Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

• Tomorrow is my birthday!!! Happy Birthday to me. Today Dean took me to a fancy restaurant in town for lunch. Tomorrow we will be at the Pow Wow so we won't really get to celebrate my birthday. So we went today. The food was only ok anyways. Tomorrow we will eat some Native American Food!
• I thought I was going to get a really great early birthday present and get offered a really good job. It sort of worked out that way. It just wasn't not the job I originally wanted and interviewed for. I am disappointed but know that God has something planned just for me. I just have to stay patient. I am pretty excited about my birthday weekend plans and wanted to share.
• Tomorrow Dean and I are volunteering at the annual Pokagon Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa Pow Wow. We are not sure what we are doing yet but I am excited to go and know it will be fun. I will post pictures next week.
• On Monday we are going to walk the Mackinac Bridge. It is an annual Labor Day walk Dean's family does every year. The bridge is 26,372 ft long. I am terrified. I hate bridges. I really hate bridges over water. I thought we would be able to jog it, which would make it go faster. Now that Dean tore his PCL we will be walking. He will be crutching. I will post pictures of that also. I hope you have a great weekend and Happy Labor Day. Buy Avon products from me. That would be a great birthday present. www.youravon.com/rorvis

August on the Ranch

Here is your monthly update on what's going on down at the ranch. I can't call it a farm. We don't have cows or corn. Things are going pretty well around here. The horses and goats are keeping us pretty busy. It seems like they are never satisfied. We have been letting the horses out into the yard to eat the grass. They do a pretty good job keeping it mowed. Shiloh and Lily are their names. We got them from a very nice family that lives in the next town over. They are both broke to ride and we have taken them across the road and down the trail behind the house and across the creek. Unfortunately, Dean tore his PCL playing softball on Sunday so we haven't been riding much this week. He can't ride and it is not much fun riding alone. George and Jorge (the goats) are doing fine. One morning George started sounding like a sick duck. Thankfully, he sounded normal at the end of the day. Sometime I will try to post a sound byte of how loud they are. They are cute, regardless. Here are some pictures of the horses, goats, and my garden. The plants are finally producing real veggies!!!

George and Jorge

Some of you know that we started a new adventure this summer. Dean got offered a new job and so we moved. I won't disclose the location on the blog but if you want our new address email, call or text. Our new house is still being updated and decorated so I will save those pictures. If you know us at all, you know that we have always wanted a farm/ranch and farm animals. Moxie doesn't count, even though she is as big as our current farm animals. We were riding our bikes one night and went past this house with a huge barn and quite a few goats. Dean wanted to stop but no one was outside. He decided that if someone was out when we were riding home we would stop. At this point we had been in our house for 3 weeks and it is not ready for chickens, goats, cows, or horses. Dean didn't really care about that. Dean started talking with the lady and she showed us these two kids that she would be willing to sell. They were so cute with their little horns and so friendly. We decided we would talk about it an let her know. Right after we left Dean was ready. He really wanted the goats. So I decided we could get them for our anniversary. Our new house has a chicken coop so we decided we could put them in there. We bought all the essentials and some fencing and built them a nice little pen. That Tuesday we picked them up and brought them home. They are adjusting pretty well. They make a lot of noise and haven't really started eating the grass or weeds yet but they are fun to play with. Jorge has a flipped ear and is the lighter one. He is really friendly and loves us. George is not. He has the darker head and floppy ears.He will let you pet his face but always runs away when you try to get closer. Moxie sits out there just watching them. If she sneaks in the chicken coop, she chases them around and causes all sorts of problems. Once the boys get big they will be able to beat her up. Enjoy the pictures of our Boer goats and Moxie too.

Mackinac Island

I just realized I never published this post. These are picture from our anniversary trip to Mackinac Island in Michigan. It was alot of fun. I love the island because there are no cars allowed only horses. Plus it smells like fudge. It is such a lovely place. Can't wait to take the ferry there again.

The Battle of San Jacinto

The weather was beautiful yesterday. Instead of staying home we decided to head out to the San Jacinto Monument to watch the reenactment of The Battle of San Jacinto. San Jacinto was one of the decisive battles of the world. The freedom of Texas from Mexico was won here and resulted in the acquisition by the United States of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. It was a pretty important battle and led to the capture of the Dictator Santa Anna. The actual battle only lasted 18 minutes. The reenactment lasted about an hour. We really enjoyed it and got a great history lesson. If you want to learn more about The Battle of San Jacinto there are some great facts here: http://earlytexashistory.com/SanJacinto/sanjacintofacts.htm

The Entrance to San Jacinto Battleground State Park

The San Jacinto Monument

The Texian Army

Conagher? Looks like it to us.

The Soldiers marching to San Jacinto.

Shooting the cannons at the Mexicans

Blowing up the Mexican Camp

Gunfight

The base of the monument.

The Battleship Texas located in the Ship Channel.

3 months later....It is complete!

I received a new sewing machine from my mom at Thanksgiving. I wanted to do something simple and something I could use later. So I decided on a t-shirt quilt. I have so many shirts and didn't want to get rid of them. I have been wearing the same shirts over and over for years. Some of the shirts in my quilt are from high school. I used all my t shirts but the newest ones or ones that didn't mean anything. I wasn't planning on making it so large but it ended up being bigger than our king size comforter. 36 shirts total. I started after Christmas and finished this morning. It is too warm here to actually use it now so it is folded up in the top of the closet. I will probably add a border but haven't decided what fabric to use. There were a few bumps along the way but I really like the finished product.

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter Everyone! We hope you all had a great day. We had a wonderful day eating, hiding easter baskets, and watching the Detroit Tigers game. Thankfully they won after 11 innings. Here is a picture of our delicious dinner. Only 7 weeks til summer!!!!