from the north: Moose Hunting

At the end of September we headed down to Southern Idaho to go Moose Hunting, hooray! Aaron has been putting in for a moose tag for about 13 years, so we were pretty excited to find out that he was drawn this year! The hunt was about 2 hours from Pocatello, near Afton, Wyoming. So while Aaron and his dad went off for their hunt, the girls and I stayed in the Pocatello area visiting family.

The first part of the week we stayed in American Falls with Kyndra and her family. The babies loved all the attention they got from their cousins!

Brody helping out with the babies

It was fun to be in town while Wyatt received his Arrow of Light Award for Boy Scouts.

Aunt Jill & Maria

After spending a few days with the Hunts, we headed back to Inkom for a few days before the hunters were supposed to get home. I got really excited when they called us that same afternoon. I thought, well that's good news, they must have their moose already! But, it turned out to be bad news...

Cary's horse stepped in a bog near the lake and threw him in for a swim! Aaron pulled him out, put some dry clothes on him, and set him back up on the horse for the 2 hour ride back out to the truck. They called an end to their hunt for the week thinking Cary could get some rest and head back out the following week. But it was a bit worse than they thought...

As we came to find out, he broke his leg in multiple spots around his knee. After surgery the following week, he'll have to stay off of it for about 3 months. But we've heard he's finally starting to feel better, thank goodness!

Aaron was sad he didn't get a moose, but happy to see his girls again.

So we headed back up to Lewiston, and a few weeks later, headed back down for the final week of hunting season. On our way down, we stopped and saw my parents in Gooding. And the girls got to meet my dad's horse, Chicky. They loved grabbing his ears. Good thing he didn't get mad!

Playing in the leaves in Nana's yard

Keeping Grandpa Baird company while he has to be off his feet.

At 8 months, the girls are becoming more and more curious.

They love to roll all over the place and check everything out.

Aaron planned on being gone the whole week, and said he was going to hold out for a nice looking bull moose until Wednesday. But Thursday and Friday, the last two days of the hunt, he would shoot just about anything. Imagine our surprise when we found out that he got his big trophy moose on Monday morning, just a few hours into the hunt! He only ended up being gone about 24 hours. Some guys have all the luck...

Aaron and his dad cut up all the moose meat, which I'm glad to say is much better than I was expecting. It's very lean and tender, and we've been having lots of moose steaks, moose burgers, etc. We even had moose roast for Thanksgiving :) We feel very blessed to have our freezer full this winter.

The other bonus to Aaron getting his moose so soon, was that he got to be home in time for Trick-or-Treating! Maria was a bumblebee and Elaina was a ladybug. We went around to just a few homes near Aaron's parents' home in Inkom.