N.A.I.L.E.

Finally at 12:30 on Saturday morning we were ready to leave Shelby County to head to Louisville. We had done all the important things on our checklist including 1) killing a monster buck and 2) doing chores for mom and dad and yes in that order! The navigation system said 7 hours and 7 minutes and we really did pretty good. The excitement of the big deer and that fact that we were getting to go to Louisville didn’t wear off until later that night and then a yummy meal at Red Lobster at 10pm KY time helped.

Even though it was a long ride and late night we were excited to see Kyle show at the North American International Livestock Exposition the "world's largest all breed purebred livestock exposition" can you tell I got that from their website? (That was for all of you blog stalkers that didnt know the background! lol) Truly it was a huge show and Southdown was the biggest breed there. Andi was excited to see Jayleigh and Dusty again and we were all happy to hang out with MaMa Mari, PaPa Harold, PaPa Tom, "Barb", Gina, Kale and Kyle and the rest of our "sheep family" from MO!!

Andi and her girls!

Andi picking apples.

TJ loved playing in the corn.

He also loved playing with the chickens. LOL For some reason TJ wanted all of the chickens on the tables and he kept busy moving them 2 by 2 from their pen to the table. It was pretty hilarious because every time TJ would go back for more chickens the guy in charge would swoop in and get the 2 off the table and take them back to their pen. I let this go on for awhile because I really didn't see the harm in moving the chickens because they could move every thing else. Finally I went to get TJ and the man told me "You are going to have to talk to him, he cant be moving those chickens out of their pens." What the heck? The poor guy was stressing out about it though so we tried to get TJ to play with something else before we got kicked out of the play area! :)

TJ fixing PaPa Tom's hair.

Kyle and Cassidy showing Jayleigh

Jayleigh did very well and got 7th in her class.

Kyle and Dusty

Dusty was Andi's leadline ewe and the lamb she showed all by herself at Bethel. She also did really well and placed 7th in her class!

The trip was lots of fun and we were super glad that we got the chance to go and that everyone made it home safely! I think we ended up getting home around 2:30 thanks to my wonderful husband!

Hunting Season!

I knew that deer season would be interesting this year especially since we have 5-11 deer in our front or back yard every night but I just figured that would just make it longer! :)

Travis finally got to go bow hunting the week before firearm season and was fortunate (or skilled) enough to get a great buck! That was on Wednesday morning.

Everyone was super excited to get their picture taken!

Andi and TJ checking it out...

TJ and Travis, both still excited!

I was super happy because that meant the next couple days that he had planned on hunting he could help me! Friday I went shopping with a group of girls from Leonard. We met around 7:30 and got home around 7:30pm that night. It was tons of fun and I got almost all of my Christmas shopping done in one day! And an even happier babysitter because he had already gotten the biggest buck he ever had and had already delivered him to the taxidermist!

Late Friday night I asked Travis if he killed a big buck Saturday morning did that mean we could go to Louisville to watch Kyle show. He just laughed and smiled and I did too because the bow buck was the first deer since he was 15 that he had gotten mounted. I was not counting on it! A little after 7:30am the next morning I got a text message that said "I got him!" I immediately got the kids up and ready to take pictures again with their dad.

The whole gang again with an even better buck- still excited!

After oohhing and ahhhing about the deer for a few minutes Travis said "well, I guess that means we are going to Louisville!" He did not have to tell me twice and I even let him go "uptown" for a few hours to show off the biggest deer he had ever gotten-for real this time!

Happy Halloween

We had a fun and busy Halloween! I am pretty sure that the kiddos are still dragging a little bit from an overload of sugar and lack of sleep! We started off the night with the Leonard Halloween party. The Christian Church does it and we had lots of fun seeing our friends and all of the cute kids in costumes. After that we headed to trick or treat at a few other houses and then winded up at mom and dad's. I can't believe that Halloween has come and gone..now onto the rest of the busy schedule for the year including Thanksgiving, TJ's birthday part and Christmas. Andi knew that Christmas was after Halloween so today she asked if it was Christmas. No, not yet but it will definitely be here before we know it!

Sleeping Beauty and her 2 dragon brothers!

2 little dragons- luckily for everyone they enjoyed wearing the costumes!

TJ ready for trick or treating with 2 pumpkins.

ready for the party to start

2 Sleeping Beauties. Ironically enough we ran into Mary (Schwanke) who was Sleeping Beauty and her brother Sam who was also a dragon. I didn't get a picture of the boys as they were off running around somewhere!

Mommy and her 2 little dragons :)

Costume winners! We were surprised to receive 3rd place following a potted flower (Clara Uhlmeyer) and an owl (Drake Prange)

"trick or treat! Surprise!"

knock-knock- ready for our last stop!

TJ digging for something good to eat.

Cooper - we said instead of "Puff the Magic Dragon" he was more like "Puke the Magic Dragon!"

All of the Eckler grandkids

TJ, Cooper, Kale and Andi

the kids with papa Harold and gma Mari

Halloween '09

We were all excited to be done!