Change in weather

Two days after the beautiful weather, we are now experiencing rain, sleet, wind, and snow. You know, I love snow, but I prefer it when it is coming down vertically rather than horizontally. I just hope our satellite tv signal doesn't go out for tonight's Duke/UNC game!

Harmony

It is a beautiful day on the farm. Today was a fun day. The sun was out, the wind wasn't blowing, it wasn't snowing or raining (shocking!), and the temperature was a mild 50-something. I thought, what a nice day to walk around the farm. And oila! I got a phone call from some friends at church who wanted to come see the animals. Perfect! We had a great time... just 3 adults, 2 kids, and a gazillion animals. This morning I got to watch a herd of deer come over to the pond, and then saw them get startled by a group of swans who were chasing them away from their food. The mom & dad swan got to bring their 5 babies down to the pond for the first time today, they seemed to really like it. (the deer seemed confused though) Up in the barn, there are about 40 chickens who live in harmony with a couple horses, a few cats, some dove & quail, and a guinea hen. Then there is the rabbit who lives in a cage in the (hunting) dog kennel and doesn't seem to mind all the barking. (not to be confused with our Bunny) There are Quarterhorses with Fresians, Palaminos with donkeys, and of course, a pot-bellied pig with a bunch of dogs. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood today, the kids had a great time, the adults did too, and even the animals seemed to be happy.

I *heart* pancakes

winter road

Even though this road of ours is now barely a road - it's been washed out by all this miserable rain we've been having - I still wanted to post this picture that we took a couple weeks ago because it's so pretty.

longest month ever

I'm so glad February is here. I thought January would never end. It just seemed to drag on and on and on. I guess that's normal - the letdown after everything that goes on during Christmas and New Years, the dreary weather (we've actually had more rain than snow - yuk), nursing a couple sick/recovering kittens (they were both spayed on the same day) and we had a couple personal not-so-happy moments during the month that made it even worse. But with all the bad things that have happened recently, we have been able to do some fun things too - the concert mentioned a couple posts ago, my first ever youth group retreat (pretty sad when you're the "leader"), the Super Bowl party and enjoying the Patriots' loss, and baking a Barbie cake for my aunt's birthday.


The representatives from Greene Valley PCA at the Pittsburgh Presbytery Senior High Snow Camp in Ligonier, PA.

















The cone-heads.

















My homemade Super Bowl cookies. This is the 3rd year I've had to make Patriots helmets since I started doing this in 2004, I'm so sick of it.

















We got to watch the big game through the lens of a projector on Andrew's living room wall. It was so awesome, unlike this photo. The picture was perfectly clear and did I mention huge?! I think it was about 8' x 10'. If you look very closely, you can see me to the right of the "screen", the players were bigger than life-size.

















The Gone with the Wind inspired Barbie cake.

ugh!

I just updated my template (as you can see) and all my links to friends' blogs and other cool sites have been deleted! ugh!!

Reba & Kelly Clarkson

We got to go to this awesome concert Saturday night at the coliseum at WVU. Bobby surprised me with these tickets in late November. It was so cool to see a legend, Reba, and an American Idol, Kelly, on the same stage. And they sang together all night. We thought they would perform one at a time, then sing a couple songs together, but that wasn't the case - it was great! Our camera doesn't take great photos far away at night, but here are a couple pictures anyway.

Sister-lovin'

They love to cuddle up together in the tiny little bed I made them, in front of the fireplace.

The story of 6 Christmases

Isn't it sad that we count Christmases by the number of times gifts are opened? It is, but since I consider myself immersed in today's culture, I'm going to keep that for the title of this blog post. So here we go.

Christmas #1 (Oklahoma)
Christmas Eve - we gathered with Bobby's dad's family at Nanny's house for food (another reoccurring theme) and presents. We didn't really open any presents here, just watched everyone else; but we did later that night, so I combined them together.



Christmas #2 (Oklahoma)
Christmas Morning - the 5 of us (Bobby, me, Mindy, and Bobby's parents) opened presents from/to each other. It was a great morning. We got great gift cards, had tons of fun giving great gifts, and everyone enjoyed it. Then we ate signature sugar cookies. Don't we all look smashing in our matching flannel pants made by Nanny?



Christmas #3 (Oklahoma)
Christmas Day - today the festivities included Bobby's mom's family. There were about 21 people in attendance, lots of presents, a ton of fudge, and 3 turkeys! (and yes, Bobby got to smoke 2 of them)



Christmas #4 (Pennsylvania)
December 28 - Bobby and I finally got to exchange gifts between the two of us. I got an awesome pair of cowboy boots (that I picked out in Oklahoma), Reba's new Duets cd (since we are going to her concert in a couple weeks), and a cool new journaling ESV Bible. Bobby got a laptop chiller, the Perfect Pushup, 3 flash drives, 2 dvds, and a bunch of other little stuff that I can't remember right now. Surprisingly, no food was involved with this Christmas.



Christmas #5 (Pennsylvania)
December 29 day - The Hammond Christmas (my dad's family) here in our cabin! We got to use our china (including the awesome Christmas china that Aunt Lori got us) for the first time. There were 11 people here, including my cousin Becky's boyfriend - this was our first meeting with him. ooooooo. We had a fabulous brunch for our formal meal and then opened presents for about 3 hours, it was so much fun!




Here we all are:
Christmas #6 (Pennsylvania)
December 29 night - our last Christmas, the grand gift exchange with my parents. My mom way overdid herself again, but we are very grateful! We got an cool iHome thingy for our iPod, two really nice stadium/canoe seats (Currie will appreciate that since we borrowed his a couple times), our most expensive pair of sheets ever, a couple shirts (those are mine, not bobby's), gift cards, money for Bobby's deer head mounting, Dancing with the Stars PS2 game! (bobby's really excited about this...haha), and our favorite, Guitar Hero III!! What does that say about us? We got the same gift as the kids in our Youth Group. I think it says we are cool and young at heart! :-)


And of course, no Christmas of ours would be complete without pictures of our animals opening their gifts. So here are the kittens and Bunny. The turtles enjoyed some fishies a couple weeks ago.





The end!

Fiesta Bowl - WVU vs OU

Tonight is the big game... old school versus new school. Bobby's hometown school vs his current school. Childhood vs adulthood.

It's Oklahoma vs West Virginia.

We stocked up on our Tostito's snacks (chips, salsa, and queso) and we'll be eating quesadillas. And of course, we will be wearing these:

Notice how they are different, yet still both neutral (not favoring either team). One shirt was purchased in Oklahoma, the other in West Virginia.

Even Bunny is torn... look here and here.