Deer

Last night, driving home from AWANA's bon fire night, one of these creatures ran in front of my nice new pretty car! I hit the brakes, but after hearing Matt tell me for years "Its better to hit a deer than to swerve and wreck the car", I hit the deer. I thumped its back end with my right front bumper.
Having never hit a deer before, I was unsure what the correct procedure was. So, I called Nelson. Both cell and home, and no answer. And in my hour of need too! Whatever.
Then it dawned on me that I could call Becky. So, I did. Once more, she is my hero, and the voice of calm reason in my excitable world! (Love you!)
I was pretty sure the deer kept on going - I didnt stop to check it out. That never crossed my mind until about 6 miles later.....
And, I wasnt sure if I should have pulled over to check out the damage or not. (So, I chose to just go home!)
Here is the damage:

Gross! There is FUR hanging there in that scratch/crack.

So, it could have been worse. I'm sure it actually IS worse than it looks. My checkbook is already hurting! :)

Sam

Colesys teacher gives sticks as rewards for things. Then they can spend the sticks in the stick store. Colesy has been saving for a big purchase. 100 sticks is what she needed. Finaly, Friday, she saved enough!


She bought herself a stuffed rhinosaurus.
Who she named Hippopotamus. But, she said, "You can call him Sam for short."

Ya, okay! :)

Silly girl!

My New Glasses

So, I had to go to the eye doctor last week. I really dislike eye doctors. I have however, found one I like more than any other one. And trust me, I've seen a lot!
Last year, he suggested I take out my contacts for a week and use drops to help clear up my allergies. I hate my glasses more than I dislike eye doctors! :)
Well, I agreed to try - but I needed to get new glasses first.
So, he makes me take out my contacts (I'm BLIND!) and then he dilates my eyes and THEN sends me out to pick new frames. HELLO!?!?! I think it is their little way of getting back at us for having to say over and over all day long "What is best, one or two. now one or two.?"
So, at the mercy of the man who was to help me with my glasses fitting right, I bravely picked frames recommended by him! I think I like them - as far as glasses go. And my lenses are enormously thick, but I'm trying to be grateful that I can see.

And it is really hard to take a picture of your self with the laptop computer. Yikes! Anyhow, those of you who are lucky enough to see me in the next couple days have a chance to glimpse the real thing. Please dont laugh at me. You have no idea how nervous I am about going out in public this way! I was truly traumatized as a child!

Matt and the Muzzleloader...

Well -
A guy at work gave Matt some muzzleloader guns. Why? Yep, good question. I had the same one.
Anyhow, today is the first day of muzzleloader season. Yippee.
After the soccer tournament, Matt ran out to hunt, down on the mill farm. After he left, we were invited down to dinner. The girls and I drive down, and then he shows up and we are eating and lo and behold, a deer appears out in the field across the road. Matt put his boots on quicker than anything, and he snuck out the back with his gun. And nothing. (Gynormous sigh of relief on my part!)
But wait, suddenly, a huge *BANG*! Papa and I both mutter "oh no". And Matt comes in, pleased as punch that he shot a doe.
Well Dang! Now I have to stay up and cut up a deer. NOT my most favorite thing. In fact, my stomach has already started to roll with just the thought of it. And it is warm, so we have to do it right away.
There are times I HATE living in rural Pa. Not often, but on occasions like this..... I long for a high rise apartment in a bustling city, where there are no wild animals lurking about that are asking to be shot!

Weeeeeeee are the CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh what a beautiful day it was today! It was cool, (50's) but sunny and blue skies. It was just lovely!

The girls played against green first and won 2-1 (Shelby got one of the 2 goals!!!!!)

So Orange went on to the Cahmpionship game! Against BLUE. Blue was the ONLY undefeated team of the season. The first time orange played Blue, it ended 3-2 in double overtime. (We were on vacation, so missed that hugely exciting game!) And that was the only game that Orange lost...

Warming up before the BIG game!

They all played SO hard. Such an exciting game! Oh my heavens, I dont know how all the parents just SAT there! I brought my chairs, but never even got them out of the car.

