Holidays

If you've been wondering what I've been up to lately, here is an update. Hunting season came and went. I had three successful hunts this year. The muzzleloader in St. George, the elk hunt up Immigration canyon, and the Thermopolis, WY hunt. I also spent a couple weekends hunting with my dad up by the Scofield cabin, but we didn't manage to fill either his general season deer tag or his bull elk tag. It was a fun season though, and I'm already itching to go again.
I had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with Stacey and her family up in Rexburg, ID. It was a short trip, because the woman had to work, but still fun to spend some time with her. She surprised me with dark hair... and although her fam is not a fan, I definitely support her.
I left Stacey in Logan on Friday and went back to Orem. The gang all got back together that night for pizza and games. We visited for most of the night, and it was great to catch up with everybody that I don't get to see that often.

Saturday, Jeana, Jared, dad and I got all our warm clothes on and headed to Provo to see the BYU-Utah game. We had really great seats and it was a great game.
Stacey came back to Orem on Sunday and stayed until Tuesday morning. She helped take care of me Monday, when I got my eyes cut open... That's right. "I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW, THE RAIN IS GONE!!!" ...so to speak. I had LASIK eye surgery on Monday, and it's great not worrying about glasses or contacts anymore. I was only a little nervous going into it, but everything turned out to be just great. There is a chance that I might have to get glasses again in the future for reading, but for the time being, my vision is all cleared up! Stacey and I and the parents even went up to temple square the same night to see the lights. I haven't been there in a lot of years, and Stacey is always whining about going.... so it was a fun night.
I'm back to work in St. George now, finishing up the semester and trying to catch up at work. We moved our office, we're in the same building but upstairs. I'm really happy with it actually. Just have to get it all organized and ready to go.

Backtracking

Everything has been pretty crazy busy lately, but I'm finally getting around to blogging- figured I better start with my deer hunt (muzzle loader) back in September...
Day 1. September 24.

Met my dad up at Honeycomb Campground, next to Enterprise Reservoir.

Day 2. September 25.

We spent the morning and afternoon hunting and getting more familiar with the area. I had a really cool experience that night as I sat at a watering hole in a natural blind. I had a doe come within probably about 8 yards of me, and wasn't even aware that I was there. One of my neatest hunting experiences as of late.

Day 3. September 26.

Another early morning of hunting without any luck. But as we were out and about dad found an arrowhead and several pieces of other arrowheads. We, of course, were excited and spent the next couple hours with our heads to the ground searching for Indian artifacts.
Did some fishing at Enterprise Reservoir that afternoon, where dad limited out for the two of us. I decided rather than sit there and watch the old man catch all the fish I'd take a nap...
That evening we headed up to the same spot we'd been earlier that day, we saw plenty of deer, but nothing to shoot at. We actually witnessed a fawn being poached. It's so frustrating to see such unethical and inhumane behavior take place. This guy actually took a rock to the fawns head. Dad tried to get the guys license plates but only managed to fall and hurt himself in the process. Not the ideal hunting situation for a bit.
On our way home we spotlighted some fields and saw hundreds of doe and several trophy bucks...
Dad cooked up fish for dinner. It was delicious.

Day 4. September 27.

Much of the same hunting. We went for a long drive, out to the Nevada state line and sighted in the 270 plinked with several other guns. Before we went back we went to Newcastle Reservoir and did some more fishing. We ran into a guy who informed us that "there is a highbred fish. Half white bass and half striper. Called a wiper." The guy was definitely high.

Day 5. September 28.

The last early morning of the hunt. We hunted hard, and all in all saw hundreds of deer. A couple handfuls of small yearling bucks, but no shooters. We broke camp and dad headed home. He managed to blow out a tire on the trailor.
I went back to work for a bit, but headed back out around 7 with Joe Balch. We went out towards New Harmony in his little Jeep Liberty, not intending to shoot anything. We found a trailhead, parked and headed up to an area that had just been burned in a fire several months previous. Hiking through the burn area towards an opening in which the fire didn't engluf, we surprisingly kicked up several doe right away. Within several hundred yards of being in the burn area we saw our first large group of deer that had several bucks within it. I pulled the trigger on what I thought was a decent buck at about 80 yards. Notice in the pictures, this deer was shot in an area with ashes and burnt tree trunks. Who thought we would've found a nice buck in the area? Neither Joe or myself thought we'd be successful on this short evening hunt, and we both looked at each other wondering how we were going to get this deer into his little Jeep Liberty...
He's not a monster, but I'm pleased with my 2009 buck!

Still Hunting....

Yet another successful hunt! This time an elk!
Expect one big post soon!

Gone Hunting

More to come... but the Muzzleloader was a success!

College Football

(yeah... I guess I'll still support 'em)

It most definitely has begun! I've been enjoying watching BYU so far this season- and even though we lost this weekend, it was still fun to watch the game with some friends (and Stacey of course... still can't believe that girl). I'm looking forward to heading to Vegas to see the game in a couple weeks. Hopefully all goes well!

this week

I got my new bed (king size, mmm....)
&
had a beautiful, surprise visitor
how LUCKY am I??
seriously, Stacey had me believing that she was going to be bored to death up in Logan this weekend, guilt tripping me about not spending enough time on the phone with her and how bad she misses me. Next thing I know, she comes walking in to my office.
I really am one lucky guy...

THERMOP

Thermopolis, Wyoming. A town of approximately 3,172 people. In the middle of nowhere. I probably would never have dreamed of traveling to this desolate town if it weren't for one thing. My love and addiction for hunting. Yup. I get to spend nearly a week in Thermopolis this November, on what I hope to be a fantastic deer hunt. But this last weekend Chad, Stacey and I made the long drive up to scout out the area and get a feel for what we'll be dealing with for the hunt. It was a lot of driving, and not quite what we expected- but we had a succesful trip. The only thing I can think of that is better than driving around for two days looking at animals... is driving around for two days looking at animals with my girl.
So this is pretty much what we did all weekend...

Too bad all we really saw was antelope...

Labor Day Weekend

What kind of crazy people run in half marathons? Well... I do. Labor Day weekend was "The Trails Half, 20 Miler & 5K" down in St. George. Some friends from Orem came down and we woke up at the crack of dawn to run the 13.1 miles. The run actually wasn't too bad, considering the amount of training I did for it. I managed to get a pretty good time of 2:11:51, just behind Rhett and Garret. It ended up being a really nice run.

Myself, Rhett & Garret

I'm looking really happy

Made it. Imagine that. I'm in better shape than we all thought.

thanks for the fun weekend guys! and thanks for the pic's Paige!
...too bad I have no woman to support me huh....

Tom and Jerry

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a sucker for a good rack. Wow. While sitting at Chad's cabin this last weekend I spotted these guys. Welcome Tom and Jerry (of course we named the deer!). I'm getting really excited about hunting season starting up, it's been great to be out and about seeing the archery hunt going on, although I'm sadly not involved in it. But the muzzleloader is coming up soon and I'll be joining in!

what to say...

well lets get real... Ben McAffee is not REALLY going to take the time to create a blog (especially one this cute) and actually keep it up to date. But, in the interest of keeping my faraway friends and family in the loop, I've conned my beautiful Stacey Lou into starting one for me. What a wonderful girl right?! So, welcome to my blog!