A Whole Lotta Grouse

Wow, Tyler invited me to do some grouse hunting on some trails that he knows. I love to hike after grouse, but I had to admit that using the ATV was a very productive way to go. We covered about 12 miles of trails and shot 5 grouse each!! We couldn't have covered that kind of ground on foot.

Here is the haul...we would ride around until we spotted one in the trail or off the side of the trail, then we'd bail out go after them. Sometimes we would shoot on on the trail and flush another few just off the side of the trail. In one group that we went after there were 5 plus! In another group there were 4. I am not sure we can top this day.

You can see the type of terrain we were in. We also saw 3 moose.

These are all spruce grouse (gold banded tails). They are called so, becasue they like to hang out in spruce pines and eat the needles. They also eat the cranberries that grow wild here.

Overall, not a bad day...shoot ten grouse in 4 hours! Takes away some of the pangs of missing out on the Utah duck hunt.

McKenna's Blessing

Last Sunday, we blessed McKenna. Here she is in her cute blessing dress...

Here are a few more pics of McKenna. She is starting to really fill out and looks a tad different from when she was born.

She's getting quite a healthy gut...she is a good eater.

More Pictures of McKenna

Showing off her pretty eyes. McKenna is much more awake and alert as each day passes.



Big Sis Jaycie loves to hold McKenna.

McKenna enjoys looking at her toys. She has a big dimple on her left check that has been hard to photograph, but you can see it in this picture. One of the first things the nurse said to us when she was born was, "look at that big dimple."

After her first "real bath."

We love our McKenna!!!

A little foggy...

Well, the past few days have flown by, much of the time somewhere between conciousnous wondering when the next time would be that I could catch a quick nap. We have been loving the time we have to have our little one at home. This afternoon, the cabin fever got the best of us and we decided to head up to Eklutna Lake (only a 30 minute drive from our house) to get away and let Jaycie throw some rocks. We all needed the fresh air.

Eklutna Lake and a tired looking bunch.

McKenna, 3 days old. She is starting to look a little like Jaycie.

Jaycie is starting to get a little jealous of McKenna, but never misses a chance to hold her new little sister. I have been making sure to spend some one-on-one time with her when I get a chance. Stacey, Shannon's sister has been here for the past few days and has been a huge help.

I think she has daddy's nose.

...Now for the story

Tuesday the 25th, I found myself taking a call from Shannon on my cell phone while I was at dinner with some work folks wishing Ed Lamb, our CEO good luck on his new CEO position in Texas. It was about 6:45ish and Shannon had been feeling some contractions since 4:45 pm (each about 10 minutes apart). We thought, wow, this could be it, but decided to wait to see if the contrations would continue, get closer together or more painful (we were still a week and a half away from the due date). Well, Shannon called about an hour later saying that the contractions were continuing and we ought to go in. So, I ran home.

The contractions got a little more painful, by the time we had things gathered up and ready to head to the hospital. Long story short, we got the hospital at 10:30pm, the contractions grew more painful and closer together. By the time Shannon got the epidural, she had gone from a 3 cm dialation to a 9! The doctor arrived at the hospital and about 5 pushes later, out she came! We were so greatful that there were no complications.

Baby McKenna is here...and yes, we are all tired!

Born at 2:28 am August 26th. 7 pounds 4 ounces and 19 inches.

I am too tired to tell you the story. I will put more pics on the blog tomorrow...with all the details.

Fishing and...BEARS!!

Me and dad went to the Russian River to catch some red salmon. The river is notorious for sharing the river and fish with bears, especially when you hike up the river to more remote areas (where there are typically less people and more fish). And as predicted we saw 7 different bears while we fished over the space of two days. Here are the pics...

Here is a young black bear (2-3 years old) coming down to the river on our side of the bank (you can see him peeking over the bushes in the left-center of the picture). He was very timid and would get within 10-15 yards of us and once, someone yelled at him, he would move away. This is the one that came down while we were wading in the water and bit dad's Gatorade bottle that was on the shore. Once the bottle made crunch noise, he dropped it.

This is the one bear we had to be extra cautious. This is an adult mother grizzly bear with two little cubs. The cubs are hard to see in this picture, but they are just ot the left of the mother. They were dark brown, so they blend in. This bear moved down into the very fishing hole we were fishing in. We, of course moved down river long before she got there (we could see her coming).

There were also two young grizzly bears (probably 2-3 years old) that came down the river on the opposite side of the bank. They were more interested in the fish than us.

And yes, we caught some fish. We caught a few red salmon, but this king salmon was the highlight of the trip. We figure it was about 50 pounds. I was able to "floss" it with my fly and reel it in on my 20 pound fishing line. It is red becasue it has been in the fresh water for a long time, has already spawned and now is merely swimming around waiting to die (circle of life).

We couldn't keep him, the king salmon season is over and I am not even sure if you can catch them for keeps in the Russian River, but at any rate, because he is really red, the meat would not have been good anyway.

We had a great time and loved sharing the river with the bears...and living to tell about it!