MERRY CHRISTMAS

     This special time of year I have been reminded of the true meaning of Christmas!  Kelli and I have kind of made it a tradition over the last few years to try something new each Christmas season, this seasons new events have included Christmas carols and tree lighting at a local Methodist church, and a candlight service last night at the Stevensville baptist church!  Combine this with a candlelight service at our church in spokane, they had candlelight services last Sunday for people like us who would be traveling, and it's been a very festive and fun holiday!

     Through all of the different things we have done this year and all the different denominations of churches we have gone to for things like the tree lighting and candlelight service on the road, I was gleefully reminded at each event of the real meaning of the season.  No matter where we are or what name is on the front of the church the common denominator has been the celebration of God becoming man!  And when I'm probably going to be the kid at heart who always wishes for a white Christmas, when I wake up to this I have nothing but thanksgiving and joy to give to the new born king!!  Joy to the world indeed!!

Remember, the true meaning of Christmas today!!:)

The end of an era

     This past weekend was one filled with highs and lows, as many of them are, but this one held some high sentimental values to it!  It all started on Friday morning when Duchess and I went duck hunting with Ryan and a friend of ours.  We have a pretty neat little spot we go to that's on the upper edge of a lake where a creek feeds and there is a patch of water about 20 feet wide that stays open nearly all year so the ducks just pile into it!  We got there early, set out our decoys and settled into the grass to wait for shooting light.  The cool morning fog was so dense it felt as though it was lightly raining and the closer we got to shooting hours the colder it felt, thankfully a full thermos of hot coffee kept me warm.  I have noticed this year Duchess has began to show the signs of her age for the first time on our duck hunts, having always hoped she'd be able to hunt until she dies I just ignored them though because she still showed the same drive and passion she always has.  But on this hunt when Ryan and Kris shot the first two ducks of the day I knew things had definitely changed when Duch ran right passed the first duck and couldn't find the second one, even after I pointed her in the direction of it.  I had thought that her senses, vision, hearing, and smell, were starting to slip a little, and when she couldn't see, or smell either of these ducks I knew they had slipped much more than I even imagined.  

     A little while after those first couple ducks Ryan got another one and after running around looking for it for about five minutes, she finally found it after nearly stepping on it.  We then went through a little lull in the action so I let Duchess off her leash to just roam around a little, something we've done tons of times before without worry.  This time she went out into the open section of the lake where the ice was working it's way towards the creek inlet we were set up on and after swimming her way out to the ice she tried climbing up on the ice.  She couldn't get up onto the ice and she wasn't responding to my calls to her to turn around which was very abnormal so I had to walk out to her so she could see me and understand she needed to just swim back where she came from.  I got her back in the blind and leashed her back up for good since she couldn't hear me I was concerned for her safety for the first time in her life.  Moments later Ryan shot another duck but it was hit poorly and it sailed into the trees and brush behind us, I got up to go look for it with Duchess but as I walked past Ryan and Kris I told them that the way Duch had been acting I didn't have high hopes of finding the bird.  Every hunter's worst fear is loosing game so tensions were a little high as Duch and I went into the trees.  We got into the thick of them and I knelt down next to Duch and spoke directly into her ear in the hopes that she would hear me say the phrase she's heard me say hundreds of times, "get the bird, hunt him up!"  I let her off her leash and witnessed something I will never forget, she started running around through the thick grass and brush, 12 year old nose pinned to the ground, and in less than 30 seconds she picked up a scent and went right to the duck who had burrowed his way under the thick bunch grass and flushed him out!  The duck was trying to fly away from Duch and she took one big lunge and snatched him right out of the air!!  For about two minutes she had the eyes, ears, and nose that have made her who she is, in my mind clearly a God thing:)

     She brought that bird back to me and I could see in her eyes that she could read my mind and we were both thinking the same thing right then, this might be the final retrieve of her career.  I could see the pride in her eyes as she brought that duck to me and I know she could see the pride in mine as I'm pretty sure I was starting to tear up!  This entire waterfowl season she has just not quite been the same, she still had the same desire to be out there every single time, she just wasn't the same girl once the hunt started.  She has given me so many moments in the blind that I will never forget, but this lone drake mallard was hands down the best!  Under the circumstances it easily catapults to the top of a long list of amazing retrieves!  As we came out of the trees, bird in hand, Ryan and Kris couldn't believe it.  I was so proud of my girl that I couldn't come up with the words to describe just how awesome her retrieve was, and yet at the same time I was holding back tears as I knew that was going to be the last bird she would ever bring back to my feet.

