Christmas didn't go as planned

Welcome to the Ammons family vacation where we're headed to Kansas for... Endings? My husband just asked that every day of the trip. No, I said we're off on our way to Kansas. We've got a trip of 10 days celebrating Christmas, New Year's, spending time with our families, and hopefully hunting a little bit, like maybe like five. Oh, that's one every other day? Yep. We could maybe make that work. Stop number one, complete. Limon. Limon. Ellie bro, you have something to share? We're on the side of the road because Ellie bro had a nice blowout. Number two? Well, it's Christmas and I'm gonna go for a Christmas morning run. I just gotta get to the car without getting wet. One nice thing about running in Kansas is that if you want to go a mile, you know exactly when you got a mile. If you want to go four miles, just turn left four times. This may be the most beautiful Christmas. It feels like spring. Shout out to 55 Mile for sponsoring this run. I guess I did get some free products, so I could count that as sponsoring. Never chafe again. Never have blisters again. Never get tired again. Let's go. It's crazy because I'm going four miles and I can see the house where I came from. All right, I got a challenge for you guys. When's the last time you've run as fast as you can? And by that, I mean not running fast, but as fast as you can. That might be a walk for you, or it might be a fast jog, or it might be a sprint. I feel like if I go six months without running as fast as I can, am I really living? Can you go spend time with family now? I'm not going to go hunting this evening because it's Christmas and so I'm going to spend time with family. But tomorrow morning, I may go out and I'm really excited. Merry Christmas. Have you been hunting? Dang. Blue, that's crazy that you can catch a rabbit. Let's get going. I can't see. Just got out here. It's about 10. I'm still shooting light. I'm set up for about five yards from a trail that's right here that goes by and I'm literally just sitting at the base of this tree. Not very good cover, so hopefully I can hear them and basically be at full draw when they come around the tree is the idea. Right back there. See that tree? It's upside down right there. That's where my wife and I got married. Well, that was the entryway. We walked through that and we got married in those trees right there. A wedding, so it's a pretty special place. That was so loud. What is going on over there? I don't know if you can hear that, but it's like a bunch of cows, a semi-truck, and geese. I think maybe the geese flew over the semi-truck dropping off the cows. I'm heading back. Didn't see anything. I really did think or thought I heard something, so head back to the house. Today we're gonna pack up and we're gonna head out from my wife's parents' head out to hang out with my family for a couple of days. I always find that on trips like this, it can get really easy to just get super tired and overdo everything and be exhausted, be snappy at my wife. This morning, after we get packed up and before we go, hang out with my family. I'm gonna take her on a little date, maybe lunch, reset, spend some time together, do a little chat, and then go spend some time with my family for a couple of days. This is one thing that I'm really good at. Boom. Too easy. You know, as a man of a house, there's some packing jobs that you're proud of and then there's some packing jobs. This is one that I was about to say I was proud of and then I realized that the back seat needs to be empty. I just spent 10, 5 or 10 minutes trying to get my bow to fit in without taking it down. Aren't you proud of my packing job? I'm so proud. Are you ready to go Ellie Rowe? The only issue is the allen key's on the very bottom in the very back. I just really thought it would fit. I thought it would fit. It fits perfectly. You lowered me in with this. There shouldn't be much longer. Is this a live cam? Oh yeah. All right, back at my in-laws. Didn't end up doing any hunting over the time with my family, but had a great time. I also confirmed a time to go hunting with my dad here in two days. It was 75 degrees on Christmas and today I believe the wind chill is six degrees. Honestly, I came out as much to think as I did to try and shoot a deer, so I'm just going to focus on this time being refreshing. Well, I didn't see anything except a really cool owl and some other birds and the moon, but no deer. I thought it was a good refreshing time, so I'm glad I went out even though it was a little quick thing. Get my head back to the house, get warm, and spend some time with family this evening. You got some marshmallow on your face. Hot figures. All right, I'm headed out because there's a last minute alumni basketball game that was scheduled. My youngest brother is a junior in high school and he's on the basketball team, so I'm going to go play against him. I believe my younger brother, the other