Brian's Hunting Trip

Brian headed out of town last Thursday, Sept 25th, for his Trophy Elk hunt in Northern Arizona. Since this hunt is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Brian and Pop-pop were really excited about this week-long adventure in the wilderness. Thankfully, the hunting zone was only 30 miles from the cabin on Oak Creek, so he got to sleep on beds instead of sleeping bags and had access to phone service so we could talk to him each night. With Brian gone for an entire week, this left Nolan and I home together (by ourselves). We made sure that we kept super-busy so that the time would pass quickly and couldn't wait for Brian to return home safely.

So on Friday night, Aunt Erin came over after work for a slumber party and we worked on making the "N-O-L-A-N" letters for his room. After Nolan went down for the night, we opened a bottle of wine and started our crafting project. Here are some pictures of the finished product, all hung up above Nolan's crib in his room. They turned out perfectly and I think we could start a side business of making these letters & charging a fortune for them:) The paper background of the letters matches the paper used for Nolan's baby shower invitations...leave it to Aunt Erin to think ahead and make sure that there was plenty of leftover scrap paper!

We also decided to give the Exersaucer a try for the first time. Aunt Andrea brought it out for us to borrow when she came out for Nolan's baptism, but of course, he wasn't strong enough to use it at 7 weeks old. Now that he's a bit older and because he loves to stand up on my lap, it seemed like the right time to give it a try. He LOVES playing in it, although the first 5 minutes he was definitely a little unsure of what this new contraption was.

Then, on Saturday night, Grandma came over to spend the night with us and took care of Nolan for the evening. Aunt Allison & Erin had their birthday celebration in Old Town that night, so I got the chance to go out for a nice dinner, have a couple of drinks and do some dancing with the girls. We even got lucky enough that our girlfriend Megan was in town from Minneapolis and she was able to join us for the night - it was just like old times! So, after a rambunctious dinner at Kyoto, we hopped into the limo that Gavin rented for the night and headed over to Suede for some drinks & dancing. We had so much fun and it was really nice to have a night out on the town. And although I missed Nolan while I was out, I know he had a great time with Grandma.

But our favorite part of the week was Brian returning home safe & sound. Nolan was so incredibly excited to see his Daddy and I was extremely grateful to have my husband home too. At least the next time that he leaves for a long hunt, Nolan and I will be distracted with my entire family back in Missouri so we won't be so lonely. Here are some pictures from when Brian got back - you can see just how excited Nolan was:)