Holidays

Heather and I have been really busy during the holidays, which is surprising since we each had a lot of time off of work. Leading up to Christmas and the break, Heather was hard at work in the dentist's office and I was working hard getting ready for finals. We made it through and I got pretty good grades in my classes. The weekend that finals ended my elk hunt started and my Dad and I went up to Pinedale, where Heather's family has a cabin. We got up there Thursday night and Heather came up on Friday with her dad, younger brother and sister.

Saturday, at the end of the morning hunt, we were walking back to the car following some power lines. Just as I turned around to say something to my dad, an elk walked out in front of us. I was a ways ahead of my dad, preventing him shooting, so he yelled to me, "Shoot it! Shoot it!" I spun around and saw a beautiful cow elk standing less than 50 yards in front of me. A perfect shot, except my gun was still on my shoulder. I immediately slipped my gun off my shoulder and started taking my glove off so I could pull the trigger. Unfortunately, my sudden movements startled the elk and it took off running followed by another cow and two yearlings, any of which we could have shot because our tags were for any antler-less elk. What a disappointment. It would have been the perfect kill because the elk were at the top of the short hill we were on and the car was just on the other side, less than 100 yards away. Oh well, at least it made for a good story.

Christmas number 2 was fun for us. It was small, but we made up for it last year. We enjoyed it so much because we were able to just spend time with family. We also got to talk to Heather's brother Fletcher who is serving a mission in Barcelona, Spain.

After Christmas we went to the cabin with Heather's family and went snowboarding. It was a blast! Sunrise had a ton of fresh snow and more was falling while we were there. Heather and I both snowboarded and I was doing pretty good for it only being my second time. My family joined us at the cabin later that week so my dad and I could finish our hunt. Unfortunately my dad was sick on Friday, so Heather went with me and she spotted more elk than I did, two.

New Year's Eve was spent with Heather's family playing games like Wits and Wagers. The rest of the week we've been decluttering our condo and I've been working on my online class. I decided to take an online class over the winter break so I wouldn't be overloaded during the semesters. It's the history of the United states up to 1865.