A really fun week

On the 14th a dear friend of mine Danielle, came down from MO to stay with our family for about a week. She was a bit nervous about coming which I don't blame her for because we are a pretty interesting family. :) But after the initial getting to know everybody she just fit right in. The little ones thought she was absolutely great, and they had so much fun playing with her.

Tuesday morning she helped out with the goats for the first time, I loved having help, because I usually do it all myself. It took her a little while to get used to all the goats but it wasn't long before she was touching them and helping me get them out of the barn when somebody left the gate open. I think she was pretty shocked that she was actually leading a goat! And then we had some things going on with the goats while she was here and she learned alot about some interesting stuff goats do. :) We also took a walk through the pasture. She was making us all laugh so hard when we came to this certain "hill" that she wasn't sure she could make it down. But she did, and didn't fall either!

We played games together in the evenings and had so much fun. We also stayed up really late alot of the nights talking, telling crazy stories (which we have plenty of) and taking pictures of each other. We ended up with some really interesting pictures! I could post a really funny one of Danielle, but I guess I'll be nice. :)

Wednesday morning we had to load up the steers and take them to the butcher. Well, not us but the guys. I had a bit of an accident where I smashed my nose REALLY hard against a metal gate, it hurt really bad and started bleeding but thankfully it wasn't broken or anything. Although I did seem to be having some mental problems after it happened! Or at least I had something to blame all my mistakes on! Danielle and I fixed a meal together that afternoon and I put Basil on the twice baked potatoes instead of parsley, but they did end up tasting okay. We had alot of fun doing that, and I think everyone (including me) really enjoyed the meal! Then we stayed up until 2:00 in the morning talking!

Thursday the guys had a big football game that they wanted us to video tape. So I filmed and Danielle took pictures, she got some really neat ones! We also burned a very small brush pile, that ended up catching onto a big cedar tree, it was pretty neat, although not nearly so big as some that we've burned in the past. And then that evening Danielle showed me how to use a video editing program on Caleb and Daniel's Mac and we worked until about 1:00 a.m. editing our football footage until I was getting kind of delirious and decided I'd better get to bed.

Friday morning Danielle headed to Dallas with some friends to go to a meeting. She got back late Sunday evening, which was no problem with us, we were glad to get her back! The guys had been out playing football at 9:00 p.m., and we were just making a night of it. We had to catch up on everything that happened over the weekend and I think we went to bed sometime after midnight.

We had a great time on Monday also, Micah convinced Danielle to go "bird hunting" with him! Which actually quite amazed me that she would do it!! She didn't end up getting anything, but I thought it was great none the less!! Monday night we pulled out a bunch of old home video's and watched them, they were so funny!! We hadn't seen them in years we were all laughing SO hard!! Then I was quite shocked to see myself on there doing this goofy "physical fitness" class, that I really didn't hardly remember doing!!

She thought she was a "country girl" before she came, but I think we made a 'real' one out of her!! It was really sad saying good bye on Tuesday morning, but we're hoping she'll come back and see us again soon.

Oh I almost forgot the concert!! We pulled our instruments out and played for Danielle one evening. And then somehow she convinced us to sing for her...which was pretty amazing because we do not usually (if ever) sing for people!!

~Bethany

A Trip to the Zoo

Monday's in January and February are free at the OKC Zoo, so we took advantage again of the nice weather and went with the Chatham family. There was some new stuff since we last went that was pretty neat. A Oklahoma Trails section where they had animals that were all from Oklahoma. The Grizzly bears were really fun to watch, they were playing with each other, and throwing this rag thing around. And then of course we always enjoy watching the Gorilla's. We had a great time, but I think that'll do me for a while, as there's only so much to see!

~Bethany

Horseback Ridin'

Since the weather was so nice on Saturday some of us decided to head over to our neighbor's and ride horses. They hadn't been ridden in quite some time so they were kind of acting up. We tried riding them around just in a small area and then decided to try out in the pasture to see if we would have more success. So off we went, I was on a horse named Charm with Jeremiah, Anna was on Chick with Hosanna, and Joshua was on Paco with Josiah, (which I was kind of worried about). So we took off, Paco immediantly went off to where the pen was and just stood there staring at the hay. Josh kept trying to turn him around, but just couldn't handle him. So I told Anna to trade off with Josh, Anna took Paco with Josiah, and Josh took Chick with Hosanna. About this time Charm started totally acting up, and it was all I could do to keep her under control. Anna still couldn't get Paco to come away from the hay and Chick just took off walking through the pasture with Josh and Hosanna on her.

They started getting farther and farther away and began holloring for us to come get them. I was still having problems with Charm and Paco still wouldn't come away from the hay. So there wasn't much we could do. Now they were really far out there, and they started getting really scared that they were going to go off in the woods and get lost, and started screaming hysterically. Finally our neighbor Carla, ran out and saved them, but they had quite a scare!! Poor Josh, it took him a while to get over it. Anyway by the time we were done riding the horses had finally calmed down and started acting decent. :) I guess we should ride more often....it was still fun though. (Chick is the little black pony and Charm is the big brown one).

~Bethany

Too Cute!

As I was working on organizing all our pictures (which is a never ending task) I came across these two from October that I thought were just adorable. I got about 400 or so named so they will be easy to find and still about 2500 to go, pictures taken just since October!! And then of course they keep multiplying, because Anna dosen't stop taking pictures. :)

Anyway, just thought I'd post something, not alot going on around here right now. Some friends brought their two goats over today that they had gotten from me back in the summer to get bred. So I was very happy to get to see "my babies" again! They have gotten so big and pretty.

~Bethany