Gathering

I am back from hunting and I have decided that maybe I could excel more at gathering. I wasn't ever very good at picking berries but I always seemed to find them and eat them. I am also pretty good at picking fruit and eating it. I will continue to hunt just to get out and have a good time hiking around the mountains and taking my rifle for a walk but I may have to start gathering if I am going to provide for the family. I took the deer to the processesors today and they had a little cartoon that broke down the cost of a deer. I think we are paying about $100/pound for meat. The good thing is that most deer meat isn't all that tasty unless you add pork fat to it. There goes the idea that wild game is healthier.

We had a good time and got to see a lot of animals. Most of them weren't legal to shoot. We saw a black wolf yesterday. We knew no one would believe us but we were 100% sure it was a black wolf. We stopped by the DOW office to tell them about it and they did believe it. They saw possibly the same one a year earlier and it was the first wolf sighting in the state. I guess this makes the second because they hadn't seen another one until now. I know what all of you are thinking right now and remember, this was hunting so there aren't any fish stories.

We also saw a huge bull moose with a cow and calf. They really stood out because they were as black as the angus cows that were further down the road. And then we had a stupid fox in our camp. The boys thought it was really cool and I guess I did too at first. I wasn't too excited when I woke up the next morning and he had eaten part of the deer. I chased him, threw sticks and him and tried everything else to keep him away. People must have been feeding him.

This concludes the boring hunting trip log.

One Month Old

Jude is one month old already! Sure wish I could be one of those parents who say, "my baby slept through the night from the time he was 6 weeks old". But, no such luck here. The middle picture is Jude being scared. I love that reflex. Silas was having way too much fun when I took that picture. He thought it was funny to scare him (I wasn't mean, just touched him while he slept).

Success!!!

The boys couldn't look any prouder! Caleb shot this deer (I had to call and ask if it was a deer or an elk) this morning. The pic is from his cell phone. Sorry it's not so clear. I can't believe the smiles on the boys' faces! He still has two elk tags left and 3 more days to get them. I'll update if he does.

CHEATERS!!

Yesterday Caleb and I helped out at the school jog-a-thon fund raiser. He and I both noticed a couple of PTO members cheating!!! When the kids would make a lap and come through the chutes they were giving them two tallies instead of one. The lady I saw would say, "here's two because you're so polite", or "here's two because you're encouraging your friend", etc. I was so mad cuz all the lazy kids figured that out and would only go to her to get tallied...she would have a line 5-6 kids deep while 5-6 of us talliers had no one. For one, she was stealing from the people who pledged per lap and secondly the kids who really worked their butts off and ran like crazy the whole time got out lapped by the lazy kids by like 10-15 laps. Elias did 18 laps. He and I counted them when the time was up and he was quite satisfied with his number. However, when he came home from school he miraculously had 30 something tallies on his runner's tag. I guess the pressure of the lazies having more laps than him was too much! So we're no better because he cheated too! Lucky for me I sponsored him a flat rate and not per lap.

Fire Safety Week

I believe this is national fire safety week?? I've been putting off buying a fire escape ladder because they're so expensive ($85). But the boys came home from school all "fired" up about safety so I searched again and found them on Amazon much cheaper. Just thought I'd share the link and encourage you to get some ladders!!!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005OU7B/ref=ord_cart_shr/103-6606710-0051064?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

The Pictures Tell the Story

Birthday Boy

Silas' Birthday

Tami has a new camera and I'm not sure where everything is to download he pictures from Silas' birthday. I will write a little bit about it and then Tami can post the pictures later.

Silas understands the birthday thing to some extent. He knows that you get presents but he doesn't quite understand when or where. He has been asking for a towtruck for about two months. If a store had a tow truck and we left without it, he would get very angry. Tami took him to Costco and they saw a tow truck there. They left without and he told her that she needed to turn around right now and get that truck.

On the day of his birthday, we had fun too. We had all of his presents and we were going to save the tow truck until last. That didn't work very well. He opened the first present (a sticker book) and there was a combination of sad and mad that we had not seen before. He said, "No this is not for my birthday......I get a tow truck for my birthday." He almost started to cry so we pulled out the tow truck package and told him to open it. It was really funny because he was so excited about getting a present that he already expected to get. He still doesn't quite understand everything when it comes to birthdays but don't mess with that kids gifts.

I was in Lake Louise for budget meetings this past week. There were a few of us that wanted to jog the trails around the lake. The first day we took the trail that followed the shore of the lake. People were dressed in snow suits and hats and had all sorts of winter gear on. We were running in shorts and sweatshirts. They all looked at us like we were crazy. The second day, we decided to push ourselves a little bit harder. We were going to jog the trail that went to a lake that was further up in the mountains. There were four of us that day. We started to jog up the trail and it got steep very quickly. We ended up jogging about 50 yards and then walking fast, then we went down to a slow walk until we made it to the half way point and it was starting to get dark. We decided to turn around. Only because it was dark of course and we didn't want to be out there when it got really cold.

I'm going to end the blog on a good note. Elias' football team won a game yesterday. We were all surprised. We knew that if they didn't win this one, we might not win another one all year. The team they played hadn't won a game yet and probably won't if we beat them. Then we found out the worst news of the year. We were expecting next week to be his last game of the season. Then they told us that all teams get to go to the playoffs no matter how bad they are. All of the parents were really hoping that they only took the good teams with winning records. The only good I see in all of this is that maybe we can get some real football weather by then. That will separate the true fans from the want to be fans.

These are pictures of Lake Louise. I was there for the week. I will blog more after Silas' birthday party

NEW CAMERA!!!!

Jude @ 3 weeks

Broken Camera

I've been reprimanded for not posting more pictures of Jude...The problem is that we discovered our camera is broken. I don't see myself heading into town anytime soon so I bought a new one off of circuitcity.com and it should be here by wed. or thurs. Just in time for Caleb and Silas' birthdays and so we don't miss too many more precious newborn moments. I have become a big time Internet shopper. I bought all the boys clothes this fall and some of Silas' b-day presents (the rest Caleb picked up at Costco) that way. I figure it saves SO much stress, gas, time, germs and sanity.

Since I don't have any new pictures of the baby I'll post some pictures we took of the boys in August (pre-Jude) when we took a trip to Martin's Cove. The boys had fun pulling the handcarts and we really enjoyed and were humbled to learn what the Saints went through.