I'm a natural-born killer.

I shot a gun this weekend. I haven't shot a gun since I was a pre-teen, and that was a BB gun in the basement. Andrew was kind enough to let me shoot a couple holes in our cardboard-box target every hour or so we were down there.

This weekend, I shot a 22-caliber rifle. I made sure to tell you that it was a rifle because you can also have a 22-caliber pistol, and I've learned from watching loads of crime shows that a 22-caliber pistol is a small gun, often used by ladies and those who want to be super-stealthy killers. I'm both of those, but I was also walking around in the middle of the woods, so a pistol wasn't really necessary. And I didn't need to be all that stealthy since I was shooting squirrels and they don't really care what you do.

Anyway, let me back up a little bit and tell you what I'm talking about. Brandi and I checked out of our awesome hotel on Friday (Did I tell you that we got to stay at a three-and-a-half-star hotel in the middle of the historic district of Savannah for 80 bucks a night? Check out the gorgeous cityscape taken from our room's balcony.), and we walked around Savannah all morning and afternoon after eating at an adorable little cafe. I got to buy a few things for Christmas presents, we stocked up on candy, and we read about all kinds of cool Savannah history.

Sidenote: As I type right now, we're driving down the interstate and we passed a Harbor Freight Tools warehouse. I felt inclined to wave at it and say HEEYYYYY HARBOR FREIGHT! When Brandi asked why I had to do that, I told her that I just like Harbor Freight. That's all to that story. End sidenote.

We stopped at The Shell House Restaurant on our way down to South Georgia, and I ate a WHOLE POUND of boiled shrimp!! It was one of the coolest things I've ever done. I was hurtin' bigtime when I got down to about six or so shrimp, but I was pretty determined to finish. I even made Brandi take a picture of my this-is-killing-me face when I got to my last little sucker. Oh my gosh, I thought I was going to be full for days. It was AWESOME.

We stayed with my cousin Layton and his absolutely wonderful wife Elizabeth that night. They have the sweetest kids ever, so Brandi and I were in heaven when she got to hold the baby and I got to be wild with the three-year-old. Layton's parents [Charlene and Jimmy] and brother [Zac] came over Friday night to hang out and celebrate Charlene's 40^th birthday (or so she says...I think she's trying to seem older and more mature than she really is). We stayed up until after one in the morning talking to Layton and Elizabeth after that. We're party animals, basically. Because then we got up at FOUR-FORTY-FIVE IN THE MORNING to go HUNTING.

Brandi and I put on all our warmest clothes, then layers of clothes that Jimmy let us borrow (ankle socks, double-insulated wool socks, tennis shoes, long johns, jeans, camo cargo pants, tank top, thermal shirt, tee shirt, sweatshirt, camo insulating shirt, camo fleece jacket, fleece-lined wool glove-mittens, orange vest, camo UGA hat), before we all loaded up in the truck and went to the local gas station deli for ham biscuits and grits and assorted breakfast fare. We got back to Layton's house by about 6:45 and split up into hunting partners, Brandi with Jimmy and me with Layton. I didn't even carry a gun at this point, which I think was wise considering my limited experience with firearms and my general apprehension towards killing animals.

We sat out in our ground blind (for those of you who are about as uneducated as I was, this is like a camouflage tent with zip-up holes in the sides) from about 7 until 10:30 and all we saw were two squirrels and a whole heck of a lot of wild turkeys.  We couldn't shoot them, though, because turkey season isn't until springtime. Did you know that wild turkeys are dumb but have really good eyesight? So apparently, you aren't even supposed to blink if they look at you or else they'll spook. Who knew? I did a great job staying still after the first time...because the first time I did okay as they gobbled and hobbled away from us, but then they turned around and rubbernecked their way back towards us for about five full immobile minutes. And guess who got the giggles. Shocked, aren't you? But apparently, I've had enough practice staying silent and [almost] totally still while giggling in my seventeenish years of schooling and testing, so the turkeys remained un-spooked.   Most of the time I was able to get through the stillness by deciding which turkey would look best on my table for Thanksgiving dinner.

Alright, listen, folks...it's past my bedtime, and I'm dying to go to bed, so I'll have to finish this later.  Including adding pictures later.  Sorry.

TO BE CONTINUED...