The Late Winter Blahs....

Christmas was wonderful, and the time spent with family and friends was what makes that special time of the year special. We are blessed to have a wonderful and healthy family and a place to spend so much time together. Kris got to come home for a long visits and I think enjoyed her time back home. ParksMill was well used throughout Christmas and New Years. We ate plenty and enjoyed each others company to the fullest. It is a good thing that we all enjoy each other, because the hunting at PM was not the best this year. Dad and I have hunted really hard, and just have not seen the deer like we typically do. I hear that is about the same report for most folks this year though.

This was the first Christmas for EJ, Matt and Jen's baby. He is a blessing, and Matt and Jen are going to be great parents. I just hope Matt can hold off a couple of years before he has the boy out fishing. Our family has really changed in the last 5 years. We went for so long with just us "big kids", social time was centered around doing this that big kids do and we also enjoyed ourselves. With the addition of Noah, Carson, and now EJ Christmas is just so much more fun. N&C are getting to the age that the Holidays mean alot to them and that makes our time just that much better.

Life is a little slower since we got New Year's behind us though. It seems like between Thanksgiving and New Years we where somewhere about every other night. Busy times, but it was fun. School is back in full swing now, and the Spring semester of grad school officially starts for Tracie tonight. She will be in class Monday and Tuesday night, I have disciple on Wednesday night. Makes the week go by fast though.

It is not so much that I dislike this time of year.....its just that this time of year is really not tied to anything that I look forward to. Summer is summer and all that goes with it, Fall has football and planting and the beginning of hunting season, Thanksgiving to New Years is was it is, THE BEST TIME OF YEAR, but from New Years to about the middle of March is the "blahs" to me. By the middle of January, I have hunted out. Deer are skittish, ducks are spotty, and Tracie's patience has been tested to the point that her February 1 birthday gets more and more expensive....Also, since moving to Tupelo we have found that it is REALLY COLD this time of year up here. We have found that to be especially true this year with the snow event and the 7 or so days that it never got out of the 30s.....But there is hope, February is almost here, and that means March is coming....turkey season, baseball, and some crappie moving up.

The biggest excitement we have had up here in a while is the snow and freeze storm we had in early January. Kids and mom loved it. Kids because they got to play in to the snow and mom because she got to miss a day of school.

Christmas done come....and gone

Well it was a very busy Christmas season. We have attended numerous gatherings with family and friends and helped with many many kids events. It was fun though. Tracie is a pro with those types of things and handles it all without to much fan fare. I think she had 4 in one day at some point during the fun. All was great though. We are a blessed family. Noah and Carson had a wonderful time and this year was really alot of fun getting them involved in the Christmas events. I knew we had done a good job when Noah asked me one day last week, "what was Christmas spirit" we talked about what it meant to be happy and just loving life and being fully of joy because it was Jesus's birthday.....he told me he was full of Christmas spirit.

I want to think that is what he was full of anyway.....

I wrapped up work on Wednesday of last week, we fried 8 turkeys and delivered them around. Spent most of Thursday enjoying being with the family and went to FUMC Thursday night. Beautiful service and a big crowd. Came home to getting the house prepared to host Santa.

The big man did show and the kids where super excited. We had our breakfast and headed to Enterprise in time for lunch with the Clarks. Great to be with family. Ended Christmas night at Parksmill with the Mallards. More eating and gift giving. Wonderful Christmas day and further assurance of the blessings that are health and family.

Santa's bag was mostly full of bikes.....Noah got a big boy bike and Carson got a PINK radio flyer.

Pretty Ladies.....I ate way to much for Christmas lunch....but it was all so good.


It really was not that cold, Dad just looks like that anytime the temp gets below 65.....

Carson loves dress up.....these just happened to be close by. Her aunt Kelli got her princess dresses....we have seen those alot this week.

Pretty rare when we are all there.

As is the tradition with the Mallard men, after the gifts are given and the visiting is wrapping up, the attention turns to hunting. Dad, Alex, and I are the only ones in camp, and deer are moving slow, but that will change pretty soon.

I do believe that we are ready for 2010. These years sure to seem to go by fast lately.

Enjoyed Thanksgiving, and.............Here Come Christmas

We sure do seem to bunch up our holidays. Seems like Thanksgiving takes forever to get here and then in a day it is done.....and the count down to Christmas is on. Fun time though. We left Tupelo and headed South Tuesday before turkey day and stayed through Sunday. Good time had by all. I think I gained a pound or two and I know I consumed more dessert than I have in the past several months.

