Letters from the Evans: Annual Happy M Quail Hunt: 2016 Edition

As always in February, we pack up the girls and the shotguns and drive to Cuero for a weekend of family and shooting (but not shooting the family, of course). The joking theme, "if it flies, it dies" seems rather appropriate :)

The pups helping themselves to left over goldfish and cashews while I picked up the girls

Emma waving bye-bye to her class

Emma gets really car sick - always has - especially in stop in go traffic. We hadn't planned on turning her around yet, but she's legally able to and we were in a LOT of stop and start traffic trying to get out of Houston, so we pulled over and turned her seat around hoping it would help with the car sickness. I wasn't convinced until we drove home from the ranch and didn't have ANY vomit to clean up - wahoooo!!

Happy girl to face forward

Quick hugs and happiness and snacks before bedtime:

Since G&M have to drive from Midland with the girls, and Bryan and I (and the girls) ran late and then got stuck in miserable stand still traffic trying to get out of Houston, we all arrived rather late on Friday night. The girls were really excited to have just a few hugs but then it was definitely time for a quick snack and bed (9pm!! eep!)

Saturday morning brought happy children and lots of orange with it. It was also chilly - lots of wind plus temperatures in the upper 40s makes for some pretty good shivers. We decided to keep the girls at home in the early part of the morning - Lulu had a special surprise involving lots of stickers and stamps! - and then go join the hunters once the sun was out and it was warming up a bit. It never got "warm" per se, but with leggings, jackets and hats the kiddos were fine. They had a great time meeting the bird dogs and finding (and throwing) rocks, and pretending to drive the limos. We made our jaunts across the ranch into "bear hunts" which Clara is still talking about, haha.

We had some lunch (hamburgers courtesy of Uncle Dewayne, yum!), more play time, and then - yes - the dreaded nap time. Unfortunately JJ refused to take a PM nap, and Clara & Emma were awoken by enthusiastic puppy barking after only maybe 30 minutes of sleeping, but they still managed to maintain rather good moods all the way until 6:30 despite the lack of rest. I think the squirrel that Lance (AKA Cowboy apparently) trapped and showed the girls helped :)

"Hey Cowboy! Whatcha doin'?"

Lunch buddies

JJ with a tongue

Lance trapped this squirrel and showed it to the girls. Murphy was brave and terrified haha.

more stickers!!

Giving Meemaw a haircut (with fake scissors!)

We went back out to hunting party to hang out for a little while, after a quick rock tossing in the puddle adventure.

The girls enjoyed taking advantage of the unusual freedom driving on ranch property lets them have.

4-wheeling sisters

Sisters + Molly sandwich!

Family photo op:

After nearly throwing Molly off the back, which I still feel badly about, the four of us drove back to the ranch with Emma cheering me on the whole way, "good job Mama! good job!" and Clara singing "we're going on a bear hunt!" - love it!

Lulu & Papa

Sweet snuggled Jessie

love you Mom

And then we caravanned back to the barn where the eldest three grandkids received an extremely educational lesson on dead quail and deer and the processes of converting them into eatable goods. Luckily, it didn't seem to freak any of them out - I guess when you're raised in a family like ours, it's just part of the reality :)

The girls had fun dancing and singing all around the feeder, and finding leaves, and doing who-knows-what-else.

Attempting to get a silhouette picture for Lulu's friend

Molly & Emma had better things to do

Taking a wee walk

Mom, Em, Me & CB

Marissa and her sweet baby girl

Receiving an education:

love my nieces

which of these individuals is unexpected?

I just like this photo :)

no doubt mischief brewing

Playing turned into a full on concert:

Helping Papa measure the antlers left behind from the cougar that took care of the rest of the deer the antlers belong to:

Holding up the antlers for measurement:

Papa's kind of helper

Dinner that night was Lulu's delicious tortilla soup and lots of playing. The adults mostly attempted to get the best of an iPhone app called "WordBrain" although I think it's safe to say that the app was winning as much as we were.