Cowboys vs Chiefs

This weekend was the Cowboys/Chiefs game. Since we are from Missouri it stands to reason that most of our family are either Chiefs or Rams fans, even if I have corrupted Shantel into liking the Cowboys. So we got together a big group of family who are Chiefs fans, our friend Ruder and his wife, Kelly, a coworker and went to the game. What I found really interesting was all of the Cowboys fans that were there. I know that the Chiefs haven't been that good lately but they do still almost always sell out. The game was close to a sell out but I would say it was about a 40/60 split Cowboys/Chiefs fans, there was definitely a lot of blue and you can see some of it in the above picture.

This is Macen and Grandpa Hugh playing Redneck Golf, no else played since we were busy cooking, eating, and drinking. It sure kept Macen occupied though.

Our tailgate set up, we had brats, smoked sausages, chili, grilled onions and peppers, beer and of course hot cocoa. Our new cold weather tailgate beverage of choice is hot cocoa with Dr McGillicuddies Menthomint schnapps, its kind of like drinking a york peppermint patty. MMMM Good!!!!

Macen loved the football game in fact he was a little upset that we had to tailgate first, he wanted to go straight to the stadium. He was shouting first down, Romo to Witten, and Defense all day long as well as trying to play hide n seek in our row.

Not a bad picture from the next to last row in the stadium. When I realized that I was going to have extra tickets, I offered them to my high school buddy Dale and his little brother Drew. Drew's comment about the tickets was that Dale and I, as Army Majors, make way too damn much money to be sitting that high up and he promptly bought lower level tickets for some outrageous amount of money. After getting to our seats, I'd have to admit that Drew was right, I'll have to hold out for lower seats next time at Arrowhead and save the wear and tear on the knees of climbing that high and the stop off for extra oxygen.

The obligatory family picture. It was really really cold.

Check out Macen and his Romo jersey. This is after the game, and even though he liked the game he was ready to go home, Shantel put him in the car so he could warm up and he promptly crawled into his seat and said "I'm Ready", to go that is, he'd had enough and was ready to go home even though we were eating the leftovers and waiting for the traffic to clear.

It was a great a game. I was actually glad the Chiefs played the Cowboys close that way there was a lot of smack talking going back and forth between Mike, Hugh and me, made for a great time. The only draw back, other than the cold, was that there seemed to be a lot rude Chiefs fans, I got called an A-hole by some guy as I was walking down the aisle of the section to the bathroom and some girl called me a "star covered jerk" as I was waiting for the girls to get through the pat down line. Those weren't the only comments I heard just the loudest ones. What the heck? The only time I've seen anything similar in Texas was when the Cowboys played the Redskins and my old roommat Fitz , a Redskins fan, was there with us, I really thought he was going to get his butt beat, but then again if you know Fitz you know he was instigating it as much as the other fans were.

Eat

This is Macen begging for food, ha ha! He is literally yelling "Eat", "Eat" here. As some of you know Macen got pretty sick about 2 weeks ago. It got bad enough we have to take him to the hospital for an IV for a day - he had pretty much stopped eating and drinking and he was vomitting off and on for a week. So needless to say, his eating is all messed up. He ate 2 boxes of cereal in 4 days. And now he has been having lunch around 9am. The kid thinks he needs to wake up at 5am every day. Thats a whole other story though that I won't bore you with. Normally he doesn't eat much and we have to beg him to eat more. So I thought it was funny he had climbed up in his chair and was yelling to eat.

Marathon Pics

Here are some misc pics from the marathon. Macen wasn't feeling well so this is about as active as he got. He did play kick ball in 2 states at the same time :) Downtown Omaha has a suspension bridge you walk on over the river with the state line of NE and IA marked around the middle. Macen kicked the ball back and forth over it.

26.2...Been There Run That

Sunday was the Omaha Marathon, I've never run a full marathon and since I've been thinking about stepping up to do a full Ironman, I figured I'd better run a full marathon first.

Mariah ran the half marathon and since the route was the same for both races until the 9 mile marker, we ran together. At the 9 mile marker we high fived and she turned around and headed back and I kept going. Mariah finished in 2hrs 8min, really good for a 17 year old.

The run route went through the downtown Omaha area, by the riverfront, down by the zoo and around Rosenblatt Stadium (home of the College World Series) and then back to the north part of town and finally finishing back at the riverfront.

