Family time with dad and the elk...

The boys love when Dad comes home. He works 3 weeks and then comes home for 3 weeks. Its much better than how it used to be when he would drive away not knowing when he would have time off again. Now it's a constant and Ezzie (our 5 year old) always makes plans for his "daddy time". He stores things up for us to do-it's cute. Sometimes daddy has his own plans though-hahaha and this time the boys were all about it. It involved finding a standing deer blind and some camouflage stuff. I grew up in the city so hunting isn't really my thing, but up north here it's a holiday. No really-the schools are actually closed on opening day of deer season! Isn't that funny? All the women go shopping out of town while the men head to camp. So, anyway I was on board for a little hunter/shopping adventure with my boys. They can drop me off at Hobby Lobby and I'll fritter away some time! We did have fun! Roo (almost 2) didn't like HL as much as I'd hoped. He started yelling for his "ganky" when we reached the paper section. Oh well. Emm and Ez picked us up and we spent about an hour at a Jay's sporting goods store. It had real animal heads all over the place which delighted the kids-but I was more concerned about the Keen's and North Face stuff. Next we headed over to the Elk Preserve to watch some animals and finished our family day at fun little Mexican restaurant. Then back to Alpena. These really are the best days of our lives.

here's a peek...

I want my Ganky!

cute fuzzy keen boots...

I ended up buying these Keen boots-much more lifestyle appropriate-thinking I can look kinda cute while shoveling 4 ft of snow.