     I knew this day would eventually come, and I admit that I've been a little naive thinking that my 12 year old lab could continue to hunt like she was 3 for the rest of her life, but never the less it isn't any easier of a decision to retire her from hunting.  After the day we shared on Friday and the emotions I went through I don't even want to think about how I'll react when her time on earth is up!  I think it's best if I just don't think about that:)  After a heavy day of emotions though things turned around on Saturday as I celebrated 12 years of sobriety!!  I did the math and I've officially been sober now for longer than I drank!  That's a very cool feeling as I know that nothing that I have accomplished in life could have been achieved while I was tied to my addiction.  I am so thankful each and every day for every one who continues to support me, I live every day knowing that I have the love and support of the best team anyone could ask for!

Remember, like the gambler said, you gotta know when to fold em, know when to hold em.

Reason #21

     Well it has been a long time already since I posted on her and even longer since I've posted another reason I love this girl.  So here it is, reason number 21 why I love this girl, her never ending support of all of my crazy thoughts!  Almost on a daily basis I come up with some sort of a hair brained idea that is so far out of left field that most people would choose either to ignore me and walk away, or tackle me and check me into the nearest mental ward!  Kelli on the other hand just smiles and supports me in all of my craziness.  Now that's not to say she hasn't had either one of the previously mentioned thoughts cross her mind while listening to my ideas, but most of the time she has the patience and trust to at least let me try it and support me through the process.

     So when I have a desire to ride a train in Northern WA along a scenic old rail line, rather than hesitating because trains really aren't her thing, she jumps at the chance to go up there with me.  She understands that even at 37 years old I still think trains are pretty much the coolest things on this planet, and she gets how even though I never got to meet my Grandfather who I get my middle name from, that I feel extremely connected to him in ways that are hard to describe and spending the day on the train only grows that connection.  Kelli could have very easily came up with more than enough reasons to put off the train ride, but instead she supports me in my quirky little desires and went up there this fall with me and enjoyed the ride.

     And then again this fall when I asked her if I could buy waterfowl hunting licenses in two different states, neither of which we live in, she could have just said no and made me pick one or the other.  But she recognizes that the older my dog Duchess gets the more I feel like taking her hunting as often as possible, understanding that Duch and I share a special bond and that each time we are in the duck blind we are completely filled with joy!  Duchess can be a little demanding at times so it would be very easy for Kelli to simply not care about Duchess's desires and not let me hunt as often as I do, but again she supports all of my ideas and allows me to take my baby girl to the duck blind as often as her aging old body will allow.  

     They say that a good marriage consists of equal parts of getting what we want and compromise, well I must have won the matrimonial lottery because I feel like I married the girl who pretty much lets me do any one of the crazy ideas that come to my head!  Whether it's a hunting trip, a train ride, a house remodel idea, or something as simple as trying a new recipe, each time I bring one of my crazy ideas to Kelli she thinks about it for a minute, and as long as the left field idea is still in the ballpark, she's all in and supportive in every way!  I am thankful each and every day to be married to the best girl in the world!  I know that sounds a little corny but I don't care, it's true!  Words will never be able to match how I feel about her but you can count on one thing, I certainly wont run out of reasons I love this girl any time soon!

Remember, some of the smallest things your spouse does for you result in the biggest rewards!

