so much fun with him. He is totally a hand-full but so animated that you can't help but love him. After church Sunday we took a long nap followed by some yard work. Our Grandmother came out for a small birthday party where we indulged in glorious pizza and cake...both made with alcohol because it's my 21st birthday! (Just kidding on the alcohol part the rest of the story is true....just not the alcohol). Now we are getting ready to head back to our house and get ready for another week of school. It was a fun weekend and we are going to head back to Mannington next weekend for a wedding party at the church.(Yah more gifts!)

Nov. 1, by James Zachary Haugh

2006-11-01T08:57:00.000-06:00

Zach and Cassandra Rock!!
It seems that Cassandra and I have the same time to get on a computer and write a new blog. So, sorry there are two exciting blogs to read on the same day (I know kindda overwhelming).

I took my first deer of the season last week. It was a moderatly sized doe and it took a good bit of tracking to find, but in the end Cassandra and I had the best meat ever. I think I have finaly been able to get Cassandra to enjoy eating deer meat. It was a good day for everyone one involved. (P.S. thats not me in the picture...)

Soccer is over now and you would think that things would slow down, tricked you! It's still just as busy around here and thats not always a bad thing. We are watching the days fly by and missing our family memebers all over.
We miss every single one of you in this picture...and for those that couldn't make it to this photo shoot, we miss you too!

Tanner is fun and so are wallabees

2006-11-01T08:07:00.000-06:00

Tanner's 2nd birthday was a couple weeks ago and Zach and I sent him some books with my mom and dad when they went back to little rock. We sent a small library of animal books and a book called Courdoroy's Best Halloween Ever...From one October baby to her favorite October baby. So, Tanner calls me yesterday to say thank you for his presents and it was the sweetest thing EVER!

He said "Corduroy! Yeah!" and he called the animal books his "little books" and when he talked about Corduroy he said "Ooooo" like a ghost and he was just so excited, it made me want to buy him things all the time. :) I guess I'm just missing my Tanner Pants a little bit...

Here's another precious story about T.K.... Stephanie takes him to the library really often because the Jonesboro downtown library is really neat. They have story time and for Halloween they had everyone come for storytime dressed up in costumes. Tanner was a surfer. He wore a little hawaiian shirt and swim trunks. He wore 2 leis around his neck and sunglasses. His daddy made him a surfboard out of fiberglass and put two red racing stripes down it. Tanner walked around all day wearing his sunglasses and pointing to them and saying, "dark, dark." Stephanie also taught him to say Cowabunga dude, which actually comes out "'Bunga Dude." Precious.

And since I finally got the wedding pictures printed, I have some I can put up of my special little boy.

I miss you Tanner. See you in a few months.
love, love, love.

Sidenote: I have finally received the shoes I have been waiting to get since I was in 8th grade...
WALLABEES! Zach bought them for me for my birthday with a little help from Grandmommie and my Aunt Lisa. Yeah, they're that expensive. But, they are also that awesome! Anyway, I love them and I guess the wait was worth it.

If the printer is not working...

2006-10-23T14:43:00.000-05:00

This is a message on the white board in our computer lab... "If the printer is not working for you then 9x's ut you're out of prints. You'll have to wait until next semester to print again. Sorry for the inconvenience. -workstudy P.S. check the paper just incase!!" I think we all know why that is important to everyone reading this.

(This is our computer workstudy)

I know that there is a demand for the happy birthday pumpkin and it will soon be up but for now here is something to tide you over...

=Happy Birthday Pumpkin

I understand that I personlly do not give you very much information on whats happening in our life but lets get really this stuff is more fun.

Try to connect all 9 dots, with 4 straight lines, without lifting your finger (or as we in WV like to say "fanger").

Rut-Nov. 8

Welcome To The Thunderdome...

