"You Know He Married You For The Barn?"

Last year when we were still dating my husband decided that he would take full advantage of the 4 1/2 acres and barn my parents own. He bought 25 baby chicks, built a chicken pen in the barn and a run out into the field. He loved those chickens with all his heart. In fact he was obsessed with them. Any spare minute was spent "chicken whispering" as my family calls it.

The night before our wedding we had our wedding dinner. After dinner we were running around getting stuff ready for the reception. Trevor went off to do something for me. After awhile I realized that he was taking way too long. Sure enough I went out to the barn and there he was building a ramp up to the nesting boxes for his chickens. My reaction was that of any bride under lots of stress :S  I eventually laughed about it. Eventually being the keyword. Little did I realize at that moment what I really was in for.

Skip ahead a year.

Last Friday my husband and dad went up to Salt Lake to get some more chicks. They came home with a hundred and three to be exact. 103. So now the little flock has grown to over a hundred and twenty five chickens ranging in size from a enourmous annoying rooster to the cutest little mini chick you have ever seen.

 

 (This isn't actually my hand. It is some random person on google.)

Oh the chicks are cute right now but give it a couple weeks and they will grow and be between fuzz and feathers which makes them not so cute. My mom said to me the other day, "You know he married you for the barn?" Yup mom I know.

Come August when all the new chicks start laying we will have major amounts of eggs. When I say major I am talking MAJOR. Last year with the flock of twenty five chicks we were getting over twenty dozen eggs a week. Now add one hundred more chickens and BAM! Omelets galore! 

Oh and I also have two incubators in the second bedroom of my apartment. Give it twenty days and I may have some baby chicks hatching in my apartment!

So if anybody out there wants some real fresh eggs CLICK HERE!

An Ode To My Mother

I have started this post several times now, all ending in a push of the backspace button. there are so many things I would like to say about my mother but the words I write just don't do her justice. So hopefully these meager words will at least paint a bit of a picture of how much I love my mother.

My relationship with my mother is something I cherish. All my life we have been close. My mother is the second youngest in a family of four brothers. I am the second oldest in a family of four boys. I feel like we were blessed with each other to more than make up for the fact that we never got the sister we hoped for. When I see her I have to talk a million miles an hour to try and fit in everything I want to say. Sometimes this ends in my husband honking the car at me to hurry up. (that happened today:) She is one of those people that is so incredibly amazing that she doesn't even realize it.

She is what I want to be when I grow up! 
P.S. You should go check out her blog. Then you can understand her awesomeness a bit more. 

Dear 16 year old self

Dear 16 year old self,
There is so much you still have to learn. Trust me you don't know it all and you definitely don't have it all figured out. These next five years are going to be pretty rough. Rougher than you can imagine. There will be days when you think the pain won't ever stop. It does. You will grow so much stronger because of all these experiences. You will be a much better person. Just hold on.  The hopes and dreams you have do come true they just come true in a completely different way than you thought. I know you think you know, but really you don't. Please don't hold on so tightly. It will just make things more painful. Just let go. I promise you aren't loosing anything. In fact you are gaining everything.  Don't be afraid to take those risks. One of them ends up being the man of your dreams. Don't worry about the whole dating thing, study a little harder, take Spanish instead, make more friends, spend more time with your family, Don't try and grow up so fast it will come soon enough
Love,
Your 21 year old self

Graduation

The night before graduation I stopped at JCPenney's and bought a new shirt to go with the skirt I had bought a week before and then new nude nylons that had a really cute flower pattern on them. I was oh so very excited to wear them the next day. I woke up in the morning and got ready as usual and out the door we went. (Really though it was a lot less calm than that and a lot more of running around the house trying to find everything.
When I got to the meeting spot at the school I started to realize that my lovely nylons were rolling down on my waist a little bit. I decided once I found a bathroom I would hike them up and be good.  About 20 minutes later I did find that bathroom and it bought me some glorious time.  Graduation starts. We march out in our processional. All is well in the nylon department.  We sit down in our seats and listen to the talking. Long minutes pass. Names are starting to be read. Eventually it is my rows turn to stand up. We walk over and stand in a really long line waiting for our names to be read. By then all my friends around me knew about my nylon situation. We sat and joked about how once I got on camera  my nylons would quickly roll down to my ankles before I could catch them. I would then have to waddle of the stage. As the line slowly moves my nylons slowly start to creep down. I am freaking out in my head a little bit. I am in an arena full of people not much I can do at this point. Once in awhile I would try to hike one side up a little. But like I said there wasn't much I could do. So graduation proceeds I walk up on stage shake the Dean's hand get my diploma have a picture snapped. I walk down the stage and my nylons start to roll down a bit faster from all the walking I am doing. By now all I am thinking is, "get to my seat, get to my seat!" I walk and walk by now they are rolled down to the middle of my thighs. My hands are pressed against my legs trying to hold things up. All I can focus on is getting to that chair. Trevor tries to stop me to get a picture. I hurry and take a painful picture then dash to my seat. In shock I tell my friends what as just occurred. We laugh. I lift up my graduation gown and low and behold you can see on my skirt the bump of rolled up nylons just above my knees. The only solution: to take them off. I have all my friends lean forward so I can take them off. I hurriedly slip them off and stuff them in my shirt. Thank goodness for baggy graduation gowns that disguise the big lopsided lump now on my chest.  There is no way I will forget my graduation from college! Morals of the story= Shave that morning even if you are wearing nylons, you never know what might happen. Some things are just to funny to be embarrassed about.