COLORADO HUNT!!

Ben's Buck

After a few days of close calls and lots of shots at some serious whoppers, we decided that we better split up and start filling some tags. Dad and I went togother to try a new spot while Nate and Uncle Jeff went after some deer that we had spotted earlier in the week. After glassing for a while, dad found some good deer that we wanted to go after. I hiked for about an hour until I got to the spot where I needed to sneak up to the deer. The only problem was, the mountain was straight up. I began sneaking/climbing on all fours after the deer. Dad was on the radio guiding me up. When I was about a third of the way up, I jumped up a nice four point. He wasn't the buck we origanally wanted but he was running straight to the other deer. I knew I could either have a shot at this deer or nothing. At 125 yards I took aim at the buck on a move. After a cloud of smoke from my muzzleloader, I heard my dad say from my ear piece as the deer ran out of sight, "You missed him, try to reload." But it was too late, the deer was gone. Then I heard, "Wait, you got him, he's going down. He's rolling, he's still rolling, he's still rolling, etc..." I then saw the deer roll past me and about 200 yards later he stopped and I had filled our first tag with a nice buck. Did I mention that the mountain I was on was straight up?

Uncle Jeff's Buck

Nate and I were the designated hikers on this one. Uncle Jeff strategically placed himself in some pine trees and waited patiently while Nate and I took a death march around what seemed to be an entire mountain range. Dad was our radio man again, and just to let you know how far we were, we lost radio contact for much of our hike. Finally Nate and I got to the spot where we needed to come over the summit on a nice buck we had bedded down earlier. Dad guided us in because the mountain was so steep we couldn't see the deer until we were basicly right on top of him. Dad guided us like a pro and we snuck within 30 feet of the buck. Nate was on his tippy toes aiming down at the buck but we could only see his head above the bushes. Nate took the tough shot but just missed. The deer started running right to Jeff. We started yelling, "Get ready Jeff, he's coming your way!" The deer ran right to Jeff and at 20 yards we had deer number two.

Nate's Buck

Nate and I both had chances at some of the biggest bucks we had ever seen. But now it was the last morning and Nate was still empty handed. Seeing that we were in an area where the only deer we saw were at 13 thousand feet and an all day ordeal to get, our chances were looking slim for only a single morning to go. Luckily on our fourwheeler ride to our area, we spotted a nice little buck. Nate went after him and got him in the pines at about 90 yards. Our coolers were then filled with meat and our families won't need to starve this winter.

Beautiful Colorado/Fun Camping

A huge thanks to dad and Uncle Jeff for allowing us to have the most wonderful hunt ever. We had an absolute blast. We saw some of the most breath taking country this land has to offer. Camping was amazing and Uncle Jeff set up all the tents before we even got there (1st class service). We had gourmet dutch oven cooking. We filled our three tags and I even got a beautiful fox. Nate provided a home-made shower by filling a garbage bag with river water, it was awesome. Dad took care of my sprained ankle by wrapping it up every moring and giving me Celebrax every night. Dad helped me pack out my deer which took all day. So thanks dad and Jeff for all you do so that we can get to the outdoors and enjoy an amazing hunt. And a gigantic thanks to my dear wife for watching the kids and roughing it with out me so I could have this amazing trip. I love you honey!

The Greatest Shut Out!!!!! 59-0

Wow what a game this was and Ben missed it to go hunting in Colorado with his brother, dad and uncle! What a shame! But I didn't miss it and neither did the boys. We are true blue fans. The BYU vs. UCLA game was so much fun, the stadium was so loud and we just enjoyed every minute of it. My dad and brother Hunter came into town for the game and so it was fun to be together with lots of our family. Thank you dad for taking us out to Brick Oven afterwards which has always been a wonderful tradition in the Hutchens family.

I LOVE my boys!

This is why my day is full...

Reno Trip!

Ben had the week of Labor Day off so I told him we should go to Reno! What a great idea I thought. He thought so too so off we went. We had a lot of fun spending time with the family. It's always nice to go home and get help with the kids because someone is always there to tend to their needs. I was telling my dad the other day that Ethan is so spoiled. He just wants to be held all the time and he said there is only one person to blame for that and I told him to back up and remember all that holding he did when I was there in Reno not to mention my mom and my sisters and especially my brother Hunter! So the blame falls on more heads than one. We did have a lot of fun though...we swam almost everyday, went to the Truckee river, went to Tahoe and Ben and I got to go to the temple and much much more.

Football Is Finally Here

Each year Jaclyn and I (P.S. this is Ben trying to help Jaclyn catch up on her posts)can't wait until the beloved time when college football starts. Our brother, Zach, got us tickets so we could go to all the BYU games and sit with family and friends. The first game was against Northern Iowa. Ethan and Aidan also love BYU football, so of course we couldn't leave them behind. The two young'ns withstood the noon-day heat like champs. All our siblings and cousins loved holding the kids during the game which was a big help. We had a wonderful time, and of course BYU won the game.

Stuart Falls

On August 30 we decided to head down to Provo really early so that we could hike Stuart Falls before BYU's season opener. Ben and I have made it our little tradition ever since we met. We did miss one year and that was the year I was pregnant with Aidan but that's not why we didn't go. We didn't go that year because Ben was working on an internship that summer in Vegas. So we weren't in Utah that whole summer. This time we went was a whole lot better because we usually go in July and it is SO hot outside. It was really nice this day and what made it even better was I had my first celebrity siting. We ran into Robert Redford on the way down from our hike. He never stopped...he said hello while continuing his hike up. My brother-in-law Jeremy called after him but to no avail he kept right on hiking.

Brace yourselves...

I know I have been MIA for almost 2 months now and I apologize to all my family and friends. It's hard keeping up with this blog when I have two boys that take up all my time during the day. It's almost 11pm and this is not something I really want to be doing right now. I treasure my sleep so much more these days and so when I actually do get a spare minute it's usually used up by my sleeping. I am going to go to bed but you just wait and I promise over the next few days I will be posting all our adventures. I might even get an award for the most amount of posts in such a short period of time. Good night to all!