The October 2023 Elk Hunt in Colorado

The October elk hunt last month had wonderful results!

Five of our children, including Danny, went hunting. Rose had driven all the way to South Dakota to pick him up so he could join the hunt. He's been such a help to us in South Dakota that we wanted him to have a break and be with his siblings during their favorite time of the year--hunting season in the Colorado mountains!

And as you can see, Rose got a bull elk!

Here are a couple more photos the hunting crew sent us.  It does my mother heart good to know that they are learning to weather all weather, do hard things, have fun, and harvest our own meat!

There goes Rose--very proudly--with her elk on the four-wheeler. 

Tim took half his elk with him to Crawford and sent the other half back with the others to butcher and send up with Danny for our family.

We feel very blessed!  

I am so thankful that the children keep doing the hard but healthy and happy things that their daddy taught them to do. 

Rather, perhaps I should say, that they learned to do together with their daddy who was learning right along with them! Letting go seems to be the thing I have had to do the most of as the children got older.

Letting go.

And I keep having to do it. I miss them being in my home. 

Moving away from most of my own family was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life--leaving behind the people I love the most and just plain saying goodbye while I headed into hard and unknown territory, camping in an RV and wondering if and when and where and for how long... 

And I don't suppose a mom who drank a little too much coffee on her way home from the clinic in Sioux Falls should do too much pondering out loud in the middle of the night!

She should just know that God works everything out for good--especially when some of the children who were going to be staying in Colorado for Thanksgiving might end up coming up here after all!