I wanted to finish in under 4 hours but since it was my first marathon I thought it would be realistic to finish in about 4.5 hours. When Mariah turned around I was on pace for 4 hours and kept that up all the way until about mile 23 when I finally hit the wall. I managed to finish in 4hrs 20 min. Faster than I thought would finish but not as fast I would have liked. Still that's respectable for my first marathon. The jury is still out on whether or not I'll do another marathon, let alone a full Ironman, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of running a marathon after swimming for 2.4 miles and biking for 112 miles. Given plenty of training time I might be up for it.

I want to thank the two college age guys out drinking beer at 10 am on Florence Drive at about the 18 mile marker, they gave me a cold Budweiser, which I drank about half of, after all I am a beer drinker with a running/triathlon problem. It tasted pretty darn good. Also there was the girl at the 21 mile marker who gave me an energy gel, I probably needed that gel more than I did the beer at mile 18. The volunteer on the bike at mile 24, needs thanking as well, she really got my mind off how bad my legs were hurting and kept me shuffling to the finish. Finally the guy with the ice bags at the end of the race really, really needs thanking, I probably wouldn't be walking today if he hadn't of let me borrow the ice for my knees for about 20 minutes.Mariah and I with 3000 other runners getting ready for the mass start of the 10k, half marathon, and marathon.We've just finished the first 6 miles here. Still on pace for a 4 hour marathon and a 2 hour half marathon and feeling strong.

Done, Spent, Drained, Nothing Left, where's the wheelchair??? 4hours 20 minutes. Mariah ran the last quarter mile with me after resting for 2 hours, that's why she's smiling so big.

Sad Day in the Scrogin Household

With our impending move to Germany we had decided that we weren't going to take our truck over with us, it is just too big and screams here's the American. But what we were going to get and when we were going to get it was all up in the air. That is until this weekend. After looking at Volvos and BMWs the last couple of months we finally went and looked at the Fords and Shantel decided she really liked the new Edge crossover they have and it does kind of have a European flair to it, so we asked what they wanted for it and what they would give us for our truck. Bottom line everything came together rather nicely and now we have a new Edge.

Here is a picture of our old truck. It will be missed. If I had a dollar for every time one of us has said "I miss the truck" since Saturday, then I could buy it back from the dealer even after he marks it up for resale. I can already tell you we'll be getting one of these again when we come back from Germany. Here's the new Edge, not quite as much cargo space as the truck. Notice I've already had to go get a bike rack and we are talking about a roof rack with a cargo box eventually to make up some of the lost room. It has lots of gadgets that I like and plenty of passenger space that Shantel likes. It drives pretty smooth and it has plenty of oomph when out on the interstate. The gas mileage is also much better than the truck, getting about 21 mpg on the way home this weekend, whereas the truck normally got about 15 mpg.

Renaissance Festival

We took Macen to the Renaissance Festival yesterday. This is something I went to in high school for English class so I couldn't wait to take Macen and just to see it all again. He liked watching the sword fighting.

He didn't want to pet the sheep much and they startled him when they said "baaa" so loud. After that he kept saying "Baa, baa" while we were in there.

We watched a jousting match. The dude in red was the good guy and of course he won. Macen clapped with the crowd and loved the horses.

Macen is posing for the camera and saying "cheese".

I thought this was amusing given all our technology now. There were 4 people in the very middle of the ride making the swings go around and around. I don't think I could do that minute after minute all day long - I don't have enough arm strength. And that is not Macen on that swing. In fact, he does not like swings at all.

We had fun walking around and watching a variety of shows.

Chasing "Big Deer"

OK, well I wasn't really chasing deer but Macen calls anything with antlers big deer and I think that's cute.

For those of you who didn't know I try to go elk hunting in Colorado with Shantel's Dad, Mike, and one of his friends, Dave, every year that I can. Normally we go for rifle season in October but because of school this year I couldn't go that week, the only time I could get off was around Labor Day and that's archery season. My instructors were nice enough to let me take a couple of extra days on either side of the holiday and I was talking to Dave about going archery hunting since Mike would rather rifle hunt and Dave started talking about this new place he wanted to hunt and that he too wanted to archery hunt. So we decided to go together along with a couple of guys that work with Dave. Here's a run down of what happened.


Fri - Day 1. I'm hunting with Gerad, one of the guys who works with Dave, in the morning and he calls in a 6x6 bull that I can't get a shot at and then helps me call in a couple of cow elk, before we quit. It's too early to shoot a cow, I'm still looking for a bull, so I pass. There's no action in the evening since its too hot and they were only moving after the moon comes up. The bulls are bugling some but not much.


