My new bag...

I just wanted to say “Thank You” to a very special Montana couple for getting this Colorado girl a fabulous western bag.

Our 1st Home Improvement Purchase…

For most of you this is probably something you never really think about but for a moment please humor me. You’re in your home and you are preparing to take a shower but at the very last moment before you get into the water you realize you need a towel. But, the clean towels are out in the dryer that’s near a whole bunch of large windows that of course don’t have any curtains or blinds on them.

What do you do?

Well, over the past month I have learned to run, belly crawl, and duck out of the way on numerous naked occasions so my neighbors wouldn’t get a peek at anything they didn’t want to see. I’m not The Great White Hunter, who is ok with walking around in a towel or less, on some occasions, not caring who may be passing by.

Well that is until last week when we had blinds installed in every window in the house. So, for all of our visitors moving forward you will not have to worry about having the sun peek in your window 1^st thing in the morning and to all of our neighbors you no longer have to worry about seeing too much of us.

A little bottle of FABULOUS!

My fabulous beautician, Amber, introduced to me to a little bottle of fabulous this morning. It’s called Pow Powder Play by Big Sexy Hair. This little bottle of magical powder has the ability to get your hair closer to god than you have ever been before. Thank you Amber!

The Great White Hunter

Since I started dating Will, aka The Great White Hunter, l I have realized one thing. I would either have to learn to hunt or I would not see him for many consecutive weeks at a time. So, about (4) months into our relationship I geared up and with my good friend Catie took and thankfully passed Hunters Safety class with a bunch of nine year olds.

Yes, it was official I could potentially be lethal. Will and I went turkey hunting in Kansas this past May where I shot my 1^st first animal. Then this past weekend we went on our 2^nd hunt but first official hunt as husband and wife.

The hunt...

Saturday morning started out at 4:45 am, yes 4:45 in the morning on a Saturday, I was up and going. We arrived in Kiowa shortly before 6:00 and made our way out to our starting “location”. Oh, I forgot to mention Will has an archery buck tag so we were doing a little scouting for him as well that same morning. He had discovered that a herd of deer, that included a very trophy worthy buck, was bedding down in a certain “location”. (Sorry due to our hunting competiveness the majority of the “locations” that we visited cannot be disclosed in this blog post.) Well, this was one of my first experiences with really “stocking” an animal. For those of you that know me, I’m not the quietest person in the world.  But, we made our way out to this “location” and slowly began to sneak up on the herd. The Great White Hunter is not the shortest legged fella so trying to keep up with him and staying quiet was pretty difficult. But, amen! I was quiet we were successful in seeing them but we were too late to get an optimal shot off.

Good news! Back to Katie’s hunt.

We made our way to another “location” and I spotted a nice little buck with a few does up on a hill side. We decided that it might be pretty adventurous to sneak up on the group and possible get a shot off. So, again being very quite we made our way out into the field. Like a good safe hunter I handed my gun to The Great White Hunter as I crawled through the fence and the adventure began. We made our way (30) minutes and one wrong turn up a canyon to the dead end where the antelopes were supposed to be located. We slowly climbed on all fours up a hill and once at the top belly crawled out into an opening to low and behold the big buck antelope walking straight towards us. Success! Well, I couldn’t really see from where I was sitting so The Great White Hunter instructed me to move further into the open space. Ok, again people that know me know I don’t mind getting dirty, but really am I a big outdoorsy bug, weed, and sticker type person. Um no! So, through weeds, stickers and who knows what else with all of my “I am from Colorado dang it” strength I crawled into the opening with guns a blazing (not really but it sounded good). I found the antelope got him sighted in was taking a deep breath getting ready to squeeze……..and The Great White Hunter chimes in let’s pass and move on. What! Really! Are you freaking kidding me! So, we slowly snuck out of the location made the (30) minute trip back to the truck and proceeded on.

