Breathtaking

Our Zimmatic Pivot's End Gun-they shoot out water about 40 feet into the air. Crazy huh?

Our Valley 2 Pivot. There was a storm coming in last night, so the water looked cool against the dark sky.

My mom and I out on the farm. You can honestly call us "Farm Girls"!

Me out with the wheel lines.

Ted and Adam out trying to fix a leak on the wheel lines. Can you see where the leak is?

Work Pickups

Ted and Adam after fixing the leak on the wheel lines.

My mom and Ted out on the farm.

A sunset from Tuesday night.

This week has been so crazy! We are working really hard on the farm right now, trying to get all of our linears, pivots, wheel lines, and pipe out and working so that we can water the grain and hay. It has been a long week! Luckily, we have been able to get a lot of the work done, and most of our crops are getting watered. Ted took two days off work, and just helped all day on the farm, which helped a lot. Every morning, we wake up at 5:30-6:00 am and then we don't go to bed until around midnight. The long farming hours about kill me, especially when I have been out in the HOT sun all day! In the mornings, Ted moves the wheel lines and pipe. Then, Ted goes to work, and then comes back home to move wheel lines and help us move pipe again after he has been at work all day. It is always welcomed help when he helps us. For some reason, the work seems to pick up a lot when he gets home to help, and we get things done a lot faster. On Thursday, we had to change some sprinklers on the wheel lines, and the pipe is over thirty years old, so it is rusted and fragile. Well, it took Adam and Ted all of their strength to pull the old sprinklers out of the pipe, and not strip them. We were very blessed, because even though some of them looked stripped clean, the new sprinklers went in and worked. That was a lot of work. We have also found out this year that nobody works on wheel lines anymore, so if you have a breakdown or problem with them, you have to fix them yourself. That has been a huge chore for us this year. Every year, we go through lots of repairs and fixes as we start our watering systems, but this year it feels like it is taking longer than normal. Maybe that is because the spring took so long to get here, and we are a month behind on everything. Seriously, we are going to be harvesting a whole month later because of the late spring. Wish us luck!

Weekend Fun

Memorial Day Weekend for our family is a little different than most. Since we don't have regular, 8-5 jobs, we get to work the whole weekend. We did, however, get in a little fun. Ted had his employees come out to our house for a BBQ on Sunday afternoon. It was the first time I had met a couple of his employees and their fiances, girlfriends, wives, friends, etc. It was good to see that all of them got along well, and their personalities meshed. It was also quite different for me to see Ted take charge of a whole group of people, and see how much they respected him. I guess that as an employer, your employees do respect you. I had never looked at Ted as an actual employer before, so that was a new sight. All of the employees absolutely love Ted...surprise, surprise. He is such a nice, lovable guy, it doesn't surprise me at all.

Last night, Ted and I went out on a double date with one of my friends from Margene's Bridal. Shayla and I were great friends, and sold wedding dresses together before we both went our separate ways (college and married life). Shayla and CJ live up in Rexburg and are going to BYU-I, so it was fun to meet half way (in Idaho Falls) and catch dinner and a movie. We went to Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian. It was really good. If you want a family-friendly movie with some famous actors, go see this one. After dinner, we went to an ice cream place called SubZero Ice Cream. They make the ice cream right in front of your eyes, and you can pick and chose flavor, and what is in it. That was a lot of fun! As most of you know, it is great catching up with old friends you haven't seen for a while. Thanks Shayla and CJ for a great night. We need to hang out again soon! And thank you Ted's employee's for not trashing the house! Hope everyone had a great weekend and didn't work too hard!

I figured it out...and look out (tons of pics)

Okay, so disregard my last post...I figured out that it was my web protector that was not letting any of my pictures show up. I am glad to have my pictures back!!!

Anyway, on my birthday, at the last minute, I thought it would be fun to take family pictures. We haven't gotten any since Morgan joined the family, and that will be a year in a couple months...so here they are! We had a family friend come over that lives just down the street, and she did great! These are just the rough shots, but she is going to photo shop them so that they look better after we pick which ones we want photo shopped. I am so excited! I think they turned out great for a spur of the moment thing! And, I might be kind of prejudice, but I think I have a pretty cute family! And, thank you so much Kristen for being so kind and helping us out with this last minute endeavor! You did an amazing job! We LOVE all the pictures!!!

P.S. We had to get pretty creative to get the horses in the pictures with us. One time, Morgan was feeding Stetson grass so he would keep his head in the picture. It was pretty funny!

What is up with this???

Okay, so I try and download pictures, and they won't show up. Then, my already downloaded pictures won't show up either! What is going on with blogger? Or is it google? Does anyone have the same problem, or is it just me? Why can't I upload any photos?

Birthday Week!!!

