Fall pictures

Heather took some amazing pictures of the girls this fall, check these out!

They sure are growing up fast.



Hunting continued.....

On November 20th during the Ohio youth season, I took Elena out for her very first shotgun hunt.  We joined up with another friend and his 12 year old daughter for a very exciting day for both the girls and the dads.  First thing in the morning Elena's friend busted a little spike with 20 gauge pump gun.  They hauled it away leaving Elena and I to continue the morning sit.  After seeing several deer without a good opportunity for a shot I decided to move a climbing tree stand I had in the area and I asked Elena to keep an eye out while I climbed the tree.  About ten feet up, Elena shushed me and I turned and looked and there was a small buck 25 yards away.  She raised her gun and without any assistance from me she put a killing shot on the deer.  It was awesome to witness from my elevated position while she accomplished everything I had tried to teach her all on her own.

Talk about an excited dad and daughter.  Heather and PJ came upto help us out and take pictures.

About a week later, my neighbor came upon a monster while out hunting and brought it down first thing in the morning.

This deer green scored 169 7/8, just under the requirement for the Pope and Young entry.

The hunting begins.....

Early October started our archery season, so I started out with a couple early season does.  Sorry about the gore, its just part of the job.

 

Later on, one of my good friends joined me on the property to take this little spike buck at 5 yards.

Another buddy of mine trumped us all with this 16 point bruiser that green scored 167 inches.  He took it with a recurve bow.  Very impressive!

HAAAAAYYYYYYYY

PJ loves this hay pile.  It's all stacked in our boatyard.

Cute b & w of Paige at the top of the haystack.

Flowerchild on our walk in the woods.

Followed immediately by a nap in the shop with Murphy the farm cat.

What a great way to spend a weekend.  Anybody wanna come and visit yet?  HAHA

Last week continued....

On Sunday, I found an amazing Craigslist find:  a new woodstove complete with glass door and a double fan blower on the back.  We muscled it onto a big cinder block and now my shop has ambiance!

Later on that same day, Heather and I went about 40 miles to pick up a load of hay.  Love being in the country.  Makes me feel a little closer to real life.

And that same evening, Ryann hand sketched and painted a 4 x 3 ft Browning buckmark on the concrete slab in front of my shop.  It looks awesome.

Last week

I had a very productive week and I wanted to share some of the fun our family and I had.  Late Thursday night after work I went hog hunting with some guys from work.  We didn't end up shooting anything, but we did have to pull a 4-wheeler out of a holler about 2 a.m. after its E-brake failed.  Always an adventure!

We all did a lot of shooting getting ready for this weekend and I think we are all ready.  Heather and Elena are heading up tomorrow while I go to work =)

Anyway, I spent some time with the chainsaw clearing a spot for the kids to play/hangout/do homework.

                                                      Dad's chair and the entrance    

Homework table

Turkey decoy for decoration

Just a little quiet spot in the woods, it made for a fun and productive day.

Bathroom finished!!

And so..... Heather and I finished our bathroom project before hunting season started (barely) because she knows that once my blood starts to run thick, I can hardly think of anything but the woods.

This is the new light fixture above the new mirror, it really adds a lot of ambiance.

 This is the view from the shower looking towards the door at the far left....

And the view from the door looking in.  The smooth cream walls really tone down the puke marble don't you think?   I love my cabinets, no more need for furniture in the main drain.

We did all the construction under budget ($117) and decided to wait until the following pay period to add the matching toilet tissue tower, light fixture, and hand towel hanger.  Technically we are now over budget, but it was all done still for less than $200.  Now I can go hunting.....

Ongoing bathroom project

Ok, a few more in-progress photos of our main floor bathroom.  This picture is a little reminder of what it was.........

And this picture shows the new paint and a new shelf built into the corner.  Cabinet doors not yet installed.

This new cabinet is just inside the door and is also missing thedoor that will cover up the center section.

 Below that is the family towel hanger HIS/HERS/FAMILY, etc...

Here is the larger cabinet with the new doors on.  Work continues, but so far we are  within our budget!

Just some trim and crown molding and small touch-ups to go.

I'll see if Heather can take a panoramic picture with her fancy camera before we are complete with this renovation.

Pre-bathroom makeover

Ok, well at the end of last pay period, we had $117 leftover so we decided to do a $117 bathroom makeover.  Believe me folks it can be done.  Just a little elbow grease and creativity.  Here's what we started out with:

Dark walls, green furniture,

rusty old tub, no storage for toiletries, towels, gigantic 400 lb. mirror,

feminine hygiene products (which seem to be filling up this place, I think the stuff actually multiplies),  tooth brushes, HOLY COW HAIR STUFF,  

and lovely puke pinkish, brownish, creamish, rustyish marble tile.

 First, Heather repainted the outside of the antique tub with KILZ, and it looks like a new tub.

Coming soon:  fresh paint, no green furniture, hand-made cabinets, new mirror, had to leave the tile, but we can work with it.  Stay tuned, we should be finished this week!

Two months late...

Well, back in July, Heather and I had our first wedding anniversary and we spent it over on the Kentucky side of the river in Cincinnatti.  We stayed at the embassy Suites and went for a dinner cruise on a steam boat up the river a few miles.  A Dixie Land Jazz band entertained us and we sailed through a rain storm.  It was actually quite nice.  I usually don't like crowds, but the boat thing was really fun.  Must be stuck in my blood.  Anyway, after the boat ride, we walked down the boardwalk and listened to Kenny Chesney and Tim NcGraw who were playing on the other side of the river, although we could hear them plain as day.  Covington, KY also has some amazing murals painted along the river depicting the history of the Cincinnatti area including some major Ohio River floods and building the first bridges and so on.  Awesome!  These murals were probably 25 feet high and 50 feet wide and there were probably 20 of them.

