Have you ever seen the movie Wilderness Family? Yes the low quality, super corny, 70’s era production film of a family who braves the wild wilderness with little more then a gun and tight jeans? I’ve seen it…and love it. In all honesty that movie defines my childhood dreams. Us Duits kids watched it hundreds of times. We know every line, by heart. We still tear up when Pat (the Mom) decides after a gruelling winter to stay permanently in the wilderness, such a touching moment! And then lets not leave out the dramatic scene where Skip (the Dad) takes on a pack of wolves or is it a cougar in his butt-loving-Levi’s…because the only man who could fight a cougar and not tear those tight jeans would be Skip! As a teenager not one single friend could understand my love for that movie, it started innocently enough, I would ‘interview’ a possible suitor with the idea of the Wilderness Family. I thought that if they got that movie they would get my family and me. None passed the test…until Roger. One afternoon we were walking in the forest (pre-dating) and I mentioned this movie, he turned to me with excitement in his eyes he said he LOVED that movie and grew up on it. I knew then! It was a sealed deal, I would have married him on the spot in that beautiful forest. From that moment on Roger has been my Skip and I may or may not have made him run through the forest in tight jeans(post-marriage)…

Yesterday Roger and I got to taste a part of what brought us together. In the early morning Marion woke us by shouting there was a Moose in our yard. It was right out our back door. And then a few hours later a black Bear was eating the suit from our bird feeder not twenty-feet from the house. We all got to watch it close enough to see it’s teeth and paws (from the safety of our house). And then as if all that wild animal show was not enough to give ‘this new wilderness family’ thrill as we were driving down our road a Cougar dashed across the road, muscles rippling, and then made it’s way through a field and up the mountain. It was so stealth! We could not believe this rare chance to see a cougar in the wild. A very exciting day!