Slacking

Hi,
Times are busy and you know this is not my forte'. I am trying to get some photos posted, but it is very time consuming for me. SO... I'll just write a little update in the mean time. Since I have some dear friends watching the blog each day...waiting... on me to get it together. You just gotta love me. ;-o

Alot has happened since I last posted so I'll update for the last week or so.

A month or so ago Deanna set me up a Facebook account. I really had no desire to have an account but it is fun and can be addicting if your not careful. I love it and I check my facebook everyday. But I am no better at posting photos on there. If you get an account you will at least get a 'hi there' and a return msg if you send me a note. ;-)

Our dear friends from Ukraine, lost their 2 year old son Jonathan to cancer on Wednesday 2/25. He had been diagnosed about 11 months ago. They have had a very hard year. Please pray for the Manyak family. On Friday Deanna made a quick trip home to play for Jonathan's funeral on Saturday 2/28. She had to hurry right back to Nashville for a prescheduled showcase on Saturday evening.

Our friend Miss Grace (mentioned in the flap of the "Unto Us" CD) has been in the intensive care unit of Central Baptist hospital for over three weeks with viral pneumonia. Please pray for her. She has been on a ventilator. I hope to get an update on her today and visit her tomorrow.

On Tuesday afternoon we were in court for Bradley's sentencing. Then we were able to visit with him for a few minutes. He is doing o.k. Please pray for him.

We came home to pack for a trip to Nashville the next morning after chores. We were planning to visit Deanna and some very special friends from Maryland, The Stinnnett's! We got to Deanna's house about the same time as the Stinnett family did and had a wonderful couple days together, enjoying great food, visiting the zoo, and just loving being with them & Deanna, This was a major highlight of my year so far! The photos will be worth a thousand words.

On Thursday night we traveled home (got in very late) unpacked the car, checked & fed all of the animals and went to bed. Got up Friday reloaded the car, fed the animals and went up to work with Dean. (He works an hour North in Frankfort). While he was working the children and I visited a friend, Michelle, that was diagnosed last Friday with pneumonia. We picked Dean up at 4:30 and traveled a couple more hours North to Cincinnati, Ohio to visit with Grandma & Grandpa Tomlinson overnight. We got there around 7 PM and Dean's step brother Terry (& Julie) came over to visit. Terry had a heart attack about 2 weeks ago and had to have a stint put in. We were so thankful to have the opportunity to visit with him. We will look forward to seeing them again in a few weeks at Easter at G'ma & G'pa's.

On Saturday The Song of the Year contest announced the category winners of 2008. Deanna Loveland won in the Christian/Gospel category with her song: "Let Go". There are 10 categories and on March 16 they will announce the 1st, 2nd & 3rd place winners of all of the categories. The first place winner will win $10,000. It is practically unheard of that the Christian category would win top prize for the year. Please pray with us that Deanna would win.

Saturday was a big day for us. Lydia started with a stomach virus, we expect it to last a while with everyone enjoying their share of it. We were still visiting with Gma & Gpa, so that compounds things (hoping they don't get sick). At about 2:30 Dean & Grandpa went to a local hatchery to pick up our baby chicks! We got 125 we were supposed to get 200. But they lost an incubator containing about 3000 chicks. So they will ship the rest of our order on Wednesday. 50 of our chicks are Rhode Island Red pullets for brown egg production. So in about 20 weeks we should be getting about 4 dozen large brown eggs a day!
The others are fryers, so we will have some meat in the freezer.
On Thursday we should get the rest (about 75 more baby chicks). 50 Cornish cross (roasters) and 25 more fryers. One of the blessings of getting so many at one time... you do not get to know each one personally, name them & such. Hopefully this will make processing a little easier.

On Monday while we were still dealing with the stomach virus and settling in all of our baby chicks. A neighbor stopped by with a sweet little puppy that was on its way to the pound. We had been considering getting a puppy for some time (it is NEVER a good time for me) but the children had been wanting one and had already expressed interest in this little girl. So guess what.... her name is "Penny" and she is doing well learning the ropes around here, with Dolly our 9 year old German Shepherd as her teacher. She is a smart little thing and is learning quickly when Paul trains her. I'll try to post pics of them as well as our chicks and some updated photos of the children real soon. (I have already taken the photos, just posting them is the problem for me. ;-))

Thanks to Josiah Woodfield we have a very small flock of Seramas. (world's smallest chickens) We enjoy them very much. Our little hen has been laying consistently and we are incubating her eggs. We just put them in this morning so we hope to have some baby seramas in about 3 weeks! The hen Josiah gave set on a clutch that hatched out last May (she died the day after they hatched) but thankfully she had one hen and she is doing great! They were so small for several weeks after they hatched that they could go right through the chicken wire :-). Big fun! We are looking forward to having Serama babies!

Today we have to go to town, visit Brad & library, etc. So we must get our chores finished and get ready to go. Hopefully I can post pictures later this afternoon when I return.

We love you all and thank you for keeping up with us and praying for us. Take Care.