In November we got our first chickens! Someone on Freecycle was giving away chickens, coops, supplies, everything, because they had just discovered egg allergies in the family. Adam was out of town, but I rented a small u-haul and went to pick it up. Our home teachers helped me unload everything.
A week later the neighbor’s gigantic horse of a dog got loose and came over and ripped the side off of one of the coops and ate 5 of my new chickens! I got to him as he was trying to get the side off of the other coop to eat the remaining 5! Stupid dog. So after that I went to IFA and got my supplies and built a chicken yard for them. I pounded in all the t-posts, pulled the fencing, everything. I made a 12×18 area for them. They were safe from dogs. I had to go buy more chickens, though. Three of the survivors were Aracaunas, which lay blue eggs. I was dying to see those beautiful blue eggs, but they were so skittish that they didn’t lay an egg for 6 months after the dog attach (he never actually toughed them or they would be dead). Even after that they stopped laying for any reason.
We decided to take the kids on their first trip to Zion’s National park. We did a little hiking (walking), but we forgot to take any kind of carrier for Daisy, and since she wasn’t quite walking, and the others were so small, there weren’t as many trails we could do. We did stop at an organic orchard and pick our winter storage apples. The kids had a lot of fun doing that because they trees were all semi-dwarf and easy for them to reach. We had a picnic and made an afternoon of it.
We stopped at this restaurant that got great reviews. It is at an old gas station. Most of the tables are outside. We had to get two tables though. The four older kids were at the table next to us, and our car was parked on the other side of us. Literally, I could touch the door handle of our car. So this super cranky waitress comes out and sees napkins on the ground and goes off about kids and messes, and I said, “Actually, our kids are sitting quietly coloring. THE WIND blew the napkins on the ground. I’m sure it’s not the first time that’s happened.” I was so mad. Our kids are really good at being good in restaurants, because if they aren’t, one of us takes them to the car. After that she didn’t have the nerve to come near our table and sent someone else.
As I was trying to find pictures to post for this 9-month period of pictures that I lost, I came across these, though I’m not sure where they came from. I wasn’t really into taking pictures with my phone, but my kids were. Maybe they did it. Anyway, here are some random shots of random stuff in very poor quality.
That year we had Thanksgiving with Mark and Cheri’s family, but due to the camera mishap, there is no photographic evidence. It was nice to have Thanksgiving with some of my family, but I really missed the big scene with the big dinner and all of my family. Cheri and I did a pretty good job with dinner, though. And our kids combined make a pretty big scene. So we came as close as we could.