Apparently, I misreported what Mike shot out in SD. In actuality, he shot 1 doe with his bow and 2 antelope does with his rifle, and his friend Matt shot 1 doe with his bow and 1 doe antelope and 1 buck antelope with his rifle. The deer were shot out in Vermillion on Matt’s turf, then they headed out west by the Black Hills to get the antelope.

On their way out there they passed the center of the United States, so some pictures were taken there.

Here are Mike and Matt proudly displaying their antelope.

Immediately upon his return to Wisconsin, Mike put all us Hawley girls to work with grinding up the meat from his prizes. A few years ago Jake was kind enough to gift us with a meat grinding attachment for the Kitchen Aide, and it works fabulously. It took us the rest of Monday and most of Tuesday to finish all the grinding. I calculated that each package of ground meat had anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2 pounds, and we ended up with about 56 packages of meat. Therefore, our freezer now has anywhere from 56 to 84 pounds of meat (this isn’t including the deer meat we already had which was given to Mike a couple of months ago). Mike had also pre-cut out all the meat appropriate for steaks. On Tuesday night I cooked up some antelope steaks after marinating them in red wine for a bit. Let me tell you, those pieces of meat were very tender and succulent. I’d liken them to eating New York strip steaks. YUMMY!

Here’s what our deep freezer looks like. The middle row is what we already had. The top is the ground meat, and the bottom row has all the steaks. I’d say I won’t be purchasing any red meat for some time.

Now in other news. The other night while Mike was still out of town we (or I) decided to go to Luigi’s Pizza Kitchen for dinner. It’s touted as having the best pizza in Kenosha. On the way there I turn into the side parking lot. It looked full to me (I didn’t realize that the side parking lot connected to the front parking lot), so I exited out onto a residential street to turn around to go into the front parking lot. Here’s the conversation between Annie and me that proceeded:

Annie: Where are you going? Luigi’s is back there.
Me: I have to turn around to get back to other parking lot.
Annie: Oh.
Me: Wait a second. How do you know that Luigi’s is back there.
Annie: Remember, Mama, when we tried to eat there one time, but it was closed. We ended up eating somewhere else.
Me: ?!?
Me: {A few seconds later and starting to laugh.} How would you remember something like that? If I recall, that happened when we first moved here. I didn’t even remember that.
Annie: {Shrugging.}

Another time where Annie never ceases to amaze me with her memory and remarkable sense of direction was on the way to a birthday party for one of Annie’s classmates. We were just exiting the highway.

Annie: No, Mama, you’re turning the wrong way.
Me: I am? No, this is the right way.
Annie: No, it’s back the other way next to the mini golf place (we went there for her birthday in August).
Me: I know, it’s this way.
Annie: No, it’s the other way.
Me: {After a couple of minutes of driving and realizing that Annie was correct, I turned around.} I guess you were right, Annie. Mommy needs lots of help when driving, and I’m glad I have you for that.

Then another time. Driving home from the grocery store and approaching a stop sign. We have 2 choices: we can either turn left at the stop sign and then turn right into our neighborhood’s back entrance, or we can go straight through the stop sign and turn left into the front entrance of our neighborhood.

Annie: Mama, go straight. That way is so much faster.
Me: {Flabbergasted.}

Here we are at Luigi’s. I just had to get some pictures of the girls because this was first time since having kids that I could sit in a restaurant and not have to constantly be answering kid questions, scolding, cleaning up drink spills, forcing squirrelly children into their seats, or just going out of my mind in general. My babies were totally focused on drawing their pictures for most of the time. It was pure paradise.