Hunting buddy

     This past weekend was a whirlwind to say the least!  Before we get into the details I'll give you the short story just in case you want to stop reading right here and get on with your day, I drove 730 miles to shoot 5 coots.  Now if you know anything about waterfowl hunting at all then your on the floor rolling with laughter right about now, or you might think that's a little ridiculous to drive that far in three days to hunt anything in which case you'd still be on the floor laughing your butt off.  Well I don't blame you.  I had grand visions of this being an epic waterfowl hunt that I would remember for years to come, although I wont soon forget the adventure, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

     It all started when dad and I drew swan tags for the Pacific flyway of Montana and planned a trip back to Freezeout Lakes where we have had quite a bit of success in years past.  I've already got one swan a couple years ago and I had no real desire to shoot another one but I knew putting in for the tag would at least get us out there and give my old hunting partner Duchess one more swan song, pun intended:)  She turned 12 this year and it is the first year in all 12 of them that she has started to show the signs of an aging dog so I wanted to make this a trip she would remember as well.  Dad and I got to Choteau late Thursday evening and went straight to bed so we would be well rested for the morning hunt.  The next morning as we sat on the bank of the lake and waited for the sun to come up we could hear a few swans on the water so our excitement began to rise.  Our hopes were crushed just as quickly as they rose though when about a half hour after the sun came up all 20 of the swans in the county lifted off the water and disappeared into the sky, never to be seen again!  Now as you may have figured out if there's no swans in the area then our hunt was pretty well doomed.  So we scrambled with some texts to Curtis down in Butte to see if there were any birds at Warm Springs and when he had his neighbor go check and reported back to us that there were thousands of them on the water, we packed up our stuff and headed south.

     We got to Butte Friday afternoon just in time for an evening hunt of pass shooting as birds came back to the water, this resulted in nothing so we made a plan for the following morning and headed back to Curt's.  The next morning we set out the decoys in a pond and had no luck drawing any ducks into our spread because there simply were no ducks in the air!  With it so warm still there just hasn't been any birds come down from up north so the hunting was pretty poor.  We relocated to a bank along another pond though for some late morning pass shooting and got 5 coots before we gave up for the weekend.  All in all the entire weekend was one of those classic hunting trips that seem to happen far too often for us Gannon's that result in little to no action but a pretty good story.  Every failed hunt has it's silver linings however and this one's was we got to spend a little time with the Skannons, and I got home a day early so I got to hang out with my in-laws for a night as they were here visiting Kelli during my hunt. 

     The biggest thing that happened on this trip that I was not happy with was the stark realization that my number one duck hunting buddy Duchess might be on the tail end of her hunting days.  I've known for years that she is not getting any younger and that this was bound to happen but each year that has come and gone she hasn't slowed down one bit, so I was kind of hopeful that she would stay the same until she wasn't with us anymore.  It's been one week since we left for our hunt and she's still walking like she's a little sore, and as she struggled to find the birds we had shot in the thick cattails I wonder if her senses are starting to slip just a little as well.  There's not many things worse than watching someone you love get older, all we can do is keep them comfortable and hope that they are not in too much pain.  When I was sitting on the bank with Duch, under the big blue sky, I couldn't help but think just how lucky I've been to have her in my life.  She has seen more tragedy in her life than most dogs would in three lifetimes yet she's stuck by my side through it all.  We sometimes joke that shes semi robotic and is on this earth for one purpose, to retrieve, as much as we joke about it I kind of envy her, at least she knows what her purpose is.  And she's been damn good at it!!  

     So as frustrating as this hunt was I still came home and started scouting areas around here for some good hunting with easy retrieving so I can get my old hunting partner out there as many times as her old body will allow her.  I can only imagine that is exactly what she would ask me to do if she could.  

Remember, even when things don't go exactly as planned there is fun to be had!

I'm getting too old for this!

     If the title of this post has you thinking this is yet another cliche filled blog post over saturated with gripes of all the things I used to be able to do, your right:).  I apologize in advance if you were hoping for something a bit more original today, but after this past week I don't really have much more to write about than my increasing realization that I am not getting any younger!

