First hunting trip

This past weekend we took our boys on their first hunting trip. Last year, Kyle didn't have a lease (and moped all winter long), and before that he didn't have a "family friendly" lease. I suggested that this year he find a place where we could all go, and thankfully, he did. So, we bought a travel trailer for the whole family. He built a two-man deer stand so he and a boy could sit in it. We bought my friend Sara's old Suzuki Samurai (she drove it in high school, and her husband had been using it at their deer lease).  We were ready! On the day after Thanksgiving, we were off. 

Unfortunately, so was the rest of the state of Texas.  The drive took forever. The traffic was SO bad. It was not. fun. at. all. 

We stopped for a late lunch in Luling (side note: I'm glad my kids love the decorated pump jacks in Luling as much as I did when I was a kid).  

Here's Garrett enjoying a "cheese hamburger" at the DQ (and Kyle enjoying me taking pictures in the Dairy Queen). 

In fact, Garrett enjoyed his cheese hamburger so much that he got to enjoy an ice cream sandwich (free with kids meal!).

Braden did NOT enjoy his popcorn chicken. In fact, he did NOT enjoy it so much that he did NOT enjoy NOT getting an ice cream sandwich.

Several hours later, as we were nearing the deer lease, I was getting antsy. Here's Kyle enjoying me taking pictures of him driving:

And here's a tanker truck pulling out in front of us. Kyle does NOT enjoy it when people drive like this, and he lets us all know it.

This kid is possessed.

And here's the other one. The face tattoos? Yeah, he put those on before the Ags sucked it up Thursday night.

The turn off to the ranch. Looks promising, huh?

Camp is a mile and half down this road (I know that because I ran it a couple of times the next day).

The pictures of the actual camp are on another blog post. Let me just say that it is the ugliest place in all of Texas, and I do realize that it saying quite a bit.

As soon as we got to the camp, Braden and Kyle got ready to hunt. Here's Braden sporting his new camo jacket, new camo hat, and new camo boots.

Here he is in the 'zuki. He said, "This is what I'm going to look like when I'm 16!"  (oh, Lord, help me!)

And they're off!

Kyle said Braden did pretty well. Braden said he got really hungry.  Kyle saw two deer; Braden saw three. Interesting.

The best part of this deer lease is that it is family friendly, as in, there was another family there! With kids our kids age! Score! They are pretty outdoorsy, and their kids have been hunting since they were babies. Megan, the cutie in pink with the awesome blond curls, has a pink Crickett .22 rifle and all the kids took turns shooting it under the watchful eye of the dads (that's Gene in the camo pants and Dalton to his right).

I've always thought that Braden's intensity and super-concentration would lend itself well to shooting sports. It turns out that I was right: he missed his first shot, but nailed every one after that. Summer Olympics 2024, here we come!

Garrett? Not so good. He had a hard time holding the gun steady.

That night, it was Garrett's turn to hunt.

Do the jacket and shoes look familiar? Yep, same ones. We're cheap like that.  The hat, however, is all Garrett's.

I told Garrett to quit smiling and look like a serious deer hunter:

Still looking serious. This pic was preceded by a momentary snarl on Garrett's part. It was awesome.

Also, how much do these two look alike?

Kyle said Garrett was great in the deer stand. Garrett also fell asleep, and that might be why. He also ate two of the Oreos I'd packed for him, but Kyle said he chewed them very, very slowly, just like a good deer hunter.

Here's our home-away-from-home.

While Kyle was puttering around with last minute tasks before we left, I thought I needed a picture of me just to prove I was actually there (and I also wanted to play with the self-timing function on the camera). Before this picture, I actually thought I looked kinda cute in a comfy way. It turns out that sweatpants are NOT cute. Yikes! 

Then, I made the whole family (including the damn dog) take a pic, but I carefully hid the sweatpants.

All in all, it was a good weekend: we enjoyed each others' company, no deer were killed, very little baths were taken (except for me: I took three showers), new friends were met. We're all looking forward to next time. 

We are Thankful for our Neighbors

Garrett had his first school performance yesterday, and it was awesome!  He had been practicing his dance for about two weeks at home, and the night before the program, he carefully laid out his white shirt and blue jeans and black shoes.  

The morning of the performance, I woke him up and said, "Garrett...time to get dressed for your performance." 

Without even opening his eyes he broke into a huge grin and said, "I love today!"

He's part of the dual language program, and his dance was the part of the program called "We are Thankful for our Neighbors." It was to a mariachi song--not quite the Mexican Hat Dance, but I don't know what it was. I loved the pretty skirts on the girls, and I would have loved to twirl around in one if I was a 6 year old. Heck, I'd love to do that now! 

Garrett took his role very seriously. He was front and center with his partner, Margarita.  Several times he re-positioned her, and that cracked me up. 

In this part, the boys are standing, marching to the beat, while the girls were twirling around them.  Garrett is SO serious! Love that kid!!

Book character dress up day

On the Friday before Halloween, the kids' school had "Book Character Dress Up Day." While I think this is a way for the school to allow kids to dress up for Halloween without really allowing them to dress up for Halloween, this mean ol' mama would NOT let her kids wear their Halloween costumes, partly because they weren't really book characters, and partly because I didn't want the little knuckleheads to mess them up. 

So, I thought and thought and came up with a pretty cool (and cheap!) costume idea: they both went as Merlin, the magician from the King Arthur legends.  It just so happens that Braden had recently read about Merlin in a book about knights and castles, so he totally bought into the costume. Then, once Garrett heard about it, he too wanted to be Merlin. 

 

I bought two $.49 black posterboards from Kroger and a $2.49 glitter paint set.  We cut the posterboard into a pie-shaped wedge, painted stars and a moon, then rolled it into a cone. I added the "Merlin" just in case the other second-graders couldn't tell who he was (kindergartners can't really read, so Garrett just got an M, plus I did Garrett's first and didn't really think about adding the entire name).

I cut a beard shape out of quilt batting then stapled it to the hat and cut a mouth hole. For Braden's, I pulled apart cotton balls into strands and spray-glued those on the beard.

Garrett didn't want the cotton balls on his beard, and I don't think his looks as good as Braden's.

I borrowed the graduation gowns from the stash of them at school (the teachers wear them at graduation every May). I used a long stitch length to baste the bottoms of the gowns up, and then basted the "new" bottom hem.  These stitches easily pulled out the next day so that I could return the gowns.

So, for $3.50, some time, and some supplies from around the house (and school), my kids had original costumes for book character dress up day!