We stayed at the Barn, and everything worked out well. The new arrangement helped with traffic flow and getting the two their own play room helped much. We had more food than could feed twice as many people. It is just hard to control some of the chefs in the family. Between Aunt Kelli (bacon wrapped shrimp kabobs), Tracie (pecan pie), Momma (dressings galore and many breakfasts) and myself (stuff venison tenderloin....I also cooked two turkeys at one time, smoked and fried) there was never any hunger in the house.

I am still not even close to getting to set at the grown up table....
Tools of a master....turkey be ware....the egg is the easiest thing to cook on since the microwave.

Not very many deer, but some great time with T. Could not imagine a better way to spend an afternoon.
Lovin Aunt Kelli.
..........and marsh mellows.
they even let dad play. It was fun for a while.....but then it got real cold. Tracie was a real trooper. I think this was on Friday and she had been up since about 4 to shop black Friday.
the skinning room would be on your left and mine and Matt's old room to the right. Looks different huh?

Lest I forget....there was one other thing.

.........there was a little football game played on Saturday that many of us had an interest in. The Egg Bowl is not something that T and I watch together. I think we have twice....once, our first together, before marriage and I think we where in DC and could not watch it with anyone else and then Eli's senior year (in the rain and a beating by OM) I think that is when she decided I was a keeper. Since then it has just been best to watch it on our own with kin....somebody ain't going to be happy with the outcome. We handle it well, just maybe not in the first 15 minutes after the fact. It is best to give a little time.

State won, and it was a great day to be a Bulldog. Dad and I went, and it is a memory we will share for a long time, we've got a few of those, and several on that campus. Great way to end the year and it really does look like things are headed in the right direction...at both schools. Not much use to gloat....history tells us that have seen a few of these that roles can be reversed pretty quick. Besides, when you sleep with the rival....it can get lonely on the couch if you say too much.

Favorite Time of the Year

It is my favorite time of the year, and living in Tupelo now, we actually get seasons. The fall colors have been great this year, and the weather is outstanding. We have been spending as much time in the out of doors as possible, at least we did until the time changed....which I was against. No time to do anything when you get home now.
I was feeling bad about not updating the blog, we have just been busy, but then I got to looking around at some other friends, and I see we are not the only ones. With Tracie working and in school two nights a week, and all the rest we have going on...the days fly.
The kids are having a great year. Noah is loving school and lil' C is the queen at Debbies. Today was the annual Thanksgiving "Feast" and program for the pre school at church. We should have charged admission. Probably 300 plus in attendance to see kids and grand kids. I don't think there was a person left working in down town Tupelo. Great time though. Noah and his class did great as did all the other classes. Lots of proud mommas and dads. Tracie even got to take a 1/2 day from school and come over....when she got there is realized why subs where so hard to find....all the teachers where there. Not a lot accomplished anywhere today. Tracie did manage to get our Christmas tree up. Early, we know, but it was a convienent time for us and now she can decorate the rest of the house and the tree before we head South for Thanksgiving.

We have spent most of the Fall attending football games in Starkville and Oxford, I guess the only MSU game I have not been to was the weekend OM played BAMA, and T has been to a couple of OM games with friends leaving me to tend to the kids....We are both still pleased with of our teams, she more than I maybe. But State is headed in the right direction, some tough losses. We have had a grand time tailgating even though it seemed to rain every Saturday for the first couple of months. Kinda glad it is winding up though. The Rebels will most likely be in some kind of bowl that we will have to attend, but the focus will move to lots of hunting going forward. Look out Shreveport....... The view from Club is just a little different than our seats across the way....it only took a pint of blood and some shady concession.



Through rain, sleet, or hail, and $10 to the nice man delivering the hay. There have been a lot of special conditions to tailgate this year. I would bet that the Universities are going to have to spend $s and have a wait and see approach to see if they have any grass come up next spring.

All others things considered, the biggest news of the Fall for our family has been the addition of another Mallard. Matt and Jenn welcomed Evan James into the world last month. All is going well. They are going to be great. The coming home of EJ did prompt a good bit of attention at the camp to make an effort to do some cleaning. Several of us spent a Sunday moving everything out of the Barn and cleaning from the bottom up. We also rearranged and got the place ready to host Thanksgiving. N&C's room is ready and we made them some more space. THANKS MOSTLY TO AUNT KELLI.

