Thanksgiving, No Mail, sledding, stuck, and a Dead Eye!

Thanksgiving came and went. We went to Isaac and Crystal's house and a few families got together. It was a lot of fun and I took it well when the ladies cleared all the food off of the table for dessert. I was halfway through plate number four when it happened, but I felt pretty confident there would be a number five. In retrospect, it was probably a good idea. After dessert I felt as though somehow I was wearing iron pants and the couch had somehow become the most comfortable magnet this world has ever seen. Cassidy made the turkey (her first) and it, went over extremely well. Moist and delicious and falling off the bone. YUMMY!
So, it has been over a week since a plane has landed on this island. This, of course, means no mail. The plane is due in on Thursday (weather provided). It has become quite a life for us, really. Since shopping in the traditional sense is not an option, we have become quite reliant on the plane bringing in something special; Not unlike little Ronny Howard in The Music Man with the Wells Fargo train (that's right...I can reference musicals). Only every time I start singing and dancing on the runway, the TSA people pull out their tasers and give me that look. We are very excited about the plane coming in for a couple of reasons, actually: 1)Mail and 2)Our friends are coming back. They have been stuck in Anchorage for a few days waiting for the weather to clear so they can make it home.
Although Ti has been sending me messages reminding me of how awesome Hawaii is this time of year over the past two weeks, I don't think they deserve this. Or maybe they do? Who am I to judge? That may be just the jealousy typing.
The adverse weather has provided some winter entertainment. Isabel has taken to sledding. Actually Isabel has taken to all things snow. She would stay out in the snow from dawn 'til dusk if we let her. The girl truly is fearless. The trouble is that she wants to go outside and really has no regard for the weather at all. Yesterday, for example, it was blowing pretty hard. Not the "Oh wow! Look at that! There is a plastic bag flying down the street! Pretty windy out there, huh?" I am talking about the kind of wind that makes you take a count of all the pets every time the door opens. Isabel wanted to go outside and actually made a break for it at one point. The wind gusts were only at 85 mph, so why wouldn't a four year-old want to go play in the snow?
The snow didn't stop us from trying to get out of the house and have some fun. Friday morning was actually beautiful. Cassidy and I got a baby-sitter and headed out to go hunting at 9:00 am. Hot Friday morning date in the tundra. It's like a scene straight from a classic romantic movie. Something like The Way We Were...Going to go Kill A Caribou. We left and it was a blue sky, fresh snow on the ground. Thermos full of coffee. Great conversation and laughter. Within three minutes the weather had changed to a white out and wind that was shaking old Beatice off the road. It probably would have blown Beatrice off of the road had I not driven into a snow drift that, quite honestly, didn't look that deep. Funny thing about snow is it appears soft and manageable, but in reality it is a cruel, heavy, god-awful curse to all careless drivers that are trying to find big game. Good news is that the weather cleared up and we walked close to town and called a friend named PJ. He came and picked us up and brought us back to our vehicle. When we arrived there were two other trucks behind our car. One pulled us out no problem while the other tried to drive around and got stuck in a much worse position than I had originally been in. The rest of our morning was spent trying to dig him out of the snow. After paying the baby-sitter we decided that we are a pretty good team. I get us into bad situations and Cassidy steps up to the plate and always has a smile and a comment or two. Bad decisions do lead to the best stories.
Not to be defeated, we got back into the car and had a movie playing on the computer for Isabel to watch. We just wanted to see if we could find any caribou. We did. They were at the top of the hill and about 500 yards away. After discussing how we were going to compose our worst parents of the year award acceptance speech, we decided that Cassidy was going to get a shot at one of them. Our justification was that we would never be out of sight of the vehicle and Isabel would be fine. With that we went up the hill and crawled into position. He was about 150-175 yards away and Cassidy got the rifle lined up. It was impressive and, well, as scary as hell to see my wife with the rifle. Adorable and terrifying at the same time. Like those movies that have evil children running around. She dropped a 300 pound bull. Perfect shot. Didn't even move. 300 pound bull. dropped it. This is an impressive shot by anyone's standards, but Cassidy ahd only shot a rifle once in her life prior to this. And that wasn't even aiming at anything other than the side of a mountain LAST WEEK! Annie Oakley looked up at me and asked if she did a good job or something like that. I can't remember because I was still staring at her in sheer amazement. We went to take a look and I told Cassidy that it was a great shot and told her it weighed three bills. Cassidy, in typical fashion, said "How big was the first one you shot?" to which I replied a little more than half that size. She just smiled. A smile says so much. Isabel was pretty impressed with her Mother and reminds me that Mommy is a hunter. To which I reply "I know, sweetheart, and it scares me." We are all stocked up with Caribou until spring, so the hunting stories will be postponed for a few months. You may just have to read about stories of the metropolis that is Adak for a while.