Ah yes, deer hunting season is upon us. As I type, there is a poor, probably frozen deer laying in the back of Jer's truck. It's been there since Saturday and to be honest this concerns me a little. How long can it be like that before it spoils or something? But anyway, Since I did not grow up in a hunting family, the whole hunting culture was a bit new to me. My true indoctrination happened one year when Jer took the girls to the farm for a hunting weekend without me. They were maybe 5 and 2 or so. They had a fun weekend with their grandparents and it sounded like everything went just great. Then, I got the photo. Someone had taken a picture of my sweet little babies posing with a dead, gutted deer hanging up to drain or whatever. There was that mangled deer with a little blondie smiling on each side. I was horrified. I just knew my babies had been traumatized and would certainly have permanent emotional damage. I carefully questioned them to gauge the extent of the damage, and was quite surprised that they seemed to have thought the whole thing was pretty cool. Apparently it's not unusual for hunters to pose their children with dead animals.
I delved a little deeper into the hunting culture when we moved from the suburbs to the "rural suburbs". I remember the first fall we lived here, I was laying in bed very early one morning and heard what I thought was a gunshot. My immediate response was a freaked out "Jer! I think I just heard a gunshot!!". He sort of woke up, listened a minute & said "yep, duck hunting starts this weekend". WHAT?? I can hear hunters from my bedroom?! Guess what? Now, four years later, the gunshots don't even phase me. I'm a true country girl.
My next-door-neighbor has this fake deer that looks very real. Every fall he puts the deer in his backyard and shoots arrows at it. Sometimes I'll look outside and see the poor thing standing there with 6 arrows in it's chest. It's a practice deer. Amazing.
Huh, I thought this was going to be a little filler post until I thought of something interesting to say, but I guess it's possible to ramble on about almost anything. :)
Among the gifts was a much longed for Nintendo DS. Yipee! 
Today was the opening performance of Kendall's school play "A Christmas Carol". It was AMAZING! Kendall plays Belinda Cratchit and also has a little part as a "creepy ghost child". I have to somehow get a picture of her in the ghost makeup because it's very, very creepy.
Above is Kendall with the other Cratchits and Ebeneezer Scrooge (in black). It takes about 45 minutes to curl her hair like that. I did it yesterday for dress rehearsal and was grateful to hand her over to the capable hair/makeup crew today.
What a lucky girl to be in the company of two such handsome lads. Although something about the middle one makes me a bit uneasy...can't quite put my finger on it.