Sat - Day 2. Dave and I chase a herd of 40 cows with one HUGE bull and a couple of nice satellite bulls that rotates through the alfalfa fields behind the ranch house where we are staying. We get around in front of them but the wind was wrong and they smelled us just before daylight and jumped the fence onto some private land that we can't hunt. Dang it. Gerad does manage to shoot a nice 5x5 that morning. I see two cows but still not a whole lot going on in the evening.

Sun - Day 3. Gerad goes with me again. It's raining and the temp has dropped a little I'm wearing rain gear. Bulls are bugling everywhere and we are seeing about 20 - 30 elk with some nice bulls on the opposite ridges from us. We start working one of the closer bulls, but a combination of loud rain gear and over aggressiveness on our part cause us to spook a nice bull at about 80 yards. Dave shoots a bull but can't find a blood trail after looking for almost two hours. I'm not wearing that rain gear ever again.

Mon - Day 4. I hunt a supposed hot spot but have a hard time finding it since I've never been down there before. Jeff, another guy that works with Dave, shoots a small 4x4 that walks out in front of him while they walk on a road. We all help pack it out. Why can't it always be that easy?

Tues - Day 5. The bulls are bugling everywhere, it's insane. There must have been five or six within 200 yards of us. I just can't see them for the brush. I've got one coming in on a string to my cow calling. A cow sticks her head around some scrub brush in front of me, she doesn't spook, just moseys off to the bull that's coming in, no shot opportunity. That bull bugles one more time at 80 yards and then stops. Dang it, that cow stole my bull. Dave shoots a bull that we then spend 8 hours tracking. It all works out well in the end when we find the nice 5x4. No evening hunt, everyone's too tired from the tracking.

Wed - Day 6. I'm the only one left who hasn't tagged out. Gerad goes with me to get a bull. I want a bull but I'll take a cow. We call in a nice bull at 6:30, but he stops at 80-100 yards. He's bugling and chuckling and not really sure what we are. I close the gap and then can't get around the sage and buck brush without making a lot of noise. I stand up and guess the range to be about 45 yards. The bull sees me but still doesn't spook, I think he's about a 5x5 but he might be bigger. He turns and starts to walk away and I fling an arrow at him. Aah I think I overshot, but Gerad tells me it was good hit. Yes!!! The bull runs off, we let him go. We watch him and look for the arrow and a blood trail. Oh no, no arrow or blood trail, did I hit him or did it go over? We follow the tracks and eventually do find blood. We then proceed to trail him for 10 hours, Dave eventually joins us to help trail, since the trail kind of dries up a couple of times and our eyes are still tired from tracking yesterday. We eventually have to give up after we ended up almost 2.5 miles from the truck as the crow flies, and on another ranch, running out of daylight, and with no blood drops, just smears from where he rubs his coat. We decide I must have been high, missing most of the vitals and maybe just nicking a lung. I'm literally sick. Here it is after 4 years of virtually no shot opportunities with a rifle I get a good shot opportunity with a bow and an inch either way and I would have had my first elk. No evening hunt we are beat down again, and I'm extremely frustrated. Time for a stiff drink!

Thurs - Day 7, last day. Jeff and Gerad leave. Dave and I chase the big herd again with Dave calling and videoing and me hunting. We stay close to the herd but they cross the property line again just before day light. We then call in a monster bull but he stops at the fence line 60-80 yards from us behind a lot of brush and won't cross the fence. A cow calls down in the valley and once again a real cow steals my bull. At 9am we decide to call it a hunt and pack up and head home.


Once again I'm elkless. I'm not too upset though I've seen a ton of elk, had a good shot opportunity and considering that the archery success rate in the unit we hunted was 24% and overall Colorado is only 12% I feel fortunate to have had a shot. It's too bad I didn't find the bull I shot but I guess the bears have to eat too don't they? I can't wait to go next time, and I'll practice my calling and bow shooting out to about 60 yards so that anything less should be a piece of cake. I'll probably never rifle hunt again since they don't bugle as much then and the bugling is probably the most exciting thing I've seen while hunting, for those you that turkey hunt it's kind of like calling in a 900-1200lb gobbler, same concept. Here are some pictures:
The view from the mountain behind the ranch house. The big herd would run the valley at night and cross over to private land after eating the alfalfa.An elk rubbed the heck out this cedar tree. It's a good bet a nice bull was around here somewhere and fairly recently.They call this ravine "The Luge" yes I walked up this. The steeper and thicker it is the more the elk seem to like it. Elk country. Some people only go elk hunting once, Mainly because you have to walk up and down terrain like this to get one. This wasn't too high, only about 8500 feet above sea level. Dave's elk that we tracked for almost 8 hours. It was his first one. One of these days I'll get one!