What A Weekend

What a weekend it was. Friday night was the gallon challenge. Saturday the Husker football game and pumpkin carving. Sunday we went hunting! All with pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

I suppose most people are wondering how the milk drinking went...? It's hard to really describe the event. However, let me say that it was a little easier in some aspects and in other aspects it was MUCH harder. Laura and I went to meet everyone around 7:00. Part of the rules are that I had to drink the milk on an empty stomach. That wasn't so difficult - I can go a long time without eatting, one meal a day in some cases. I brought along a large cup which I thought to be able to hold about 1/4 gallon. I filled my cup and we started at 7:42.
By 8:10 I thought I was in pretty good shape. I had two cups down and thought I was about halfway done. I filled up my cup and snapped a picutre. "Hmmm, that's odd, it looks like more than half a gallon there" I thought to myself... I downed the third cup and with 20 minutes to go returned for my final fill-up, or so I thought... Turns out, the cup was almost 1/4 of a gallon - it was actually 1/5 of a gallon, the problem was I had paced myself for about 15 minutes a glass. I was actually downing a cup about every 12 minutes so I was still ok when I finished my 4th cup, I had about 11 minutes to go. The REAL problem was my stomach was informing me that it was rather full and milk wasn't exactly a good idea at the time. Jesse was able to get just a little over half a gallon before he went for the bathroom. His strategy was to drink it down as fast as possible, wait about 20 minutes and do it again, whereas I took it slow and steady. Either way, we both lost. Although, I never had to stare at the toilet wondering what was gonna happen - I did have to go outside for awhile and cool down from the warm house. I think that was part of my trouble as well. The house was mighty warm and I wasn't enjoying the milk in the heat. At 8:42 I still had my 1/5 cup full of milk and I had to accept defeat. I put my cup in the refridgerator and about 9:30 I finished it off without any trouble. I even had a few cookies to go along with it. You can see with 5 minutes to go I was really starting to feel it. Perhaps another time I will be able to return to the challenge with new variables to make a winning attempt. We also had some more events in which we put mentos in 2 liter bottles of pop and made fountains. I guess the graduate Chemistry students just can't get enough chemistry so they have to have a party which involves chemical reactions to have a good time? Either way, it was a lot of fun to see what a few Mentos in a 2 liter of pop could do. It made quite a mess actually, but I guess it was in the name of science so that's ok right? Ha ha.

Saturday, Laura and I slept in to watch the Husker football game. All I can say is it's a good thing it was on television here! I was excited to actually be able to watch some Husker football and the fact that they gave Texas a good kick in the pants added to the enjoyment! During the game we brought the pumpkins into the house and carved them while we sat in front of the tv. Laura tends to make her pumpkins have a scary appeal, while I enjoy a good laugh with my pumpkin. From that clue I think you can figure out which pumpkin I carved. Here's a quick recap of the pumpkins from previous years:

2005

2004

Sunday we planned on going hunting but we overslept the alarm clock. We still went hunting but we left about 2 hours late and didn't get too may opportunities for the day. It was a great day to be out and enjoying the great outdoors though. We took the boat out and paddled around on the lake for awhile. The low clouds and snow covered mountains really made for a nice setting. Add to that the fact that we were 70 miles from Missoula and things really get better in a hurry! The absence of noise is a really welcome occurance. Even though I have become numb to the constant sounds of cars, jets, and barking dogs I always like to remember that there are places where those things are few and far between. Here's one of the great views we had during the morning.One of the 'techniques' that Rylan and I have pegged for hunting stems from a hunting trip in which we traveled to North Platte, Nebraska and met up with our cousin Darrin. We traveled to Sutherland to go hunting and while we were there we ran into some people that Darrin knew. To make a long story short, while we were all standing around talking we watched some ducks land nearby and they asked us if we wanted "to put the sneak on 'em" Meaning we would sneak up on the ducks and when we scared them we would attempt a shot. Well, this turned into an inside joke eventually and now I am using it to give an intro to this next picture I took of Laura. She's putting 'the sneak on' some Ruddy ducks - the funny part is she isn't even sneaking up on them, she is just walking at them to try and get a shot! I guess I need to inform her that you have to be sneaky when you 'put the sneak on.'We ended our hunting trip with no shots fired and returned back to Missoula by finding 6 more geocaches.

Today was my last day of landscaping work. The cold temperatures have slowed the work down and everyone is starting to winterize their homes. We were hoping to get a few more jobs to last us past Halloween but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not sure what I will be doing for the winter. We will be traveling to Wyoming and Nebraska in 6 weeks and we are planning on being gone for nearly 4 weeks. I can't imagine any employer would be thrilled with that news so perhaps some odd jobs will show up now and then for me to make a few extra bucks. Who knows though, only time will tell. I just keep going day to day and taking what I can get. Until again

-=Nolan=-

**Bonus pumpkin picture in the dark**