I'M BACK!!!!

I'm back from my unannounced vacation from blogging. I've not been finding time to blog lately. There have been various reasons for this. The main reason, though, is that I have been fighting off a perfectly horrible cold and cough. I'm better now, thanks! It really knocked me low for a week or so, and the computer was not really a priority for me. Life goes on though, so I have some pictures to share with you about what went on during my blog absence.

It was opening day for archery season deer hunting. Andrew and Billy went out bright and early to sit in the tree stands that they set up earlier in the week. They came home late morning...empty handed. It seemed like they enjoyed themselves anyway!

A couple of days later, they went out in the evening and Andrew shot a deer. They trailed it for a couple of minutes but it got too dark to see well, and Andrew decided to go back the next morning to find it. He found it right where he expected it to be. He brought it home to get a couple of pictures and then took it to the butcher's.

I baked Nana's favorite cake for her birthday dinner.

We all had a wonderful dinner celebrating. Nana blew out all of her candles on the first try! She loved the cake and took all the leftovers home to my mom and dad's house (sorry Mitch!)

We spent the next day shopping, sightseeing, and eating out with Nana. It was such a great day!

My mom, my sister and her kids, and Tommy. It was late September, but it was a really hot day! Doesn't Nana look like a model in a fall magazine sitting with the mums and pumpkin?

On our shopping trip, we went to our favorite bulk food store. Tommy picked out some autumn sprinkles and, later in the week, I made some sugar cookies to try them all out. You can't really see it in the picture, but the black ones are little black cats. How cute!!
Last Saturday, Billy, Tommy, and I took a long hike in our woods. Billy has been finding lots of new trails in our area with his new mountain bike so he was our trail leader. It was fun hiking on new trails after living here for almost 15 years! It was a terribly hot day AGAIN!!!! I will enjoy these hikes MUCH more when we finally get the fall weather that we are supposed to be having.

I was so excited to come upon this pond in the woods. If you look carefully in the background, you can see a house. They could kinda be called our neighbors, I guess, since we walked to their house from our house.

Isn't this tree amazing?!! It's my favorite tree in our forest. Doug, can you guess where it is?

Well, that brings you pretty much up to date.

I hope you all had a good week too.

Hopefully, I'll be back soon.

~~Goodnight~~