It was such a great week. On Monday, both girls had sports games to attend. Phil joined us after work and got to see the end of Felicity's soccer game and the end of Helen's cheering at the basketball game. We picked up a pizza on the way home and counted it as Family Home Evening! Our evenings have been so full lately that I am really neglecting mom duty in terms of making sure Arlo is getting his homework done, studying his spelling words, and practicing piano. I feel bad, but I'm going to just keep trying to keep my head above water!
Felicity had a trip to the temple with the beehives on Tuesday and really enjoyed herself. I dropped her off for that after we did our usual Tuesday chores. I'm grateful for the many opportunities she has had to be able to attend the temple. The kids had a half day on Wednesday, so Phil picked them up from the bus stop for me since I was at work and took them out shooting to practice some more for our elk hunt. I think they had a good time and I'm sure Helen was grateful to get some more time on the gun. I took Arlo to his piano lesson in the evening and it was yet again another late night as we all worked together to get packed for our hunt!
Thursday morning I got Arlo off to school, picked up my dad's truck, and dropped off Arlo's suitcase with my parents. Phil came over and helped load up the truck, and boy was it full. I had volunteered to do the cooking and since I hadn't been to the cabin where we'd be staying, I brought everything I would need to make our meals. We hit the road mid morning and met up with Mike and his friend Dallin (who's grandfather-in-law owned the cabin we were using). We had a quick lunch at Eegees (my favorite flavor of the month is in November) and then headed north. The girls entertained themselves in the truck, and may even have caught a nap. We arrived without any problems and got our stuff unpacked. It was a very nice cabin and the girls chose a room with a bunk bed and immediately set about making a mess. As soon as we were settled we piled up in the truck and went to do a little scouting. We were no more than a 1/2 mile from the cabin when we saw a herd of cow elk right off the road.
We were up before dawn on Friday morning and drove and then hiked to a good vantage point and spent the morning glassing for elk. There was a beautiful inversion down in the canyon we were looking at, while very pretty, it made finding animals more difficult. We split up, Phil and I taking our girls one way and Mike and his daughter another. We looked for quite awhile, but didn't see anything close enough to shoot at. We headed back to the cabin for breakfast and a nap. I sat out on the porch crocheting in the afternoon, Phil and I chatting, it was so beautiful to be out in the trees. We set out hunting again before sunset, but again, didn't see anything.
Saturday was my 39th birthday. I honestly can not believe that I am that old! We got a little bit of a late start on Saturday morning, but we were lucky and found a small herd across a valley after driving into the woods and not having to hike very far. We got all three girls set up to shoot even though it would be a long shot. The plan was to let Helen have the first shot from our family seeing as she didn't get to harvest a deer last year; however, she very quickly became keyed up and was crying as she couldn't find the elk in the scope. I didn't want Felicity to miss her opportunity so we told her she could shoot whenever she had a good shot. She was so cool and calm, she lined up her shot, 650 yards and waited for the animal to stop and turn broadside. As it turns out the cow walked another 100 yards towards us when she took her shot; because it was now 100 yards closer we should have readjusted the scope, but forgot to, and so she missed. She wouldn't have if we had readjusted the darn scope! Oh, well. Neither of the other two girls shot and the herd moved back up into the tree line. We followed the herd and Felicity had one more opportunity to shoot, but she had to shoot quickly in a standing position (which she hasn't really practiced) and she missed.
I took a shower and had a nap after making breakfast for everyone when we returned. We went back out in the evening, but didn't have any luck. When we got back to the cabin, I put some real, non-camouflaged clothes on. Mike graciously offered to take the girls into Show Low for a burger as Phil was going to take me out for dinner for my birthday. We drove into Show Low without much of a plan and found a nice little steak restaurant. We decided to share two meals between us, a steak and some coconut shrimp. Let me tell you, I've never had shrimp that big before! It was so wonderful of him to take me out on my birthday, I can't remember the last time a sweetheart took me to dinner for my birthday. I'm thinking its been at the very least seven years! I also got the best birthday gift ever, Phil told me the gun he brought with him was mine! He's a keeper for sure. We got back to the cabin late, but it was so worth it to take a break and have some one on one time.
We decided that we would take the Sabbath day off and not hunt. Sunday morning we got the girls up and we attended a small sacrament meeting at a chapel in Heber (I think? Honestly I rarely know where I am!). After church we went back to the cabin to make breakfast and to change. In the afternoon we were invited to have dinner with Phil's friends in Snowflake. We had a really nice visit, I enjoyed meeting his friend and his sweet family; it was so gracious of them to have us over considering they didn't even know the girls and me!
When we got back to the cabin Nicole came up to tell us she had shot an elk and asked us to come to help clean it and pack it out. So we all changed our clothes again and went only about 1/4 mile from the cabin to help Mike finish cleaning the cow she had gotten and pack it back to the cabin. The girls were really helpful, Felicity serving as a mule and Helen as an official flashlight holder and go-fer. Felicity, Helen, Phil and I were walking back the last of the meat to the cabin in the dark, he had maybe 75 pounds of meat on his back and I was carrying a shoulder across my back when we got to the barbed wire fence we needed to cross. Luckily it wasn't very stiff, we had been able to hold down the top to climb over the first time; however on the way back I had a very graceful Heather moment. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I think I put my foot on the top of the fence to hold it down so that the girls could climb over and with the meat on my back lost my balance and fell forward on the fence. Amazingly I didn't cut up my hands, but I did catch the seat of my pants and was hilariously stuck hanging from the fence by my britches. I laughed pretty hard as they helped me get untangled, other than a scratch on my bum I was unhurt, well my pride may have been a little bruised! I was so grateful to stay in a cabin this year, it was so nice to be able to get a good nights sleep and get warm each night. We were spoiled for sure!
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