WARNING: Tarantula, Snipes, the joke's on me.

Let me let you in on a little secret... There are NO such things as chuckers. I know this for a fact. Too many times I have been led out to the most ugly remote part of Utah -- Utah Hill. This weekend Kody took me out there. He said he heard some and knew where they were. After hours of walking up hills that only people on Biggest Loser should be walking up, and not seeing anything, the flashbacks started. Kody started saying "I heard them just up ahead" and "They should be just a little further up this hill, and well be on them". I realized that this was all a big joke. Chucker is the adult word for Snipes. This is the same joke I fell for as a 9 year old boy. Now I feel like it is my responsibility to let the world know that there are NO such things as CHUCKERS. Also we saw a huge Tarantula, so that is crazy too.

Gary.

Weekend in Winterland

So last weekend we headed up to SLC. I think the last time we were up that way was Christmas. It had been a while, but somehow there was still snow on the ground. I guess it is just always winter there or something. It was like nothing had changed. 

The Schaugaard's back yard.

Gary's sister Kaitlin making a snowman.

Lady, the dog playing in the snow.

Actually a lot had changed. For one, Gary's dad had moved to a new house in South Ogden, so it was nice to visit them and see the new house. Gary's cousin had a baptism that we went to as well, and we got to see a lot of people there. We went to Red Lobster one night with the Haroldsens, and my sisters came with my nephew Jajue and Abbey's friend Mike, and Sandy was there with her boyfriend Wade. We went to see my grandparents for a little bit and my uncle Kevin and aunt Tammy's family was there. There were so many people to see and so little time! I wish we could have spent more time up there. 

Also while we were there I went to a Relief Society Activity with DeeAnn and Sandy where we got to make decorations for our houses. Seriously I would love to just make things all day. How can I make money doing that?

Deer Hunt

Here is a pic of everyone at the deer hunt: Gary, Megs, Craig, Hunter, Sandy, Preston, Dave, and Grandpa Schaugaard.

 
Well last week we tried to get all our homework done and headed down to Monticello where Gary's grandparents live. We went up to the mountains to camp and see if we could spot some big bucks. 

This is the view from town. This mountain is called Horse Head Mountain because it always looks like it has a horse's head on it. The fall colors were so awesome. 

This is what I like about hunting: 

• seeing bucks 
• nature's beauty 
• camping 
• getting good exercise by hiking up the big hills
• eating good food (Gary's grandma makes me my very own zucchini bread and cinnamon rolls with no nuts in them to take up the mountain, and they literally have my name on them) 
• being with good company 

This is what I don't like about hunting: 

• sitting for hours on end in one spot, while getting a sore behind, trying not to move at all or make too much noise, and the whole time not seeing anything.
  

Turns out that before we even got there, Gary's dad shot a 4 point. We ended up seeing a lot more bucks than we did last year. Later on, Gary's uncle Dave got a 5 point. Grandpa saw some little ones but couldn't shoot them, in case a big one came. Gary almost got one, but I guess he got buck fever or something. 

We definitely still ended up with meat to take home from Dave's deer. I will just say that I've had my share of handling raw meat. When we got home, we cut it all up right away for roasts, steaks, and fajita meat. Today we ground the rest into deer burger. We also saved some for jerky. Gary and I are having a Jerky making competition. We both got our own bag to marinate however we wanted. I will admit I added almost every ingredient in the kitchen that might possibly taste good on it. Gary of course smothered his with Frank's Hot Sauce and jalepenos. Our friends are going to be the judges.  

Here's the meat in the marinade. We'll see who wins!

We just put them in the smokers tonight.