2006-10-18T10:44:00.000-05:00

Go ahead and ask my why I picked this title. I don't know. Today is my wife's Birthday!!! It's a great day for celebrating. Last night I carved a "Happy Birthday" pumpkin for her and gave it to her at midnight. I think it could quite possibly be the coolest thing that I have ever made. And rightfully so seeing as it was giving to the coolest person I know.

I just thought this was a funny picture...

Ok now really this is what its all about... in the words of my infamous nephew...SHOOT BIG BUCK!

This is the world's largest birthday cake and I made it for Cassandra in our baby oven. It took sometime but with the help of some fearless friends (Adam and Eric) we made it work...I love You Cassandra!

soccer is NOT fun.

2006-10-15T16:37:00.000-05:00

well, Zach is in Virginia today playing soccer. We got up at 4:30 this morning so he could be at the school to leave with the team at 5am. For Matthew and Lindsay this is no big deal...but, it was a BIG deal to us. We layed all Zach's clothes out the night before, planned what he would have for breakfast, and double-checked the alarm clock. Neither one of us slept very well because we both kept waking up waiting for the alarm to go off. So, he took off this morning and I talked to him a few minutes ago...The Fighting Scots lost 3 to 1 to a team they have not played so well against in the past. I consider it a victory. But, Zach got hurt again. A jerk on the other team stepped on his knee and hyper-extended it. It takes a lot for Zach to complain about an injury and he just kept telling me how bad it hurts. I'll be spending the rest of the afternoon anxiously awaiting his arrival and refilling ice cube trays.

Nephews are fun!

2006-10-08T17:23:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of me and Zach with our nephew Tanner Vance, my sister's son right before we left little rock for parkersburg. He is going to be a big brother in January and we'll have one more nephew...maybe named Easton Jones.

I guess I'm all about fun lately. Here's a picture of our nephew, Kole Greyson who wears his sunglasses at night. We had so much fun with Kole and Megan last weekend...they stayed with us in the apartment. Kole will be 3 in November. Here's a picture Kole took of his mommy when he got a hold of my camera.

Camping is Fun!

2006-10-08T14:35:00.000-05:00

Here are the very belated pictures I promised weeks ago...

This is me and Zach at the New River Gorge.

In the background you can see the bottom of the Western hemisphere's longest arch bridge.

And there's a full-on shot to help convey the massiveness that is the New River Gorge. Listen, this is nothin'.

This is me and Zach before we started taking hallucenagenic drugs on our camping trip that made my pictures turn out this way.

P.S. I've got a GOOD-LOOKIN' husband.

S.I.S. kids, don't do drugs... it makes wal-mart ruin your camping prints.

Here I am...being safe before starting my first 5.7 on the Beer Wall at the New River Gorge.

Ironic, huh Haughs? Yay! Beer wall!

Good Luck Climb Kiss. He's good at those.

2006-09-20T13:33:00.000-05:00

Here we are jumping on the blogger band-wagon. After seeing Lindsay's and Tiffany's love of blogging, I decided to give it another try. I figure it will be a great way to let the family in on what's going on in our little OVU world. Right now I'm just trying to waste a little time before my Introduction to Counseling class after grading some papers for Aunt Becky. It's so nice to have family right here on campus. It makes tough days a little easier to deal with when I know I can get a hug on the 2nd floor. Hannah has a volleyball game today that Zach and I are going to miss because of soccer and school-work. I can't wait to see her play this year. I'm going out of town with Aunt Becky this weekend for a Technology conference in Virginia so that we can learn how to integrate some "super-sweet" digital effects in power point notes.

Zach and I went camping at the New River Gorge last weekend and we had a great time. We went rock climbing in Sommersville. These certain climbs that were 5.7, 5.8 trad. climbs were over a lake so if you missed a move... no worry, no rope, just water. But, after the climbing adventure I lost both my engagement ring and wedding ring in a big bouldery void. Zach bought me a new wedding band after we mourned all day Sunday. Now, we are moving on. :)
I'll get some pictures from camping up as soon as I can. We love you all and miss you.