November Activities

November has also been a busy month for us.  Here are some of the things we have been doing.

Colby is an amazing boy who had a goal to earn all of the belt loops in his Cub Scout Wolf book.  With the Church going away from the Scouting program in January, he only had a few more weeks to accomplish his goal.  Well, he did it! 

Look at that belt! He worked really hard on all of the activities. We all had a good time as a family doing the activities with him.  He made paper airplanes, planted things, learned about the outdoors, heroes, sports, and many other things. We even learned about germs and made our own slime or mucus.  We are proud of you Colby!

 The November pack meeting was fun. The theme was Thanksgiving, so they had turkey shooting with Nerf guns, stick pulling, marbles, and other fun games the early Pilgrims played.  We are going to miss Scouts.  I think Colby will too so we might look into a community sponsored Pack in January. 

Each year, Canyon Elementary puts on a Veteran appreciation assembly. The choir was involved in the assembly. 

They also did a cool slide show to recognize each Veteran and public safety officer. They had each of them come up and be recognized. The kids love putting me in every year. It was a great assembly.

The kids are really proud of their Dad!  As part of the program everyone had an opportunity to write a short note on one of the stars on this flag behind us.  The people in charge were then going to mail it to someone in the military serving overseas.  It was pretty awesome.

At the Canyon Colt Recognition Assembly this month, Colby was recognized by his teacher for being and amazing student. 

Colby is such a smart boy and he was excited to tell us he was in the 300 Club and getting an award. So of course we had to go and support this smart boy. The school does a great job helping the students achieve their goals and helping them progress and get smarter.  Way to go Colby!

Russell has been really busy this last little while with hunting.  In October he tried the deer hunt and now in November he was out hunting for bull elk! The deer hunt was not a success even though I saw one buck and shot one to many times at it. I should have been patient for 15 minutes and let it get closer to me or get Tyler to shoot it with his scope. It was a fun hunt though. My Dad and Tyler came us and spent a few day in cold country. It was the first time hunting with my brother and a very long time since hunting with my Dad. During those days we hiked a ton all over the mountains and was sad to say we saw to many does and not enough bucks. The four wheeling was fun and getting to know the area out in the country. It was fun hanging out with my brother, Dad and Colby who came out for a couple of days. Once the deer hunt was over, I had three weeks to get ready for the limited entry bull elk hunt. 

I was excited for this hunt, because it was very rare for someone to draw out with only three points. I knew where one herd was at and they had their routine of starting in public land and making their way over to the Hardware Ranch private side. There were three good sized elk in this herd. 

I thought I was on my own with the hunt, so I reached out to some people and found some help. My friend, Tyson Booth, wanted to go and my brother-in-law, Clint, and his wife, Haley, came up to help my poor soul. I found an area called Elk Valley about 15 miles past Hardware Ranch. It was an awesome ride and the view was amazing. 

The first day was at Rock Creek with about a half a mile hike to the top of a mountain to see if the herd I had been watching was there. They were not there, so we went to the pipe line area and hiked to another vantage point and there they were. We watched them for a bit and Clint said we need to wait on these and see if we could find more bigger ones. Off to Elk Valley we went with the hope of finding one. We did see a herd on the side of a hill, so we decided to hike in and find out if there was a bull in the herd. The only bad new part was we were a ridge too far east when we heard lots of noise and branches break. We missed the bull in that herd. We saw some big ones about 20 minutes before sunset. We decided to wait until morning and find them again. 

We did find them the next day and we left Haley at the truck with the spotting scope to guide us in. We got to the top of the mountain and saw a little rag horn just standing there. Clint said I could shoot that. I got greedy and told him there were two big ones right in front of us over the next ridge. We creeped forward and as we looked over the ridge we saw nothing. We were on the ridge below the herd and they saw us the whole time.  That small bull elk was bringing up the back end of the herd. So much for being selfish and wanting bigger and better. 

During the whole week, I found and shot at three different elk and missed every time. Needless to say I was getting upset. I had two amazing rifles that people let me use but I was not used to shooting with a scope. I now think about it, I should have brought my 30-6. Who knows, I might have gotten something with my open sights... Oh well, it was a great time with friends and family regardless. 

Tyson and I found the last bull I shot at in Elk Valley. It was a really good sized bull. I shot and the bull did not even flinch. I moved in closer and tried again one too many times. I was done after this. We went four wheeling for an hour or so and headed back to the trucks to headed home before the storm rolled in. I learned a lot about these animals. I thought at first that I was smarter than them and needless to say they were too smart and quick. The noises they make and the way they protect the herd is amazing. I shot at one bull and the whole herd of cows circled the bull and did not move. I sneaked up on one herd a little too loudly and one cow barked and the whole herd stood up on end and it was amazing. The whole month of hunting was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about hunting even though I wasn't able to fill my tags. 

Here comes the snow and goodbye to the nice weather. One day we were in the house and Tiffany looked out the window and saw hundreds of birds surrounding our crab apple tree. 

It was like we were being taken over by birds!  We really hoped it was not some bad omen.  I guess it kind of was because that weekend we had a pretty good snow storm.  Each year there are little berries left on the tree. This was the first time we saw birds eating them. I told her I was excited to see this. It meant less berries I would have to clean up in the spring. They cleaned the whole tree of the berries!  Winter is officially here...

For Thanksgiving, we decided to stay home this year.  We were originally going to go to St. George for Thanksgiving but there was a bad winter storm warning for the whole state.  (Hence the birds and the bad omen.)  We would have been stuck right in the snow storms driving to and from St. George.  We decided it was best to stay home.  Even our parents agreed that it was for the best.  Unfortunately, this meant we didn't have any plans or food for Thanksgiving.  Then the Phillips clan called us up and told us to come celebrate with them.  So that is what we did.  The whole day was so fun.  We always have a good time when we are with the Phillips.  We played games, ate a lot, and even had a white elephant gift exchange.  We enjoyed every minute and were so glad to have family in Logan.  The next day Russell had to work.  The kids and I met up with Stacey and Bobby and their kids and went and saw the new Frozen 2 movie.  The movie was really good and the kids loved it. 

November has been a great month but it went by too fast because now it is December!