Ashley's First BYU Football Game

Earlier in the week my neighbor Bryan took me to the Utah-TCU game. It was sweet. I am not a Ute fan, but I root for them on occasion. Ashley was mad that I even went to the Ute game and actually started to cry because she thought that I liked them more. I had to smooth things over by taking her to the BYU game (tickets provided by my other neighbor Dave). I owe my neighbors BIG obviously. Ashley's first Cougar game was awesome. Matt Payne, former BYU kicker and co-worker of mine, took me and Ashley on the field. We saw Will Nixon there who is probably on the field the whole time, every game. Anyway we saw Cosmo, Mitch Payne the kicker, and of course cheerleaders. We stayed on the field when the team entered which was cool and we also went to center field when the team did their Polynesian cultural center dance. It was sweet, plus they won the game.

Mitch Payne the kicker

Cosmo and Ashley

Ashley enjoyed watching the cheerleaders (so did I).

BYU enters the stadium!!!

First Family Pheasant Hunt

Today my bro-in-law Nate invited me and the girls to go pheasant hunting at a pheasant ranch. We took out twelve pheasants and brought home 10. It was cool. The girls had fun. The guide's dog that came with us found a pheasant and caught it rather than flushing it out. It chewed the hen enough that it couldn't fly, so the kids ended up naming it Checkers and took turns holding it for the entire hunt. They eventually got bored and made a nest for Checkers. When we got back to the truck, Kolton who is six rang Checkers neck and we will be eating Checkers tomorrow for lunch. Kaitlyn started feeling sick and puked 20 minutes after we got home. I told Tara that know I have provided food for the family by sea, by land, and by air.

Heading out to hunt in the back of the truck.

Looking for pheasants down the wash.

Ashley holding Checkers the hen.

The nest the kids made for Checkers.

Megan holding Checkers while Kaitlyn tries not to puke.

Mighty hunters.

The Cradle of Liberty

"One if by land, and two if by sea," or so the tale goes. We just got back from a little trip to New England. We have never been and we loved it. The weather was good, much better than SLC anyway. We walked the Freedom Trail and saw the graves of Sam Adams, and Paul Revere. We also visited Paul Revere's house and stopped at the spot where he was apprehended by the red coats on his way to Concord. It was all very historic.

Where "the shot heard around the world" took place.

The Old North Bridge

Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond

Buckman Tavern where the minutemen met before being shot down by the British at Lexington

Tara and I had finished sightseeing for the day, but we still had the use of the rental car. So I told Tara that we should drive up to New Hampshire since we'd never been there before. So we drove up and decided to keep driving because we'd never seen Maine before. We stopped in Maine for some freshly caught lobster then drove back to Boston.

26 Miles and 385 Yards

Yes, that is the distance of a marathon or 26.2 miles is close. Pheidippides, a Greek messanger, ran from the battle of Marathon to Athens to proclaim the Greek's victory of the Persians. Pheidippides burst into the assembly in Athens and yelled "we have won" before falling to the ground and dying there on the spot after having run, non-stop 26 miles and 385 yards. Obviously Pheidippides should have eaten less salt, less carbs, and worked on his cardiovascular training more. Nevertheless, we now run marathons in his honor, sort of.

My sisters Dianna, Dorianne, DaNae, along with my brother-in-law Ben and myself ran the St. George marathon on Saturday. We all finished. I am glad to have participated, but it totally sucked more than anything could suck. It was cold and rained the entire time. Most of the course was downhill, and it was downhill for a long, long, painfully long time. Luckily I wore band-aids on my nipples to prevent nipples hemorraging like this dude:

I was slow, real slow, but I finished and I didn't die on the spot. I am sore enough though right now that death doesn't seem like a scary option. Atleast Pheidippides didn't have to go through the recovery stage after a marathon. If you are thinking about runnin a marathon, think long and hard about it. Maybe even try a half marathon. If you think that sucks, a full marathon is doubly sucky. Here are two of the dudes that beat me by over an hour:

I am HUNTER

I hunt, therefore I kill. Actually, this was my first successful hunting experience. My past hunts I would go out for the morning and hope to get lucky. This time we hunted for four days. Funny thing is that I actually got something and it was still on the first day. This is the first time that I have shot at a deer and the first time that I have missed. Also the first time that anyone in my party shot an animal, the first time that I have actually seen an animanl shot (my own), first time that I have seen an animal cleaned (my own).

I saw the buck later in the day and dropped him with a shot in the neck. It was a downhill shot through trees and limbs about 80 yards away. After I shot, the buck fell immediately and didn't get up. That's how I like to hunt, pain-free for the animals, unlike my brother-in-laws who wound the deer and then never end up finding them.

Getting my first buck was awesome. I was ridiculed because of its size, but I like my meat tender, like veal. Seriously though, it is a small buck, barely a 2 x 2, but you can't be picky when you've never shot anything. By the way, if you read this blog, and have shot a bigger buck with a muzzle loader let me know. One of the hunters up there asked me why I was shooting fawns. A lot of laughs up there at my expense, but then again, I am bringing home food for the family, they just wasted there money.