     As I previously mentioned we started our major winter project this past week of finishing our basement and although we've decided to break it up into manageable sized tasks each month, trying to give ourselves a break in between phases in hopes that this strategy will help keep Kelli and I from getting completely burned out, each little phase is bound to come with its own little troubles.  This week was exterior insulation and framing of the walls.  Overal this task went pretty well, until we got to the laundry room and realized that in order to insulate and frame up this wall I had to reroute some of the plumbing lines, which all this did was drag it on for a couple more evenings as I replumbed everything back in the way we want it to be finished.  Then just about the time we were done we remembered that the crawl space underneath the addition Part of our house had no insulation!  This was a big reason why it rarely stayed warm in our bedroom and office, so we went and bought some insulation and picked this past Saturday as the morning to get it done.  Mistake number one was made when I closed off an old doorway into the crawlspace this summer leaving only the small window as access to the space.  Number two came when we accidentally bought unfaced fiberglass insulation instead of the "doesn't make you want to crawl out of your own itchy skin" type!

     Of course we realized this after I was already in the crawlspace and committed to just getting it done.  Luckily I had my assistant Kelli with me to feed me insulation from outside cause if I would have had to come out each time I don't think I would have went back in!:).  Once we got going though it went very fast and we were done in less than an hour!

     After we finished the insulation I was pretty sore and tired, even though I've long since hung up the plumbing tool bags and haven't been in a crawlspace in quite a while, turns out I still don't like them very much!:).  Thankfully we had a plan in place for making me forget all about my time in the crawlspace, Sunday morning we drove up to Ione with some friends and rode an old passenger train up to Metaline Falls!  It was a pretty cool deal as you can sit wherever you want and we lucked out and got the only two seats in the crows nest of the caboose!  The views were unbelievable and for a train nut like me it was the perfect way to start the day!  I completely forgot about the previous day and felt like a kid again!

     We raced back home after the train to catch the Cowboys game and it was such a thriller that I thought I was going to have to take a second blood pressure pill!!  They played the Seahawks in Seattle where only one visiting team has won in the past three seasons, now there's two as my Boys played their hearts out and kept me on the edge of the couch the whole game!  I told Kelli after the game that I might need a referral from her moms surgeon cause I think I may have tore my rotator cuff from fist pumping the air so hard!!:).  It was easily the most stressful Cowboys game I've watched in recent memory!  Four hours after the game I told Kelli I'm getting too old for this stuff cause I could still feel my elevated heart rate taking its time to come down after the game!  She thinks if I wasn't a Cowboys fan I probably wouldn't even have high blood pressure, that's one theory that'll never get tested:)

     So to cap off my feeling sorry for myself for getting older, Kelli and I went to the high school football game Friday night and we were holding hands while walking into our seats and Kelli overheard a young high school couple as we walked by them and the boyfriend said "oh look babe, there's us in the future, only I'm not bald".  OUCH!!!!  That's the exact phrase I'll use when Kelli and I see someone in their 70's holding hands!  The day you find out that your officially old enough to be looked at as an in the future kind of way is a rough day!:).  I guess in a wierd sort of way that I haven't  quite accepted yet it's kind of a compliment.  So as I spend this week recovering from belly crawling around the spiders living room and the stress of watching yet another nail biter of a football game, I can't help but think that whoever coined the phrase "your only as old as you feel" probably never owned an old house, and he certainly didn't root for the Dallas Cowboys!  

Remember, just because you still think like a 25 year old doesn't mean your body feels the same way:)

Remodel time!

     The most exciting house project we've ever done is officially under way!  We started the process of finishing our basement yesterday and both Kelli and I are looking forward to it for many reasons, especially because this is the first project we've ever done that is basically a new build!  This being our third house we've owned, we have done our fair share of home projects, but until this one all of them have been redoing something that already existed.  Those projects are fun in their own way but nothing compares to having a blank canvas to create whatever your eye desires!  
     We technically started this project this spring when we replaced all the windows and cut in an egress window for a bedroom.  Kelli's parents came over to help with this phase and we wanted to get it done first as it was a very messy project!  We haven't touched the basement since then as we were planning on finishing it this winter.  Even though winter is not upon us yet, with it pushing into the 70's outside this weekend it kind of looks like we're a ways away from winter, we picked up with the basement anyway.  This weekend we're framing up and insulating the exterior walls and as we're doing so it's finally starting to look like a construction zone.  
     So as Kelli and I begin the process of watching our vision come to form, we are equal parts excited for how it will turn out and a little nervous about how sore and tired we will be come spring time when we are finished!  Stay tuned for pictures as we progress!  

