Hunting with my Love

About six months ago my wonderful husband & I were having a conversation about our hobbies.  My hobbies consist of blogging, scrapbooking, and hanging out with my girlfriends. His hobbies consist of hunting, fishing, skeet shooting, and fantasy football.  I love my hobbies but right now have put a lot of them on hold...except blogging because I have very little time for ME. I have time but when I get to that time I always feel like I should be taking care of our 4 year old or that I need to be cleaning our house, etc.  I'm not complaining at all. I know that one of these days I will be an empty nester and I will have plenty of time to go on scrapbooking weekends and stuff like that. So for this season in my life I am okay with not really doing any hobbies. This is what we were discussing. Then he pops the question....why don't you like to hunt? I told him I had never been but if I was going to have a night free with a babysitter hunting was not what I would be wanting to do.  He got it but I could tell that he really wanted me to go with him....just once. So that is what  I did. I told him I would go. Well I kept my word.  On Saturday Sept 16th I went hunting with Kevin.  It was seriously the hottest day of the year.  My in-laws kept Z so I had nothing to worry about. 

Here is a picture from our truck.  The tree stand was about a mile & a half away from the truck.  If you can see the trees beyond the cornfield we were way back there in the back.

Here is Kevin getting is bow ready

Here I am getting ready to hike a mile & half to our "huntin' spot". For all of you non-hunters out there I must explain....my husband is Mr. Safety.  He purchased me a harness to wear so that I would not fall out of the double treestand.  Let me just say this harness was the HOTTEST thing!

Here I am modeling the pack with the tree stand chair covers.

Kevin went first. He would keep looking back at me to make sure I was ok. To be honest in my head I was not the happiest girl. All I could think about is how we could have been out at a nice restaurant and a movie but instead we were hiking to hunt.  I kept smiling knowing that I was about to be awarded "WIFE OF THE YEAR" for doing this.  That's what kept me going....and well the smile on Kevin's face helped too.

When we arrived at the stand I climbed up it first with the safety harness engaged.  As soon as I got up there I noticed TWO deer. I couldn't believe it. The plan was if I saw a deer I had to poke Kevin. Mind you no noise, movement, etc.  What was I supposed to do if he was still on the ground?  I looked at him and put up two fingets and pointed at them. He gave me this look like I was totally joking.  Then he saw them.  Because it was about 4 in the afternoon and we were sweating like pigs we did not expect to see anything for at least 2 hours.  We watched them for about 2 minutes until one of them started snorting.  Scared me to pieces.  Quickly Kevin climbed up the stand and we were getting things situated when I looked up and saw a 6 point buck.  I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT!  Kevin has been numerous times in the woods and never saw anything.  I had brought a book to read and I never got it out. It was so exciting!  Kevin took a shot at the buck with his arrow. I was FOR SURE that he got it. Again in the thoughts in my mind were spinning....
GREAT! He got a buck, we can get out of here, we can be home by 6 pm, get cleaned up and go out to dinner. 
That is what I was thinking.  So we climbed back down the treestand. Mind you we had only been up there a maximum of 6 minutes and it was about 4:20 p.m.  I was elated. Kevin was pumped because he thought he had his first buck. 

We walked over to the arrow and it was in a pile of dirt. No blood, nothing.  I MEAN NOTHING was on this arrow.  He missed the BUCK.  Both of us were so disappointed.  He was bummed because he was thinking...
I got a buck, I got a buck, I can make deer jerky, I can't wait to show my dad & my friends.
Again I was bummed because I was thinking...
Oh man, we can't go out to dinner, we will be here the rest of the night, etc.

Knowing that he missed the buck completely was a relieft too because I knew that he did not harm an innocent animal. We decided to hop back in the stand. We saw nothing else the rest of the night. I was totally into it. 

Here's Kevin climbing down the stand

Here I am when we decided we had had enough.  It was dark and we knew our chances of getting something was over. **Note I was just holding Kevin's bow as a prop. I do not have my hunters saftey permit. I just wanted to look cool.

Kev's bummed but so thrilled that I went with him. He told me I was his good luck charm. 

WIFE OF THE YEAR getting ready to walk back to the truck. I must say it did feel good walking back without a huge deer to drag home.


I will say this....we honestly had a wonderful time together. I can honestly say that we have never had a date night like this. Thanks to Ruey & Freddy for allowing Kevin to hunt on their land.