So, this week, it is not only my birthday, but also my mom's birthday. I would say that I am excited to have a birthday this year, but 24 seems so old! Everyone keeps telling me to wait until I turn 25 next year (a quarter century old), but I am already feeling it! Back in the day, when I was in high school, I didn't think I would ever grow up and become an adult, but now, wow, I am starting to feel like one. It feels like time is passing, but not the way it used to when I was younger. Time used to mean something more back then, and getting older was welcomed. I don't think I feel the same way anymore.
The other night, Ted and I went out with a bunch of kids that we picked rock with, and we were the oldest ones, so we were the chaperone's. That was a whole new and strange experience in and of itself. I don't know if I am ready to become old enough to be a chaperon. I guess the sign of getting put into young women's should have woken me up. I am now old enough to teach the young women! Wow! I still feel like I am one of them, even though they are at least 5 years younger. Man, how time flies! Now I know why Ted keeps telling everyone he is only 25 years old, because it probably still feels like he is only 25. I still can't wrap my head around getting this old. Just wait till I am an old lady...listen to me already complaining about turning 24...I am going to be pretty winy about my age, I can already feel it.

Dark Skies

The weather has been crazy again this year! So, planting the crops have been delayed over a month, making the time out in the fields, crunch time. Most of the farmers don't even have their potatoes in. Luckily, the last couple of days we have had sunshine, and the farmers are now starting to get out in the fields. Hopefully, the rest of the spring will have favorable conditions so that we can get the rest of the spring work done. Wish us luck!!!

CrAzY dAy!

Jake and Melissa's family a couple months ago at Zac's mission farewell (Lauren is the baby on Jake's lap)

On Tuesday night, we got a call from Ted's mom telling us that Jake & Melissa's baby wasn't doing very well, and they were taking her to the hospital. Now, on occasion babies go the hospitals and everything is okay, so we weren't too worried at this point, so we waited for a phone call as to what was going on, and what they had found out. Her symptoms were pretty severe, so the whole family was on pins and needles, waiting to hear what the verdict was. We kept in touch with Ted's mom for a couple more hours, until it was around midnight. Then, we received a phone call from Jake, Ted's brother, that wasn't very comforting.

Their baby, Lauren, was in and out of consciousness, and she was pooping blood. The doctors in Twin Falls couldn't figure out what was wrong with her, so they had to life flight her to Boise. Jake had just driven from Boise to Twin to be with them, and now he had to make the drive back over. Melissa was able to go with Lauren in the flight.

It didn't sound good, so we sprung into action. Anna, Ted's sister who lives in Burley, took care of Jake and Melissa's other three little girls while they were at the hospital. It was late, and she needed to get home to her four little kids. So, Karleen, Ted's mom, decided to drive over from Idaho Falls to take care of the kids for the night. Ted and I felt like we needed to do something, so we decide to go to Boise to be with Jake & Melissa. Any support is needed when something this serious is going on...even just being there helps.

So, at around one in the morning, we started driving to Boise. The drive is about 4 hours, but if you drive fast, you can make it is 3 1/2 hours or less. So, we prayed, and embarked on our journey. I made it to about American Falls, then passed out...late nights are not my forte. I don't know how Ted did it, but we made it to Boise at 4:30 in the morning, driving right to the correct hospital (there are 3 in Boise). Luckily, Karleen also made it to Twin Falls okay.

By the time we got to the hospital, it was a waiting game until around 6:30, when Jake came out and got us.

What had happened was, Lauren's small intestines had folded in on themselves, like folding a sock, which inhibited the flow of anything through them. Just think how painful that would be. So, they had to take her in for surgery, and the three hour wait was unbearable. I literally had to watch TV shows on my laptop to keep myself from crying or going crazy. My last experience in the hospital was not good, and the memories were overwhelming me.

Ted was a huge help with Jake & Melissa. I think that Ted has the gift of mourning with those that mourn, and healing in times of need. He even brought us hot chocolate, and kept the conversation light.

By 9:30, the surgery was over, and the doctor came out to talk to us. Luckily, they were able to leave all the intestine, and were able to fix everything. We thank the Lord for His watchful eye over Lauren.

Ted and I decided to rent a hotel room once we got the news that she was going to be okay, and slept a couple hours. That was nice!!! By the time we got back over to the hospital, Lauren was in a room, Melissa at her side. It is amazing how a child in the hospital can pull at your heart strings. It was all I could do to not cry. We left after an hour to let Jake & Melissa have some time to sleep and be with their baby alone, not to mention we still had a 4 hour drive home.

We were able to meet up with Karleen in Burley, so we could drive her car for her (she was exhausted). She had stopped by to say hi to Anna and Jon after she had handed over Melissa & Jake's kids to Melissa's mom to take to Boise. Just so you know how amazing Karleen is, while she was at Jake and Melissa's house, she cleaned their carpets for them, and she got only 2 hours of sleep the night before. I don't know if it was to keep her busy while she was worrying about Lauren, but what a sweet thing to do. Luckily, everything on our end turned out well.

We hope and pray everything will continue to go okay with Lauren. She is only 6 months old, and a surgery like this at such a young age is traumatic. Please, include her, and Jake & Melissa in your prayers for us. Thank you! We love you all!