Pumpkin Guts

We carved our pumpkins last night. We had a great time. And Charity and PJ got me a new sewing box...I can't imagine what was wrong with the other one. Lets just say the new one is much more organized and pretty.

Team Avatar!!!!

Had our Halloween party tonight and it was awesome. Charity was Tylee, PJ was Zukko, I was Katara, Hunter was Aang, and Jonathan was Sokka. And Autumn was Toph. We made a dirt cake to bring complete with worms and spiders.

Halloween Time

Today we went to the dollar store for a dollar shopping spree. My family are holiday freaks so yes we tend to get carried away. What can I say?

We made some homemade pumpkins and ghosts last night and just had to continue with our holiday festivities. So we decorated and made sugar cookies! Autumn loved eating the frosting and the sprinkles. We had lots of shapes, pumpkins, bats, cats and ghosts. Tomorrow we will start sewing up our costumes. It promises to be a good busy day :) We will have to wait for the men to get home before we actually carve our pumpkins though. In the mean time we can watch Hocus Pocus..."What a glorious morning...makes me sick!!!"

River Adventure

Well first I caught a beautiful brookie. I LOVE fishing! He had such pretty colors! Jonathan wants to have it mounted lol. Anyways, after catching the fish we headed back down the river and found that one of Jonathans guides and hunters had gotten the ranger stuck in the mud. So they had me get into the ranger to drive it out while they all pushed and pulled. I took my shoes off and went in my socks...a wonderful feeling. :) We got it out and had to wash up at the river afterwards.

Picture Plethora

Here are my amazing kids. Autumn has been learning to pretend play with her toys alot more and will do so by herself more and more. Me likey! She wears her aunt Charity's high heels any time she can steal them. And she dwells in her duffel bag too!

We just got back from the mountain yesterday. We went hand fishing and Autumn fell in which was so cute so that is the picture of her in my red sweater. Then we went fishing at the river with Charity and PJ. I caught a beautiful brookie that I will put a picture of on later. (its on Jonathans camera) But that wasn't our only river adventure while we were there :)....more to come

Hunter rubs his little eyes when he is tired and is my precious little boy!

Hunting and Me

It's a passion, an addiction, a hobby, a sport. Whatever you call it I love hunting. I love that Jonathan loves hunting. Not all the time. He goes far more than I do, and it is hard when it is just me and the kids. I have kinda realized that my hunting days will have to be super planned and far and few in between because my first responsibility is to my children and that is just how it is. For now.

If the outfitting doesn't last forever I will still definitely go hunting on public land. I might have to wait til my kids are grown up a little. It takes a little more time and effort on public land. That is why my hunting takes one day these past two years. lol. I can never expect to get this kind of a deal again with elk hunting. So we will take advantage.

What alot of people fail to realize, is that before I even met Jonathan (the hunting King), I got myself in to hunting in Washington by myself. I have only ever harvested one whitetail buck(picture up top, 2007). But the two years before I got him, I dragged my butt outside every day during the seasons for deer and bear and went hunting without success. Unsuccessful, but so fun anyways which is a reminder of what hunting is all about. Really...it is fun to freeze yourself and getting blisters for the feeling of "stalking your prey". The excitement of hearing the cracking of a twig when you know it isn't you...and come to find it was only a squirrel (chipmunk soup?) And after hunting, drinking hot chocolate and snuggling in a blanket. I guess I paint a more romantic version of hunting than most men would.

I wrote my senior paper in high school on the hunting controversy. Our wedding colors...green, brown and camo (I chose). I don't go hunting because Jonathan goes, or because he wants me to. I go because I want to go. That is probably why I have such a hard time when he leaves to go hunting. I get super jealous.

But we love the outdoors, during the Fall season especially. Can you say, match made in heaven? Or match made for hunting? Some day, I hope I can go with him whenever he or I wants to go, and I will be able to without the responsibility of children or they are old enough to come with us.

Autumn and pumpkins

The fall is here and so are the pumpkins. Autumn helped me harvest our pumpkins from the garden. She had a great time helping mommy carry them to the house. Of course she could only carry the little ones but we had more little ones than big ones. We had so many, I had to leave 5 or 6 out in the garden because we have no need for 20 in the house!

And I couldn't help but put up a picture of the kids together. My darlings. Isn't it crazy how different children can be. It feels like they are polar opposites! But they are both sweet just the same.

My Trophy Bull

Yesterday was the first day for the rifle season. Jonathan and I started out early like last year. After a couple of hours we saw a huge bull starting down across the river. We only knew this because we were in the trees and heard water splashing far below us on the river. We ran to take position and I got my sites on him. But he was 400 yards away and on the move so we didn't take the chance. We tried to cut him off but either I was too slow or he was too fast. Anyways we followed him to where he bedded down and we decided to come back after lunch to see if we could find him. We went back and got our horses and ate some lunch and talked for a couple of hours. I forgot what it is like to be alone with my husband and we had fun being ourselves. We threw small rocks and sticks at each other and played war like we were little kids. It was already a good day for me and I was just glad to be with Jonathan away from every body and every responsibility for a bit.

Anyways, Jonathan wanted to go look at spike camp to see how it was doing so we got on our horses and went up the draw where we knew the big bull was bedded. Then Jonathan saw him and some cows on the far side feeding. We backtracked and tied up the horses and ran back the half a mile to where the elk were. We got close to 400 yards. Then we belly crawled and scooted and dashed to get as close as we could. The wind was in our favor which was great. I was huffing and puffing from running and I was shaking from my nerves. Jonathan ranged the bull and told me he was over 300 yards away!!! What?! I was more nervous about wounding the bull than seeing that he was a monster! But Jonathan said I could do it, he believed in me. So we sat and waited for that darn bull to turn broadside for maybe 10 minutes. But I got my sites on him and when Jonathan said shoot, I shot. POW!!!! I panicked because I couldn't find him in my sites again. But it didn't matter, I shot him at 320 yards. He went about 15 yards and died. A top of the heart shot. You know those primos shows where the guys all freak out and scream and dance after shooting their animal? Well, I was one of those guys this time. And not because he is a big bull, we were just lucky he came out at 2 in the afternoon (even though I ran my butt off to get to him), but because I couldn't believe I could make a shot like that, so far away. It was an awesome hunt, and he is a beautiful bull. I can't expect to get anything like him ever again. To tell you the truth, I didn't really expect to get a monster this time. I just wanted something like my bull last year or a tiny bit bigger. Jonathan says my bull will score a little over 300 maybe. But any bull is a good bull and any hunt is a good hunt. Oh, and in the picture, I really am alot happier than my no teeth smile, I didn't realize Jonathan was taking a picture and it turned out to be the best one of the bull.