younger older than him brother, is going to be there and then my other brother that's younger than me but older than him will be there as well, so it should be a lot of fun. Shout out to Gray Baby for getting me these shoes. He just gave them to me one day. He said, hey, we're going to go buy you some shoes. I was like, why? He's like, because I want to. In case I need some energy. Just pulled up to my parents' house. I'm going to hop in the truck with my dad and we are going to drive about another hour. Oh my, I just saw the craziest shooting star through the trees. That was insane. I've never seen one that's like green. It's just a one person stand, so he's putting up his saddle so he can be the same tree as me. He brought a slingshot and some tea, I think. All right, just got sapped in the tree. About eight minutes until shooting light. They're bucks. Was he a dad kid's one? Yeah. My feet were really cold, so I just turned my socks on. I nailed it. Let's go. Creed's up there somewhere. About an hour ago, he dropped his phone. I was like one foot away from going down this cliff into the creek. Woke up at 4 30 this morning, made some coffee, got on the road, met up with my dad in Creed. I saw a shooting star. That was beautiful. My dad and my brother Creed, we went off to this property that the owner was letting us hunt, and we saw four or five bucks. A couple of them were running across the field. My dad tried to stop them, but they just kept running, and so he didn't get a shot at them. Creed dropped his phone out of the tree stand. I broke my tripod. I had a good practice shot. We went to a coffee shop, found my mom. Going to spend some time with family this afternoon. Have maybe one more opportunity to hunt tomorrow. That'll be January 1st, so rifle season starts. I think if I do go, I'd probably bring the traditional bow and maybe a rifle, but I'll have to check with my wife on our plans. All right. All right, let's do it. Have you ever heard someone say, do you have enough leg room back there? Uh-huh. How about, do you have enough leg room back there? You can move it back. I've got about, yeah, just a little bit. I'm not touching you. You're good. My knees are touching the front dash. You can move it back a little more if you need. See me running back in the truck after about six shots. You know, whatever. After six shots. He's heading to the pivot right there, and I've got the bow. Creed's got 243 that he's setting up for me, so if something comes close, I can use the bow. It's a bunch of deer that just ran away. Well, we just got in here. Halfway in, we saw at least eight deer that saw us or smelled us. Kind of running out, a little ways away, but maybe they'll forget that we're here and come back, or maybe some other deer. Shh. It's looking at you. Oh, there's a lot. It's like, there's something right there. Hey, did you get one? I don't know. I blinked and then they were all gone, so then I went to use my binocs, and then I saw you guys. Yeah, was there four of them? Yeah, did you see four runaways? I saw four runaway, but I might have saw one of them fall over. I don't know. Couldn't find them, so I just set my gun down, gave up, getting ready to pull out my binocs, and I'm like, wait. Do you feel like it was a good shot? Only the Lord knows. So we're looking for blood right now, seeing if we can find anything. So when I shot, you say you were not able to see the deer unless you were looking through your scope? Yeah, which Creed pulled up his binocs though, and I pulled up my scope real quick. Saw some running, but... All right, we haven't found anything yet. I'm just looking along the railroad tracks because I think this is where they cross, so seeing if there's any blood. Hopefully we will find something, but if not, it may have been a miss. I just turned, and there it is. It didn't quite make it to the railroad track. Dad, I found it. No wonder I didn't find any blood because I was looking here, and it came from that way. I was like, surely it's not past this. Dad, I was just about to stop. I was right here, and I was Creed parked there, and I was like, well, it's probably not further than this, and then I was like, what? Well, I heard you say, hey, I found a deer. I was like, what did I just see? Oh, there it is. Let's go clean this sucker. Well, we have deer meat if you want some. Thank you. They might have all been, because they were all... I know there was... They all looked really far away. My original time before I lost them, and I went into my amygdala. I don't know. Is that possible? That's what buck fever is, or doe fever, Yeah, I didn't even prepare it. Just in case we go on a run. Are these your shoes too? Yeah. Thank you. See you, guys. All right, we're leaving family for the last time. Well, for the first last time. What do you think? Is this pigeon silly? You know, one of my least favorite things about when people make videos is that sometimes they only show the