It was a hard game! (some of my favorite kids were on the other team. (Becky's boys for 2!)

Sophia and Micah were fantastic. They were everywhere!

Dad, Papa, Ed Nelson and Pastor watching. We asked them once how they could stand back there and not cheer. Matt said he smiled once. Silly boy! :)

Papa has called Shelby "Valerie" the last 2 games!

Getting ready for the trophy hand-out.

Orange!!!

Awesome coaches, Macy and Megan.

YEAH! to my girls. They did great this year. Shelby is surprisingly aggressive. I'm so proud of them!

Jr. Eagles Tournament

So, the girls have their soccer tournament tomorrrow. They play the first game at 10. If they win, they go on to the championship game..... We'll know by 10:40 what the next game will be. Consolation or Championship.

Elk!

On our way home, we stopped at the new Elk Visitor Center in Bennezette, Pa. We had heard many good things about it, so it was fun to stop.

It was COLD!

They had really neat stuffed animals inside, plus a whole room of animal skulls and pelts and other animal related artifacts. It was fun. They had computer quiz games and stuff throughout as well.

When we were leaving, this big guy was just laying in the grass. Pretty impressive!

I put my mirror in on purpose so you could see how close we were!

He was very cool!

West Rim

Well, I tried to mess with the adjustments so you could find the observation place, but it is still too hard to see. However, it is very near the top. And you can just see the river at the bottom. The bike trail runs alongside the river. We hiked from the river straight up to the observation area. Whew!

The morning we left was cooler and rainy. We drove up to see the West Rim. It was still very pretty, even with the morning fog down in the valleys.

And then we headed for home.

another line from the backseat

Stop! You are just a person, but I am GOD.

cabin Candids

This is the front of the cabin. It was really cute. They had landscaped really nicely, and the cabin was decorated really nice too.

Heres the back yard.

Okay, so these really arent candids, but it sounded nice for the title!

These 2 animals came with the cabin. Puddles and Matilda. The girls had a great time playing with them.

This was shelby's home for the time we were at the cabin. She loved that corner!

Day 3: Another ride!

Well, we thought it was going to rain Sunday, so we loaded up in our car and went to the Apple n Cheese festival. Kinda cheesy (no pun intended!) but it was something different, and we enjoyed being together. Colesy slept on the way....

When we got back, Matt went back to bed, since he still didnt have much energy from him illness the night before. The rest of us packed up the bikes and went for an 8 mile ride. We went the other direction from what we had done the 2 previous days. It was just as pretty, but in a different way.

On this ride, we saw a Blue Heron in a pond. On our trip, we saw the bear, several bald eagles, a snake (Colesy almost rode over it, as it was sunning itself on the path!), and Colesy caught a frog.

Day 2 Part 2: A Walk and a Fire

Heres me looking at you to see if you are looking at me! :)

We found these stairs in the neighbors yard. They went way down to a boggy area, where they had placed a little plank walkway. We crossed that and made it to the river bed. It was so pretty, and quiet, and peaceful.

Shelby took this one of me and Matt :)

There were some old trees down there.

Here we are at the top of the stairway. Debating whether or not to go.....

Shelby and Grammy on the way back up. you can see the plank walkway in this picture.

Across the river, there were 2 little waterfalls. I couldnt get good pictures with my dumb camera, but I tried! :)

Cool big old oak tree.

We made them stand in front of one of the oak trees, for perspective!

Stairs down (after we rode and hiked the day before, and had a 16+ mile ride earlier in the day).

I tried to get Shelbys face in the glow of the fire. Didnt work too well!

Relaxing around the fire.

Roasting marshmellows.

This was before Matt got sick. When we came in from the fire, he got violently ill. We think food poison, but no one else got it, and he didnt eat anything that no one else did. Anyhow, shortly after he removed it ALL from his body, he started to feel better. (I've known him for 17 years now, and this was the only time I have known him to throw up!)

The fire was hard to start, and hard to keep going. The wood that was left was green and wet. We gathered millions of leaves to keep it going! Colesy got a grocery bag so she didnt have to make as many trips!