A reason to look forward to pheasant hunting opener...for a non-hunter!

As many of you already know, Nick is an avid outdoorsmen and hunter. Pheasant hunting opener is coming up this weekend, so I am preparing myself for the first of many lonely hunting seasons. Nick's mom, Sherry, emailed me earlier this week proposing an annual "Sykora Women Pheasant Fun Day" that fortunately doesn't include pheasants at all. The men ALL go on opening day, and now the women are going to do something fun while they are gone. I'm really excited and she had great ideas for what we could do! Here were some of her ideas:

• Doing a special walk and then out to lunch.(October is breast cancer awareness month. We could walk for a cause.)
• Visit a zoo or park and take a picnic lunch.
• Go to a museum and do lunch.
• Visit a historical area.
• Attend a community or church fall festival.
• Go to a movie, take Hailey to a Disney movie or see a cute chick flick.
• Do noon show at Chanhassen
• Get together and do a scrapbook project.
• Tie a quilt (ok I'm old, this is something I did with my grandma)
• Bake holiday treats to divide.
• Get together and make three meals to freeze for easy after work pop in oven meal.(even though this borders on work)
• Slumber party with snacks wine and movies.

I love her ideas, and I feel so lucky to be joining a family that values family time so much. I grew up with the same family values, so it just feels good and right.

We are starting the tradition with a trip to Como Zoo this Sunday. It will be fun to share a day at the zoo with Hailey (Nick's neice), and I can't wait to see the new polar bear exhibit!

We are hosting Nick's dad and brother and their two yellow labs at our house for the hunting weekend. Little Sera is so scared of those big dogs, so it will be a rough weekend for her. If you believe in praying for dogs, send one up for her. ;) I'll try to capture a picture of all three of them so you can see the size difference. It's actually sort of funny...