good parts and don't show the bad parts, and that's something that I did on this video as I left out the hardest part of our trip, which was that my mother-in-law has got cancer, and she's not doing well. Right now, she's not doing very well at all, and I didn't want to show it, but I still wanted to share it because it's real, and it's easy to be fake, and it's not easy to be real and open and honest, and so we actually drove home on January 2nd, I think. We drove home, and then a week later, January 11th, 12th, about 10 days later, we actually drove back to Kansas, so we just got back to Kansas because they're not sure if my wife's mom's gonna make it through the month, make it through the next couple of days. We've been back in Kansas for a week now, and it's been a pretty full week. We've been at the hospital every day. Anna's sister was engaged, and so they had moved up the wedding to the end of the month so that Anna's mom could be there, but then they didn't think she was gonna make it to the end of the month, so then they moved the wedding up even further, so we had a wedding this week just in the hospital chapel, and that was really sweet, and then just been caring for my in-law's place because no one's really been living there. My father-in-law's been at the hospital for, he had been there like nine days when we showed up, so he's finally gotten a couple nights at home, and so it's been a full week. This is the first morning or first availability really that I've had to go hunting, and it is the very last day, so last day of season. Get one more chance. I didn't even think I was gonna have another chance. I was planning on being in Colorado all the rest of this month, but got one more chance this morning. All right, just got here. Here's some pre-hunt notes. Yesterday was the coldest day of the year, and I was hoping, well, goodbye. There we go. I was hoping that it wouldn't be windy, but it sounds windy, so today might be the new coldest day of the year, at least in Kansas. I feel a little bit anxious because last night we were supposed to make a plan, and as I was putting Ellie Rowe down, and I fell asleep at like seven o'clock. She had been, she had done a full night at the hospital, and so she was really tired, and so I didn't really make a plan with her, and so I made a plan and texted it to her, and then while she was half asleep this morning, I was like, hey, are you okay if I go hunting? We can do that and go to church and go to the hospital, and she was like, so then I left, so I should probably text her again, let her know I love her, and then I'm gonna try and stay warm. It sounds so cold out there. Those are my pre-hunt notes. Now I'm ready. Let's do it. All right, I just got in here, and it's like five minute walk in, seven minute walk in. I don't think I'm gonna die, but I don't know how long I'll be out here. You know what? I'm not gonna let the temperature being the main story of this hunt, so I'm sorry about complaining. It may be a factor, but it's not the main story. I think I'm going to get down around this corner right over here because the wind's blasting around this corner of the tree, so all this field's exposed to the wind. The two deer went over there, and so I think if I get down and sneak around this corner, maybe I'll find the deer. All right, I'm headed back into this brutish wind. It's very cold, and I didn't find those deer, but that's okay. It's probably my last hunt for the year, and I'm excited to go get warm, you know? It's like you can almost soak up the cold, and it's like, ah, yes, soak it in because I'm about to be warm. I don't know what those two doe I saw were doing. Like, I mean, they were eating, but like, I don't know where they came from because that's where I walked in, where they came from, and yeah, so they're just silly being out in this wind. 16. Wind chill's got to be really cold. We just loaded everything up. I'm just returning this cart. My mother-in-law passed about an hour ago. Death is crazy because there's so much grief and so much joy, so much peace, and so much unrest. Here we go. Just picked up some barbecue to take back to the house so that we can celebrate my mother-in-law's life all together as a family, and I've been in Kansas now. It was 10 days for Christmas. We were home for like a week, and then another, what is it now, eight, nine days we've been in Kansas, and I just want to say thank you because I couldn't, not a lot of people can take 18, 19 days off of work to be with family. They had a tough time, and so I'm super grateful for the team, for Quinn, Weston, Grayson, and I'm super grateful for you guys because without you guys, I couldn't do this, couldn't support my wife and my family this way, and so thank you so much, and yeah, I guess every little thing we do can make a big difference. I'm gonna say this barbecue is from you guys. Thanks so much. Stacia out of proof. It's a back, if you want to grab it.