The Chicks Have Arrived!

We all know what it's like to wait for Christmas as it approaches... the yearning, the anticipation, the suspense of what may lie in those sparkly colored packages that sit beneath the evergreen. That feeling has made it's way into our home a second time in one year. We've been waiting for our chickens for some time now. At first it was the wait for the hatchery to announce the hatching of the spring chicks, then after discovering the huge cost of shipping live animals overnight, we realized we had to go local. Thus the waiting again for "C.T. Garvins" to place the spring chick order. "Garvins" is our favorite of the local feed & seed stores... and is almost on the list of historic places in Huntsville. At any rate, yesterday, Garvins called to tell me that the chicks were in.
We were in the midst of breakfast and I guess the girls overheard the conversation, so by the time I got back into the kitchen, Dan was sitting alone. What's going on? I thought. Then the girls popped out fully dressed, hair done, etc and said, we're ready to go Dad! I couldn't help but laugh. So we went off to Garvins to get our chicks. We ordered 5 White Leghorns (yes, like Foghorn Leghorn on Loony Tunes), and 5 Rhode Island Reds. Turned out, they had already been vaccinated and everything, so I paid $3/each, and we were off.

So without further delay, here's a pict:

Happy 60th Birthday Ron Howe!

Ten Years Down... and what kidnappers look like!

Well this past week was a good one. Melissa's mom was here for the week. My sister Jolene, and Melissa's sister Amy were here visiting last weekend as well. Then, on Friday, Melissa and I took off for two days. We left the kids and just drove away... we really did! Granted, Melissa's mom was staying over and watched the kids. So Melissa and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary on Friday and Saturday. We traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and went to the Temple there. It was great. We got to perform some sealings via proxy for a bunch of people. It was nice to get to "renew our vows" so to speak by doing sealings in the Temple. You know, if I could do it over, I'd still marry Melissa and I think she'd still have me. She's a great gal and a wonderful mother. I'd make a lousy mother.

Well, we also went to Six Flags over Georgia. We'd talked about going to Magic Mountain soo many times when we were back in AZ, but never did, so we had to do something cool this time. The coasters were cool. Some of them (e.g. the Goliath) were a little much. The Goliath was psychotic. It involves two drops of over 17 stories at an angle that resembles staight down! I almost lost my lunch twice due to the weightlessness at the top of the peaks on the coater course. The Goliath was nuts. I liked the Batman one and the "Georgia Scorcher", both were a bit more tame than Goliath. So the coasters were cool, but Melissa and I both hate getting gouged by "in-park" food prices. I should say "in-park" 'garbage' prices, because the food there tasted like garbage. Plus several of the coasters were closed, so that was a drag, but in all, it was a fun trip.

Okay so the part in the title about kidnappers...

Earlier in the week, I saw this little kid riding a bike and decided to kidnap him and steal his bike too. I tried to figure out how to do the job discretely, but here was my best effort:

Actually, we went on a bike ride/walk in the neighborhood with Melissa's mom, and while on the walk, Kate decided she was done riding her bike and wanted to ride in the stroller. So to be a peace-maker (My first inclination was to make her finish the ride she started), I decided to make the best of it... I'd give Dan a ride on Kate's bike. It wasn't the first time I'd ridden her bike, and probably won't be the last time either... but I thought I'd give it a try with Dan; after all, he loves it when I give him rides on the skateboard... why not Kate's bike. As you can see from the pictures, he had a blast! Hell's Angels, here we come!

Melissa, Queen of the Trampoline!

The pictures speak for themselves!

A Hint of Spring

Last Saturday was was one of those fabulous days... the high was almost 70, with a low in the 40s. Though it got a bit cold yesterday, and the outlook for this week looks more like winter, it was lovely. The kids played outside all day long; climbing trees, running around, playing baseball with the boys next door and from in the neighborhood. Melissa and I played in the garden.

Oh, playing in the garden is nice. But, to paraphrase the author of one of the Alabama gardening books we've been using (thanks Mom & Dad!), you gotta protect your turf! You see, plant diseases can creep up upon you and slowly destroy your crop, but you can usually see it coming. On the other hand, Peter Rabbit's family can wipe you out over night! So your best defense is to be proactive. (I'm not going to comment on National Defense policy nor how that may change over the next several years...) So like Captain Moroni, we built up a defense againt the marauders. Don't be fooled by the cuteness of these bunnies... they're only here to rob you of your hard work and leave you with nothing. So we built a rabbit proof fence. See below:

So the bottom 6 inches (inlcuding the outward turning portion) are buried about 6 inches deep to prevent the bunnies from digging under the fence.

So that was last weekend. Then, this past weekend was much the same, except on Saturday, Melissa got to do some family history research. Thankfully, she still has her Tucson library card as the Tucson-Pima library has an account on Heritage Quest or Ancestry.com that library patrons have free access to. So she worked all Saturday morning and found a couple more families on the Howe-Parkin side. She was totally stoked. So she uploaded everything to New Family Search (the new online, shareable family history tool) and now there are a couple more families that we can help do the temple work for. She talked to her mom about what she was able to find. Go Melissa!

This past weekend was nice. We played outside a bunch and are noticing the blossoms starting to pop out of all the trees and the bulbs are starting to bloom. Many people have daffodils blooming! I can't wait for the bulbs in our front little flower garden to bloom. Whe should have a hundred or so.

Sunday morning, Dan was up early so he and I took a walk, but because it had gotten cold again, I had to bundle him up. I took a couple photos, and had to share a few. Here's Dan ready for the walk:

Here's the sun rising over the neighborhood:

When we got back from the walk, the girls were awake and doing some art project...

Later as we all got ready for Church, Dan looked so handsome, I had to snap a shot:

Dan Falling Asleep at the Table

Here's a video we thought was great...

Our Christmas Vacation... part 2

Well, it was back to work after our long and rather exciting Christmas vacation. The kids were back to school last week, and I was back to work... which by the way, the worst work day of the year is the one when you've just gotten back from vacation, because it seems to drag on, and on, and on... oh, yes and one more thing... it drags on. Then finally, it's over, and the second day back is fine.

But to help savor the good things about our vacation, here are some pictures:







Here's a good one of Bekah from our little trip to Mt. Lemmon to play in the snow. Thankfully no on was injured!

Here's Melissa and Dan just hangin' out... Dan can endure anything if he has his pacifier!

And here's Morgan sledding down the hill...

And here's Lilly getting instructions on how to saddle a horse from Megan. It was awesome visiting Megan and Pat...

Here's Lilly being walked on "Kemmie", one of Megan's horses.

And here's Lilly and Megan just after a ride...