Fall is here now...

As much as I am sad when summer ends, and I am very sad, as soon as those leaves begin to change colors and we take our first visit to the Apple Orchard, I am in love with fall! Kona's favorite season is fall because she loves to chase the leaves as they blow down the street. Here are a few pictures of the fall planting we have been doing over the past week or so. Dave is now all about "rocks and grass" as you can see by the pool. Dave also chopped that entire pile of wood by himself! And now the whole pile is in my backyard. He says we will have enough wood for a few years. Is this little house on the praire? I am pleased to say I planted some burning bushes and planted some bulbs as well, so I am praying they make it through the winter and I didn't do anything wrong. I am wondering if my bulbs will grow; I just read in my Martha magazine you are supposed to point the ends up, and I just threw them in the hole! Oh dear...I am not a gardener.

Mom's 35th Birthday...

So we threw my mom a small, birthday party last Monday at my sister's house. She was totally surprised. All the ladies from church were there and we had a nice time playing games... "How many times does Cindy reapply her lipstick daily?" having lunch, sharing testimonies and opening gifts. Then my sister, my mom and I all went to the mall for pedicures! Very nice.

The day before we went to lunch at Friday's and she received a suprise sundae and balloons from the waitstaff. They sang happy 35th birthday to her, and we were all a bit confused as no one had told the waitstaff it was her birthday! Crazy... that made it all the more interesting!

Dave gets his First Buck!

Last Saturday night, while I was away at my first work event, Dave was deer hunting... He was to meet me for the dinner portion of the event. Somewhere around 6 pm when I was just preparing my speech, I got the call!I will let him tell the story...



My First Buck, by Daver
The day started out at 3 a.m., I awoke, got my gear ready, and was preparing to hunt some public land I had scouted out 40 mintues south. As I was climbing up into my tree, I heard another hunter coming through the woods and saw a flashlight. A few hours later, this same annoying hunter came down out of his stand, and totally aggitated by the noise he had made and knowing there was no chance the deer would be sticking around, I finally left that land around 9 a.m. Later that afternoon, still frustrated by my wasted morning, and knowing I had to be at Keri's event that night, I went up to our friends house, the Beards, to hunt part of their land.

The Beards live about 15 minutes away and their property butts up to about 10 acres of marshland, so I like to sit right on the edge of their property in a large tree 25 feet up in the air. I fell asleep for an hour or so, and when I woke up around 6, 3 bucks came running into the area. I was excited and bleated, which is a noice similar to what a deer makes, and the one of the bucks, which was a 6 pointer, stopped pretty much right underneath my stand. I shot the 6 pointer, hitting him underneath his spine, and dropping him instantly. I shot him one more time just for good measure. Then I got down, checked out my deer and took it home. I was happy. This was my first buck. I called my dad and mom, Keri and told them all about it. Keri was so excited because she thought this meant the end of hunting for me this year...yeah right! Anyway, I took the deer home and hung it up in the garage, took a shower, got dressed in a hurray and rode down to Keri's event with my parents. Keri got home that night late from her event to find my prize dripping blood in her side of the garage. She was not as excited about that as I was.

The next day, I took the deer down and brought it to the food processor and the butcher was walking out of the back with a fresh deer head in hand on his way to the dumpster. As he was walking to the dumpster, 2 little girls were walking down the alley, saw him and the fresh cut deer head, screamed and ran away down the alley! that was funny.

Oh, and I had one more surprise for Keri. Because I am only allowed one buck per deer tag, I had Keri get her deer license and her deer tags so I could keep my buck tag and use hers on this deer I had already shot. She says I owe her big time.

The end

First Day of Hunting Season...

I would have never thought I would be planning my life around the opening day of deer hunting season. And more specifically, Bow hunting season. My pretty little wall calendar which never gets more than a glance from Dave, is suddenly filled with scrawling handwriting on each week announcing how much closer we now are to deer hunting season. Each evening before dusk can find my husband perched in our swing set, bow in hand, practicing his shots from a different angle and blowing yet another hole in the pathetic foam deer across the yard. What the neighbors must think!

So, Daver got up sometime in the middle of the night, took a shower in some kind of scent removing product, threw on his camo, painted his face black, and proceeded to sit in a deer stand for like 9 hours. Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? He came home that evening with no deer, but a big grin on his face because the day he has been waiting and planning for for the past 4 months has finally arrived.