Remember, doesn't matter if its a home project or anything else, the changes that take the most work are usually the ones with the largest rewards!

TIME

     Do you ever feel like the best thing that could happen to you is to have about five extra hours in the day?  I swear the older I get the less time there seems to be in one single day!  It doesn't really matter if I get up at four in the morning or six, or if I go to bed at ten or stay up until midnight, no matter what I do there's always at least one thing that gets left undone in my day.  Lately it seems that the first thing to get bumped from my to do list has been this blog:)  This is where I am supposed to insert the part about how that's all going to change now and I'll be posting more frequently, but what's the point in doing that when I know it's not true!  
     So where does the time go?  I can remember when I was a kid the days seemed like they would never end.  We would get more fun stuff done in one day then I could in a week now!  Of course when your a kid the only thing you have to worry about cutting into your time is meals, school, and maybe a few chores, and the school didn't really cut into your time cause all your friends were at school so whatever fun stuff you were doing at home just got carried over to the playground.  There is a dog park near our house that borders a school and during our last trip up there a couple weeks ago Kelli and I were reminiscing about how when the bell rang at the end of recess you would all agree to meet right back where you were and pick up the game you were playing where you left off next recess.  Then there was too much time in the day because the duration between recesses felt like an eternity!!  
     Now that we're all grown up, and have jobs and responsibilities, those days of having nothing but time during a day are long gone.  Sometimes it seems like if we can race through a day and accomplish the bare necessities of what needs to be done we've won some sort of prize!  No matter what we do we just don't have enough time in the day, and we don't even have kids!!  I can't even imagine what our time would be like if we were trying to juggle a third schedule under the same amount of daily time!  Someday I suppose we may have to do that though and just like every other parent before us I'm sure we will be able to make it work, it will just feel like we have even less time in the day for the stuff we want to do:)  
     My question is simple, even though as adults we have houses, jobs, and kids eating up all of our free time, which leaves us with very little of it to do the things we enjoy doing, but why should it stop us from experiencing the same joy we felt as a kid right now?  I don't see why we shouldn't be able to find that perfect balance where our daily responsibilities and our personal joys are not fighting for each valuable hour we have in a day but sharing our time, making the most of each one.  I think a good balance would be as simple as for every four hours of doing things not on our fun list, you all know what they are, we should reward ourselves with one full hour of a fun thing!  Pretty simple right?  That means if you work an 8 hour day, followed by taking your child to baseball practice for 2 hours, then you have 2 1/2 hours of free time to get that round of golf in on the weekend!:) 
     Now we all know in the real world a scenario like that just simply wouldn't work, but it sure is fun to think about.  And if we think about it that way then we realize how much the inner kid in all of us just gets pushed aside, allowing the daily chaos of everyday life take over.  I know as much as you do that you can't just use a stupid hourly reward system like I just described, but if we actually think about the things in our life that we don't get to in a day, a week, or a month, then we'll stay mindful of the fact that we simply have to find some time to enjoy those aspects of our life or the time just goes by even faster!  It's funny how that works, you work harder to try and have some free time and at the end of the day you have less time, not to mention the free time you do have is spent on the couch or in bed recharging for the next day!
     All I'm saying is we could all take a page out of the Europeans book, they have seemed to master this balance of responsibility and pleasure quite well!  I'm not saying we should all take the entire month of August off every year, but I think we could all do a better job of having more fun in our lives, I know I could!  It's far too easy to get caught up in the rat race of life, we have to work equally as hard at not letting that inner child completely disappear.

Remember, meet me back right here next recess and we'll keep playing!!:)