Matt feeding EJ in the new play room downstairs.

Kelli working hard to get the Barn clean.

I hope to continue to do better at the blogging, though I think the calender going forward to Jan 1 is just about filled up with something. B/T church, parties for kids and grown ups, and running back and forth hunting somewhere it will be January 2010 before we know it. Fun times though.

Being Sick is no fun

I am a slacker and I admit that. The blog has not been updated in almost a month and I am fully responsible. But it has not been the most fun of times lately. We had both kids down with the flu two weeks ago. Tracie had to stay out with them and they recovered, but I am pretty sure it took some days of T's life. Being kept in the house with the "2", and it raining non-stop for 2 weeks has been no fun.

This rain has really kept us pretty low key the past couple of weeks. The flu would not let us get out two weeks ago and the kids where absolutely going stir crazy in the house last week. It would rain all day, and they couldn't go out at day care and then we would come home and it would still be raining. We did manage to get to the park last Sunday, but got rained out after about 20 minutes. Noah and Carson loved the extra time with their mom and could probably get used to that more often, but I think Tracie remembers why she teaches high school..

We are better now though and the sun has finally come out and that is a blessing. Sunny days and cooler temps are ahead. Thank the Lord. We got back to normal last week, with the kids in school and T back to work and going to class. Still busy times, but it does make the weeks go by fast.

Tracie had some serious heartache Thursday night with the Ole Miss loss. I guess it wasn't so much that they lost. Winning on the road in the SEC is never a gimme, but when you had been hearing for the past 6 months how great you are and all the experts had just penciled that one as a W....it is hard to bear. Nothing really compares to the passion many of us have for teams. Your mood and your outlook on many things is dependent on the wins and losses of young men who you don't know and probably never will. I am not sure what that makes many of us that live in the South, but I would not change a thing. Tracie is completely drained after watching Ole Miss play and is then heartbroken if the lose and over joyed if they win. And whether win or lose she will be back again the next week.

I was pulling for OM Thursday night. I thought it would be great for the SEC and I don't like to pull against Tracie. What makes her happy, makes me happy. And besides, I was thinking at that time at least they have a chance to have a good year. I will just continue to support my Bulldogs and look forward next year............I had no idea I would witness what happened Saturday in Starkville. I have witnessed some tough losses at MSU. This was pretty tough to swallow. Dan is the man though. Better days are ahead. State looks like a football team and will learn how to win. LSU's second string is more talented than most of State's starters, but they are well coached and seem to have bought into the coaches. We will win more this year than most thought back in August.

All else is well. Starting to get close to my favorite time of year. Planning to do a little bow hunting this weekend and enjoy the cooler weather.

One more thing.....I love all those talking heads that say this guy is to old to win ...yeah...right.

Feeling like Fall

This first couple of weeks of Tracie being back teaching at THS and going back to grad school at Mississppi has been BUSY. We are managing though. The first week was a little hectic, but we are getting in a routine now. Fun times. The kids have adapted pretty well to thier dad being in charge more at nights, and Tracie is getting used to the extra work and less sleep. Grad school is more about group work and writing papers....I remember those days, glad those are about 6 years behind me.....though Grad school at MSU was fun.

We have enjoyed spending most of August around the house. Tracie and I call it our pre-game house work before the football season starts. I think we have all the chores done and even added some things for the the two that will keep them occupied outside while (a). mom and dad are at MSU/OM watching a game or (b). mom and dad are inside watching a game. Serious stuff around our house. Of course one of us is REALLY excited about the upcoming season....even talking her husband into spending a morning in Oxford getting season ticket....promises made. Oxford is a great little town, with good restaurants and social settings, one of my favorite places for lunch...it's just the university associated with the town that I get caught up with....but I'm sure that Tracie feels the same about Starkville and MSU. This mixed marriage thing keeps life interesting. We are headed to MSU this weekend to watch State play JSU. It will be great to be back in the Junction with friends.

