September highlights

 kicked off September with a Labor Day hike, which ended up being a challenge for Ellie's ankle, but that made it even more of an adventure!

Ohio, we love how GREEN you are!

jack spent the day squirrel hunting with his friend Colter and happened to be skinning and gutting one when we got there to pick him up. 

Charlie started his soccer season! he ended up playing keeper quite a bit this season. so stinking stressful to watch, but he did well and definitely improved as the season went on.

our friends, Mike & Kristen, invited a few couples out to have shooting date night. 

best

group

date

ever!

Owen started his first season of baseball! 

he has basically waited his whole life for this haha!

jack had a great September in soccer! they invited him to play up on a couple varsity games, which was pretty darn cool!

Ellie and jack are both in choir this year and both had concerts the same night. in high school, they have to wear a tux!

this summer, jack tilled and planted a food plot in a section of our backyard. he also built a camouflaged blind about 15 yards away from the food plot. all summer long the deer would come and eat, enjoy the salt lick, and also come every evening when we'd shake our bucket of corn. jack had them trained! so when opening day of archery season rolled around on the 25th of September, he was SO ready!

the only problem was that the elders quorum had a big party that evening so chris wasn't going to be home. he wanted jack to wait to hunt and it broke my heart to think of all that work he went thru. so I said he could hunt anyways because, come on, what are the odds he'd get a buck on opening day?! 

well....

he did!

I got a text right before sunset:

"I got one!"

followed by:

"dude im shaking so bad right now!"

luckily the elders quorum activity was at the church, which is 5 minutes away. I called mike little in the ward and asked him if he could come help Jack gut his deer. mike is a rockstar! he loves this stuff and jack just loves every second he gets to spend with Mike and his boys.

this 10 point buck wandered into the yard from the road and slowly made his way straight back to the food plot. jack got him at about 15 yards or so. the shot hit a little farther back than an ideal lung shot, but he clipped him right in the liver. the deer only walked a few yards before falling right below one of our trees. 

we lucked out having Mike's help, plus chris was able to find a guy to process the deer so they dropped it off that night after gutting it. Jack just barely got the mount back on thanksgiving and its proudly hanging in his bedroom.

jack's a good big brother and takes the little guys out to hunt squirrels sometimes