Bear, Eagles, Starfish and a Puppy!!

Ok Now I've got the bear pictures loaded on the computer. For anyone that hasn't heard the story I'll summarize. On Stewart's birthday (Sept 30th) he took the day off work to drop Sammie and I off at the ferry to go to Robby's wedding. On his way home he had a trooper following him so he took a side road and happened upon a bear in a clearcut area. So he got his first bear! It is 5 feet from head to tail (fairly average for the island). The pictures aren't great - I apologize for not being there to help with the camera work. We have been asked a lot about the meat as bear is not usually a very edible meat. The black bear on the island are split into two categories, high and low. High bear eat blueberries all year and have very sweet meat. Low bear eat salmon and are not as desirable. This was a high bear. The only way we've tried it so far was a roast in the crockpot, but it was very tender and sweet. Everyone - including Sammie enjoyed it.

We went for a drive on Saturday to look for deer and get a load of wood. We crossed Eagle creek, which we do quite often (it's a great fishing spot). This time is was covered in eagles. We stopped on the bridge and took at least 50 pictures. Here are some of the better ones.

There are at least three eagles in the picture above. Two bald and one Golden.

We are starting a pretty good starfish collection. This is Caleb with his most recent find. We are drying a couple at a time but I'm not sure what we're doing with them after that.

On Saturday after the kids last track meet, we stopped at the grocery store and of course there is a lady with a box of puppies. So the kids go running up with Stewart close behind as I yelling "we are NOT taking one home!" Then as I got closer I realized they were little lab puppies and I started to soften. Then I was reminded that we are only going to Blanding for a couple weeks this year instead of the whole summer, and we have a huge mudroom that's a great place for a puppy to live. They were mostly lab puppies (mom is full lab and dad is mostly lab) and they were free. So long story short we got a new puppy. She's named Koda and she's very cute. And the kids love her!

Backyard cookout

I started this post with the purpose of posting bear pics, but they aren't on the computer yet, so instead this is a couple fun pics of our hot dog roast in the backyard last Saturday. We went to Naukati for cross country races in the morning (the weather was beautiful and the kids did great), then we split and stacked the logs that Stewart and the kids had hauled while I was in Utah for Robby and Laurel's wedding, and then we kept enjoying the sunshine by cooking marshmallows and hot dogs in the back yard. What a great day!