Thursday, August 17, 2017

Senior Year!

SENIOR!  I'm both excited and sad about this.  Last year was a rough year.  Lots of stuff going in and around our house.  This year, things look to be starting much smoother.  His schedule was messed up going into today, so after band this morning, he's going to be getting that straightened out.  I'm excited for him!

As usual, you can click on the pictures to make them larger!

12th Grade



11th Grade



10th Grade





9th Grade






8th Grade





7th Grade








6th Grade




5th Grade

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4th Grade
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3rd Grade



2nd Grade




1st Grade



Kindergarden


Pre-K


Thursday, August 18, 2016

Junior!

Junior?!?!  What?  How did that happen?  When did that happen?  I'm still in shock.  Junior Prom, SAT tests and the like.  Possibly even college applications.  Um, wow!  He sure is fun though.  Praying his year is AWESOME!

The hardest part of this year is not taking him to school on his first day.

As usual, you can click on the pictures to make them larger!

11th Grade



10th Grade





9th Grade






8th Grade





7th Grade








6th Grade




5th Grade

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4th Grade
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3rd Grade



2nd Grade




1st Grade



Kindergarden


Pre-K


16th Adoption Day

Today is Miranda's 16th adoption day.  Her present this year is she gets to take her son to his first day of Kindergarten!

She's never been easy.  But I love her!  I always will!

(Though I wouldn't mind if she made things a bit easier for us! hehe)


Picture of Me, Skyler, Talon and Miranda on Father's Day this year.

Miranda and Talon during last years soccer season.


Miranda, Skyler and Mason during Christmas Cookie Day last November.


Christmas last year, we took a picture of Me, Dad, Tracey, Miranda, Skyler, Talon, Mason and my grandmother Oma (My Dad's Mom)


Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Updates, Updates, and more updates

I had expected to blog sooner than this, but sometimes, life just seems to get in the way.

So, here are a few updates.

Around January 7th, our olive eggers finally started laying.  Well, at least 2 have.  About half of our eggs are now the olive eggs.  It's really cool to look into the egg carton, and see the multi-colored eggs.



January 9th, we had our first snow of the year.  We didn't get a lot, and it was real pretty while it lasted, which wasn't long.

On January 15th, my Boy turned 16!!!  Hard to believe!  He got his permit towards the end of December, so we've been driving.  He's not super thrilled about it., I keep wondering who's kid he really is! (Too bad he looks like me)  Birthday person gets to pick the restaurant.  And where did my boy pick?  Charlies Chicken cause he wanted some Corn dodgers!  He had 2 friends come over after school, and they hung out and played Magic until time to open presents and go get some food.


Over the weekend, I did some work on the chicken coop.  We've had our chicken feeder hanging under the chicken coop. And it works pretty well.  But when it's extremly muddy, wet, well, yucky, it's a real pain to get in there, and get it.  I saw some cool chicken feeders built with PVC pipe recently.  So we decided to make one.  We'll see how well it works.  

I have a 4" pipe that runs from inside the coop, right next to where we keep a 5 gallon bucket with food, down under the coop.  There we made a little stopper and cover so hopefully, we'll not have any problems with it falling out, or with a lot of rain getting in it.

We'll see, and I'll update later on how it's going. (and you can't tell in this picture, but no, it is not sitting on the ground)



Guess that's it really.  I've had one Boy Scout camp out over the weekend.  Saturday night, it got down to 11 degrees and it snowed a bit on both Saturday and Sunday, but overall, everyone had a great time.

Until next time!



Friday, January 01, 2016

Chicken Updates!

So, with the beginning of the new year, I took some time and worked on my Chicken Egg spreadsheet where I record all the eggs and expenses of my chickens.


After looking at how many eggs we had our first year compared to now, I really miss the ISA Brown chickens.  You'll see from the numbers that they just beat the Barred Rock chickens.  I have 3 Olive Eggers that have yet to start laying, so I can't wait for them to start.  Hopefully, Egg production will increase soon.

20142015
January0109
February087
March099
April4576
May13298
June12177
July11862
August11898
September10563
October10558
November9042
December10337
Total937906

So, in 8.5 months, we had more eggs than we did in the last 12 months.

Pricewise, things are well.  Each egg is costing me 23.9 cents and egg at the moment.  That cost does not include my coop.  Including the cost of our coop, it's 50.3 cents per egg.

That's $2.87/dozen without the coop, and $6.03/dozen with the coop included.


Overall, I'm pretty happy.  We've not lost any birds to predation, which is great!  We lost one bird to being sick, and 3 when they stopped laying, and we turned them into bone broth. That's been some great broth!

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

15th Adoption Day

15 years ago today, I adopted my daughter.

When my wife and I were dating, she wanted to know if I'd be willing to adopt her daughter after we were married.  She didn't just want a step-father for her daughter, she wanted a father.

That was not an issue in the slightest!

At our wedding, after being announced as man and wife, I turned to that little red haired girl and asked her if she'd be my little girl!  She nodded, and I gave her a ring to seal the deal.



14 months after we were married, the 3 of us stood in front of a judge, and that red haired girl became mine!  I've always teased her that her brother is my first born, but she's my oldest!


I've told her more than once, that her brother I got by the roll of the dice, but that I chose her to be my daughter.  And I've never regretted that choice!

It's not been easy being her dad.  But in all honesty, I'd not trade it for a thing!
I'm glad I was there for her.  In all the ups and downs, arguments and hugs, good days and bad.







She's even given me 2 grandsons!

Even better, I'm not just her father, I'm her daddy!

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Sophmore!

My how time flies! I'm having problems believing he's in 10th grade!  It seems like just yesterday, he was a wee little feller.

As usual, you can click on the pictures to make them larger!

10th Grade





9th Grade






8th Grade





7th Grade








6th Grade




5th Grade

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4th Grade
100_7597


3rd Grade



2nd Grade




1st Grade



Kindergarden


Pre-K