January and the Standoff

Where should I start. The New Year entered with a bang and our family drank sparkling cider and made resolutions. Most of these included losing some amount of weight and reading more scriptures. I don't usually make resolutions and I don't need to lose large amounts of weight but I could do a long blog post on what 5-7 pounds does to a person with a very small frame and sound really shallow.. so I won't. But lets just say, we could all be healthier and do better with our exercise habits and diet. I'm going to try!

We grudgingly started thinking about taking the rest of our college kids to the airport. Unfortunately, their was also a march scheduled Saturday. I was really frightened by the march, because it was organized by a militia coming in from out of state. This militia had been in the area for awhile and was having meetings and trying to organize a protest march to go by the courthouse and they were carrying guns and so forth. Most of our local people didn't invite the militia to come, although many have similar political ideologies and agree with some of the things the militia stands for. I would have to say that we all pretty much think the Federal Government has too much control. But we wouldn't have chosen to become so vigilante.

We were in Boise and we all cozied into a hotel and ordered pizza. We watched cable news and talked and around 5am Kris took our girls to the airport to fly back to Hawaii and Utah. It was sad. The younger girls and I slept in and then we all went to lunch at Cafe Rio. Cafe Rio is the new family favorite and we usually order a sweet pork burrito or a sweet pork salad which is basically the same thing with extra lettuce. We then proceeded onto the mall where Kris and Brooke got new cell phone covers and Amanda spent her money from Gma Alice and Gpa Jim. We stopped at the Nike store too and exchanged Christmas gifts that didn't fit/ weren't liked. After driving in the traffic we went home to our little town.

While we had been away, the march had occurred rather peacefully. Some locals participated, although not a ton and as a surprise... at the end the Bundy guy drove the 40-50 miles out of town to the small bird refuge and with about 10 guys... occupied it.

Then we suddenly became a kindof temporarily famous town.

The whole march started because a couple of local ranchers are going back to jail to serve more time for burning fires to control brush on their land. Long, long story but their fires burned government land also. They have already been in jail for 1 year (the son) and 6 months (the father ).... and were released. They have the nicest families and are really good people. Many people feel that they shouldn't go back to jail for another 5 years, but the government reviewed their case and said that the judge didn't sentence them appropriately.

ANYWAY.

Sunday the local facebook page was blowing up. Talks of threats to our local law enforcement families caused the district to cancel school for a week and the news media started showing up. It felt very violating.

Most people live in our small town to avoid things like that. We are usually a very safe place.

My family sent me several emails. I know that they were curious and interested in the issues at hand. They wanted to discuss or talk about the issues. I didn't want to talk about it. I was feeling very raw from the unfolding drama in our town and worrying about the state of our local affairs. I pretty much told them in an email to stop talking to me about it. I may have used some swear words. I feel badly about it now because I have calmed down and don't see as much of a threat in the situation as I did on Sunday.

Some local people have actually driven to the refuge and visited with the men. Some one took them chili. They said that they aren't menacing and have some good points. I still feel like they have broken the law and that I would like them to leave. Most of the town wants them to leave although some would wave good bye and thank them for drawing attention to the plight of ranchers around the country. And they have! There is a lot of publicity coming to the forefront and I am more cognizant of the fact that we REALLY need to elect officials who we trust and who can make some necessary changes.

Monday we stayed home from school and cleaned the house.

And today we went to the next town over because no one from the league wants to come to our town and play since their is a militia occupying the Bird Refuge.

Rumor has it that something is going down tonight.

But I am tired of rumor and drama and I just want it to go away.

I am like that . I will never start a revolution. I like life all nice and boring and calm and drama free.

But no one asked me.

And that's how our January is going..