We took a break from house work this past weekend to spend some time at ParksMill. I took a couple of days off and helped Dad get some things done on the place. I think we are in good shape with the clipping and spraying. Dad finished up the last field Sunday after sending us home...so I guess we are ready to plant. Now we could use a little rain. Tracie, N, & C came down on Friday. Tracie was their to help prepare for Matt and Jenn's baby shower. Little ___________ will be here in about 2 months. Matt and Jen are keeping the baby's name to themselves....Noah is pulling for Jack. I hear the shower went well and the child will not have to go home from the hospital wrapped in a sheet. Bless their hearts....they need all they can get.....

We got a lot of work done, but we did manage to sneak off one afternoon to go and check out dad's summer project. He has got his slab poured on his River place. Looks great and coming along quick.


The spray rig and the drill have made planting alot easier.
The Parks checking out the new slab.

I made it back to Tupelo on Sunday to begin the re-construction of a play ground for the kids. Some may call me cheap....Iprefer thrifty. We have been wanting to get the kids one of those, in Noah's word, "super awesome" playgrounds. Well, they are $1,200 at Lowes...so I have been looking for one that someone will sell. Luckily a family down the block in our 'hood is moving and did not want to take apart the one they had bought a couple of years ago. I paid the nice lady and she "let" me remove it from her yard. With a little help and Kimbrough's trailer 4 of us moved the playhouse/slide/monkey bars contraption to our back yard. (something else to mow around). It is a hit with the two though. They have played on it everyday since. I plan to get the monkey bars and swing in place this week. Poor deprived children that they are!

A little last minute update, I took C to get her first haircut today. Noah went first to show her how easy it was and how to act and she was perfect. Of course she loves anyone showing her attention and telling her she's pretty...and Ms. Christy did plenty of that.

Summer is about to come to an end....

It is just about over. Tracie is about to start back to school, the beach trips are done, and football is just about all anyone is talking about, at least in the company I keep. I even just dropped off some arrows to have fletched. It has been a great summer though. We have been pretty laid back this past couple of weeks. Trying to do some things with the kids to keep them busy, and giving Tracie the time she needs to get everything she has going on done, before it is school full time again. So much rain kept our two inside the past 10 days or so....that makes for some wild afternoons in the house. We feel like we are in the yard cutting and trimming biz with all the rain....fun fun.

Tracie and I did have the opportunity to send our precious children to hang out with their grandparents this past weekend. We just thought they all needed some together time...she and I spent our freedom going to a Red Birds game in Memphis, which was much fun. Got to spend the evening with some great friends and eat at the Rendezvous....those are great ribs, almost as good as mine. We did feel a little guilty when a some other friends called us while we where there to say they were in Memphis with like aged children seeing Dora Live.....what C&N don't know won't hurt them.

I went down and got the kids at Parks Mill Sunday. Got to visit with M&D, and Kelli and Marc. N&C love seeing the aunt kelli. I am pretty sure it is party USA when Kelli is in charge. For some reason that is all they can talk about on the way there and when we leave. Dad and I checked on some mineral stations and pulled some cameras (probably broke Matt's). Got some pics of some pretty good deer already. There is a lot of grass that has got to be cut b/t now and when we start spraying and disking, not that we don't already have alot of open ground, we are riding around looking at place we can expand or clear. It's all fun though, some of my best times are working out there.

Dad took me down and showed me his current project on the river. He is building a pavilion and then starting his camp house. He told me he as drove every nail....but I am pretty sure the nail gun was done there. I know what he is saying though. Building another river camp has been a plan of his for a long time and he has worked down there any chance he could this summer. We have spent so much time and energy at Parks Mill, we have neglected a beautiful place on the River. Dad grew up fishing and hunting down there and then got involved with a Newton County woman and the rest was history. That is going to be a great place for Noah, Carson, and _________ .

We also spent a little time shooting at some turtles that where apparently doing harm to the River...
Camp house is planned to go to the North of the pavilion. The floor of it will need to be about 14' high...that's a little taller than the ceiling joist of the pavilion.

Tracie and I went over our schedule for the Fall over the weekend and the kids are going to be lucky to make it to the First of the year if they have to depend on their father this much. Tracie enrolled in Grad school last week, that will be Monday and Thursday, she has choir on Wed night followed by a disciple class that we started in the spring that will start back and she is playing club tennis and church softball.....Noah starts full time preK at FUMC after Labor day and some where in there I plan to attend most of MSU and OM's home games along with a couple or 10 so deer hunts thrown in.....and then we wonder sometimes why the days seem to go by so fast.