Happy 28th Birthday Scott! I know that you are working today but we will celebrate when you get home! Happy Birthday baby!

It has been a couple of months since my last confirmed kill so I had the itch. While I was working on the deck I happened to look towards the pool and low and behold a raccoon head was poking out of the groundhog hole. It was 2:30 in the afternoon! Thankfully I could recall watching Old Yeller several hundred times and knew of the “hydrophobie”. Raccoons in the afternoon means rabies.

So, I went into the house to check out the situation. After consulting Jackie it was time to take my first shot. I went upstairs into my sniper nest that has produced two previous confirmed kills. The shot hit him in the “hind quarters” and he dragged himself back into his hole. CRAP!

I then called the state game commission to see what I should do. Basically, they gave me a license to kill. My instructions were to kill the animal ASAP. After a couple hours of no activity I wasn’t sure what to think. I was on my way home from picking up our dinner when I got a frightening call from Jackie. The coon is back…and growling.

By the time I get home he had gone into the woods. Another 20 minutes passed and he came back. This time I took a shot while he was running across the backyard. I missed. CRAP!! Back into the hole.

So we eat dinner (checking the window every 5 minutes). We decide at this point we should tell our neighbors since most of them have small pets that they let outside. As we were walking across the street Jackie happened to look into the backyard and saw the coon! I ran back into the house and up into the nest. I took aim, and fired. He fell to the ground and then got back up and ran down towards the drainage pipeline. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! This is actually the raccoon from Hell.

After waiting 20 minutes I decide to check out the situation. I put on my jeans and boots and grabbed a shovel. After checking out the scene for 5 minutes I have visual confirmation. 1 dead coon. That brings the tally to 1 skunk, 1 groundhog, and now 1 raccoon.

Enjoy the photos. It was a 6 hour hunt.

Scott and I are happy to finally announce that we are expecting our first child in December!! Word has been getting around but we wanted to wait to announce it to our loyal readers until after our second doctor’s appointment. We had our second appointment this morning and the baby looks healthy and has a very strong heart beat. He or she was very active, hence the title. Enjoy the pictures from the ultrasound

Who knew the fun would last this long?! In so many ways, the time has just flown by and it has been an amazing 5 years. It’s incredible to think about all the things we have been thorough…living in Crafton, Alabama, Crafton again, then Latrobe and then finally settling in Greensburg, what a ride it has been. Oh yeah, and a really long vacation to Kosovo…which we have both tried to forget. From Jamaica to Germany we are so excited to see whats next for us. Happy Anniversary to us