The day continued at numerous different “locations”; finding antelope, stocking them and somehow scaring them off. Side note - I only scared off the antelope one time out of all the times we stopped. We finally went back to a previously visited “location” and there “Cletus” was. Yes, I named the antelope. We decided to work our way around him and slowly sneak up on him in a small valley. Well, even with a name like Cletus he was a little smarter than us.  He beat us to the spot and just watched as we tried to sneak up on him. So, The Great White Hunter came up with plan #2. We came at him from a different direction and finally got a chance to get a shot off. Side note – I hope the suspense is building at this point! So, we laid down on the ground got the gun set-up I got him in my cross hairs (Yes, I know some hunting lingo) and was about ready to squeeze……..and he moved. So I situated myself once again, The Great White Hunter got him to pause for a moment and in the word of Emeril - BAM!!!!!

 Here pictured Cletus “My 1^st Kill” antelope.

Shot from 150 yards with a 243 Weatherby by Mrs. White (me), a lady who makes camouflage clothing look darn good, on October 2^nd in a great “location”.

Watch out world this big haired former single girl is officially lethal.

The Start...

Will and I were married on Saturday, August 28^th in front of all our amazing family and friends. It was a fabulous day; the perfect temperature outside, plenty of sunshine but not too much, the flowers were works of art, the ceremony was like a dream, the food tasted just perfect and of course the drinks flowed. Every detail was completely perfect. I honestly don’t think we could have imagined a day that was more perfect.

The 1^st week of September Will and I went on what I like to call “our mini honeymoon” or what most people would call a Colorado road trip. I called it a mini honeymoon in hopes of getting to take a regular honeymoon sometime soon. We started off a week of travel by going with the Ehmanns to the CSU vs. CU game up in Denver. Needless to say for us CSU fans it was not a great start to our trip, but we won’t go there.

After the game had concluded Will and I headed to the mountains for our 1^st stop in Minturn, CO. If you have never been to Minturn it is worth the drive up I-70. It’s a very small town but has awesome restaurants and one of the best bed and breakfasts I have ever been to. The Minturn Inn is where we called home for the 1^st two nights of our adventure. We woke up each morning with the smell of fried bacon lingering in the air.  Really, what more could you ask for? We then spent the days hiking and fishing all over the country. We also visited Leadville, CO for a quick trip down Main Street and a very interesting stop at the Matchless Mine.



Will at the Matchless Mine.






Turqouise Lake - Leadville, CO

 



Hanging Lake



After saying good bye to the Inn we traveled further west to Glenwood Springs, CO. But, before we got there we took a hike up to Hanging Lake. I’m pretty sure this was Will’s favorite part of the trip, just joking. We spent the next two days soaking at the hot springs pool, shopping, eating and visiting the Glenwood Caverns. The caverns are definitely worth the short trip up the gondola. Both Will and I really enjoyed the tour! Of course, I really enjoyed the shopping to! The last night in Glenwood we spent the desert portion of our evening with an amazing bartender at the Colorado Hotel. Yes, we did eat desert. We got to hear some very interesting historical and of course ghost stories about the hotel.

On the way to our next home away from home Will and I stopped and picked peaches at a local orchard and tried wine from local wineries. We ended up bringing home a whole box of peaches and bottles of wine galore not to mention hot sauce and apple butter.



Will helping himself.





 

Our next stop on the tour was in Ouray, CO possibly the prettiest Colorado town I have ever been to. Ouray was small but had a lot of character in the Main Street shops and eateries. One shop that was amazing was Rocking P Ranch. Yes, I found the heart of Texas on a little Main Street in Ouray. I believe we visited this store at least twice and both times with left with a bag of items. Will even enjoyed making friends with the owner and her mother while I looked around or at least it passed the time.

The first night in Ouray we decided to take a short drive along the Million Dollar Highway. If you have never driven on the highway it is definitely an adventure. On one side of the road there are no guard rails, thank you CDOT, and on the other side is a sheer wall of rock. Then mix in twists and turns back and forth only having barely enough room for two cars. When we arrived back in town safely I believe the words out of Will’s mouth were “I’m never driving on that road again.” We drove down it again the next day.  While in Ouray we traveled over the mountain to Telluride, CO another oasis in the hills. We visited Ryan’s beautiful ranch and of course walked down Main Street.

View from Ryan's ranch.

After leaving Ouray our mini honeymoon was officially over. We headed to Montrose, CO for the last two days for Ryan and Mandy Homewood’s wedding. Will was the Best Man. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a blast. It was nice to go to a wedding and not be worrying about anything.