Chili Cook Off

Today we had a chili cook off at work. 17 people entered their best chili trying to place in the top three overall. The top three places earned a free day off of work. I entered my Spicy Honey Cinnamon Chili with the hopes of everyone enjoying it. Everyone seemed to like it and I won most unique tasting chili and third place overall. It was fun and there was a lot of good chili to taste. I can't wait till next year.

Awesome Day In The Duck Blind !!!

My view from the duck blind, those are my decoys not live birds.

Stella Blue loves to sniff my birds.

This was the 1st banded bird I have ever shot. I have to call in the # on the band and then I will find out where it came from. Pretty cool I think!

Military Appreciation Night @ Shelby MI Elementary

Tonight I volunteered at Shelby Elementary school and took part in their military appreciation night. The kids sang the songs of each branch of the military and they sang a few others. It was a pretty good time. Allison came with me and she took a bunch of pictures for us to share.

This dudes legit name was Joe Namath!

Day To Day

My new toy for the winter. We are expecting snow on Monday.

I hate Ducks that reside in places where I can't shoot them.

This is the very end of the jetty looking back towards Grand Haven. Its a beautiful walk to do on a day to day basis.

Squirrel's Don't Like Rain

Allison and I haven't been doing to much lately except for raking leaves. I have raked the yard 3 times now and it seems like 20 mins later they are back. The picture below is what our yard looks like today, I raked every single leaf on Saturday. I can't wait for the snow! Speaking of snow we are forecast ed to get some late next week. The meteorologists here in Michigan don't know their butt from their elbow so we will see what happens.  Work has been pretty slow and I was going out of my mind but today I started a tiling project at Station Grand Haven. I have tiled before but this time I am working with a guy that did it professionally before he joined the Coast Guard so he is teaching me some tricks of the trade. When Allison and I finally buy a house I am going to be a remodeling master, that'll be our little secret though, if Allison knows all that I can do I'll never get any rest haha. It has been pouring rain here every day for about a week and a half and today sitting outside our window was a very melancholy looking grey squirrel covering his head from getting wet with his tail. I have never seen anything like that. Allison and I got a good chuckle. Allison is 38 weeks on Friday, everything is going good and the Dr. said it could be any time now. I guess we play the waiting game now. We can't wait to meet baby bean. Katie and Justin having their baby has made us jealous and we don't want to wait any more haha. I guess we have no choice. Hopefully we will have more exciting news to post sometime soon!

The Croteau's Were Stir Crazy

It has been raining here all weekend. Allison and I were going stir crazy today so we decided to brave the pouring rain and go for a walk. We had fun walking through the rain and it felt good to get outside.

Opening Day

        Friday night Allison and I went to a Whitehall high school football game. It was a lot of fun. The town we live is is pretty small so the football team didn't have many players but the ones they do have are pretty good. We saw quite a few nice runs during the game.
        Saturday was opening day of duck season here in Mich and I have some stories that I won't soon forget. It was pretty cold out this morning and there were a lot of hunters in the area I was in. After I was all set up I was sitting waiting for legal shooting time when all of a sudden I here someone coming down the river. I was grumpy because I thought someone was trying to get in my area, I stood up and threw my hands into the air only to find out it wasn't a person at all. In front of me was a big 6 pt deer and he was marching all through my decoys. I watched him for a little while before he noticed me and took off. It was pretty cool to be that close to such a big deer. It was a slow day for ducks but I did shoot one real nice fat Hen Mallard. After I shot it I threw it next to my gear on shore. About a half hour later I heard the bushes near my duck rustling but I thought the duck was just twitching. Well it wasn't the duck making the racket, it was the fox stealing my duck. My next door neighbor was hunting behind me on the river and he said he could hear the fox enjoying his breakfast. Needless to say I walked away with one kill but zero ducks in my possession. It was definitely the strangest opener I have ever had. Once I got home Allison and I had a nice bonfire and I made smore's. Alli was a busy bee and made us Cinnamon bread for breakfast tomorrow and another apple crisp for tonight's dessert. We are both looking forward to watching South Carolina beat the pants off of  Georgia tonight.