This is a picture of the John A. Roebling suspension bridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Roebling_Suspension_Bridge) that Heather took the night of our anniversary.  It was completed in 1866.  This girl is pretty good at taking pictures!

Mama and I on the river boat on the Ohio River.  Yes mother, I have gained weight....

Happy Birthday season

Well, as if my life weren't already confusing, my wife's birthday is just 2 days different than Jess' birthday.  Talk about being set up for failure, I wonder how long it will be before I screw that up.  Anyway, we had a nice birthday week for both Heather and in memory of Jess.  On Wednesday we went into bible study and I had the whole surprise party set up with cake and all.

Thanks to Rick and Tabitha for helping me out, picking up the cake and storing the bed for a dew days so Heather wouldn't know what I was up to.

Heather got an Amish made log king size bed, and luckily the thing fits in our room. It's the first bed I have ever actually bought, and the Craigslist price was too great to turn down.

We got the bed loaded up and brought home and set up in not too long and now Ryann is showing off the immensity of this thing in our bedroom.

Our lil' Dixie pup thought she should share in the festivities and Heather, thinking that the bed was too tall for her to get up on, invited her up.  Well, Dixie backed up, got a running start and landed all four paws on that bed and now thinks its a wonderful place to snuggle in the morning.  Wonder why she can't seem to jump into the back of my truck? Hmmmm

Some of our babies out back

So here is part of the reason we get so excited about deer season.  These two boys have been showing for about the last month and one day about two weeks they were in the front field and I got to see them in person.  Beautiful deer, I am very happy with the genetics we have here.

Lotta antler in this picture.

We named this "little" 8-point Diego.

And this is his "little" cousin Manny.  The girls named them from the Ice Age movie.  Manny has 19 points that I can count and a drop tine on the right side.  He also sports a 3-bladed brow tine on the right.  Very unusual.  Elena says this one is hers.... wouldn't that be something?

This is the latest reason for our blood-passion . HOGS, HOGS!  I have several in the 200 pound range and they need to go.

Getting ready....

Well, once it's been a while....sorry folks.  We are getting ready here for our fall pasttime.  Hunting!  Here's an older one of Heather sighting in.

This next one is my version of geeking.  I pretend to study topography and deer movements and sightings and pinch points so I can act like I have an idea how to do this, but it usually is for naught.  This is our 2012 scope/plan of attack.  More sleep in days and more fun.  Hunting is supposed to be fun, not work, right?

This is a .50 Percussion cap Hawkins rifle I picked up this summer.  Hopefully I will get to use it this January during our muzzleloader season.  It's really beautiful, if I had a fireplace, this baby would hang above it.

Hope all are well, look for a couple posts in rapid succession, I am trying to catch up =)

We had a hot hot summer, and while the kids were out in Oregon, our power went out for about 8 days after those crazy midwest wind storms. So, mama and I were bathing ourselves and watering our animals from the creek across the road and that poor thing about dried up.  Here is a video Heather and I made of our first submerged well pump replacement with no power on a day that registered 108F and I had worked the night before!!  I thnik it worked out well, see foryourselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrTZqFdZEd8&feature=plcp

2 Years Already

Hello to all who still read this thing, I apologize again for my tardy posts.   I guess it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise that I am electronically challenged.  Yesterday was the 17th of May, a day that I am sure I will remember for the rest of my days, the day when two years ago Jess was called home.  There are several notable dates that come and go as the year spins us around (her birthday, our anniversary, the kid's birthdays, etc), but I am happy to say that although this marks a the end of a life, it has also become the beginning of a new one.  I thought of Jess' life much yesterday and I am glad I had a part of it.  She truly made me a better person as I am sure she did a lot of us. 

I am no longer saddened by her memory, rather joyful for it and I strive to keep her memory alive in our kids as they grow older way too fast.  Jess' life reminds me that our time is short and we just don't know what tomorrow will bring.  Youth tends to make us far-sighted, believing that we have time to accomplish all our desires, but I am so glad that Jess made her choice to serve God and made that the most important thing of all.  When she left me that day, she took nothing with her, but a smile.  Naturally, I realized how much ridiculous "stuff" I now had to take care of on my own, but spiritually I realized how much "stuff" I was harboring and trying to lug around.  Naturally, the problem still exists, but I have found a new strength in Jess' example and just to leave it all in Jesus' hands.  I am learning how to be more content with my place and not to fret over the things we think are important or are causing me worry. 

                                    

We planted our garden this week and it reminds me of new life and the work it takes to promote growth.  I tilled over all of last year's growth that was dead and barren and put it back into the ground to be used again as fertilizer. The whole family got involved and we transformed a bare dirt pit into a beautiful place where God's miracle can do it's work in the soil.

                

Jess is gone from all of us and there was a time in the recent past that I felt like a bare dirt pit and that I was sinking, but with the help of my family, my new wife, our children, and mostly the Grace of God, I feel like my life may be able to grow again and produce something fruitful and useful.  The feelings of sorrow and pain are not any fun and they are definitely not something we would ever choose ourselves, but in retrospect, they are stepping stones to a deeper, richer life, one that has more patience and understanding, and respect for our Creator and His plan.

I hope this finds you all well and wish we could see you, but our money tree is not quite yet blossoming.  We are not sure what our place in Ohio is meant for yet, but we are content that we will find out in when the time is right.  Until then, don't take today for granted, be a doer, stop sleeping, go visit a friend, go enjoy the sunshine, try to get an extra convention, write a letter to the worker you professed through, take your daughter fishing, smile when you see clouds, thats where Jesus will return from some fine day.