Zoo field trip!

Michael drove all night bringing the two new alpacas home on August 9-10. The morning of August 10th we (the boys and I) headed out to Greenville zoo for most of the day. We left at about 6:30 and arrived at about 8:00am. The boys were THRILLED that we had the park to ourselves for about an hour and a half.


They were especially excited that this thing did not have it's usual long line. I really get nervous when they are on it. It's like a neck injury just waiting to happen!


But THEY love it. :)


Gideon giving biggest brother a ride.


He's really into climbing things... He's a boy.


See? :)


My oldest two FINALLY learned to start themselves on the swing this year. I could hardly contain my excitement!!! Thomas got going really high here.


Judah was not feeling safe that high so he kept it a little lower.


Gideon cannot start himself and since the shoulder surgery I really should not be pushing him so he just had fun a different way.


Planes go high!!!


I like how Judah matches the truck. lol!


I'm finished swinging now Mom.


It's climbing time now!


Thomas had to get in on the action.


Gideon joined them too.


Only, he wasn't too sure about it once he got a little higher. :)


They love to spin on these things. It makes my stomach churn just to watch.


Gideon went at a slower pace thank goodness.

TWO HOURS later the zoo finally opened...



Elephants are so cool!


They really are!


The boys thought the lemurs with their loud shrieking noise were the coolest thing ever!! (They've seen them many times but I don't think they've ever heard them make that noise up close before.)


So cute!


We're having so much fun!!


I think the giraffes have got to be my favorite animal here.


I'm also partial to tortoises.


A fun time was had by all.

First Day of School Pics... about 4 weeks late.

My crazy homeschooled kids have no idea that summer is supposed to last as long as possible. So, they begged to start school the last week of July... so we did. :)

Here are pics from the first day...



Special first day of school breakfast and NO it was NOT healthy!!! Normally we make muffins at home but I wanted something fast that day. Lemon cake from Walmart with Fresh strawberries and whipped cream.


Gideon "smiles" this way for the camera now. EEK! If I want a natural smile I have to catch him unaware. LOL!


My Thomas!


There is no need for backpacks here at Basics and Beyond Academy but we do get them new school supplies each year. The usual; scissors, glue, pencils, erasers, etc.
This year they also got colored baskets to keep them in. The gifts were a big hit.

Gideon loved that he got scissors this year like a big boy!


I hope they are this easy to please in a few years.

Then again, I got practically giddy with excitment purchasing the supplies so there's hope. LOL!!

New Additions

Well, Cocoa Powder isn't exactly a "new" edition (we officially bought and paid for her in December) but she is now living here!!!

I don't know if I made this public here or not but after the excitement of the beautiful boy cria she gave birth to in June, a definite loss was felt when he died about 2 weeks after birth. He was fine for about 10 days and then suddenly took sick. The other farm did all they could for him but in the end it just wasn't enough.

This proposed another problem besides the loss of the cria. Pregnant girls cannot be TOO stressed or they will lose their babies. No alpaca wants to be alone (you cannot have just one- ever!) and she was going to have to travel about 8 hours to get here. :( So, Erin gave us a great deal on a pet fiber male. This is a male who didn't quite make their herdsire cut. :) He's a beautiful silver grey male that we named Silver Bullet. :) We call him bullet for short. He seems to be fine with that.

Cocoa and Bullet are adjusting well to our farm. They aren't used to living in a small herd and they aren't used to as much interaction from 2 legged things as ours are. Today though I saw definite progress. I walked about 5 feet away from Cocoa and she didn't bolt. That's progress. When I went to hose them off this afternoon she came right up next to me to let me do it. :) I think I have found a way to her heart. hehe They are also getting used to our dogs. Cygwyn is ENAMOURED with Cocoa. He just follows her around. It's hilarious. She hates it. She is so skittish. But she's getting used to him. :) Destiny is helping out too by loving on me and showing her new buddies that I am okay. She's such a doll!

I have some pictures for you to see but I have to warn you... Cocoa photographs horribly! She is really pretty up close but bay blacks are hard to photograph since their eyes get lost in the darkness of their faces. We really have a rainbow of colors out in the field now.

See for yourself...


Grazing together


"Oh look! Mommy's here!!" Bottle babies are always special. :)


"Oh it's the 2 legged thing again."


Such a looker!


Ignoring me


Goofy look. She really is pretty in person.


Such a sweet girl.


All together


The "boss" of the pasture. This was taken after I hosed down their bellies. :)

Sleep well everyone.
Blessings!-
Angela :)

If you have to wear a sling for 6 weeks... Fashion ones can be fun! I ordered it off EBAY. Ignore the tired look on my face. I was exhausted. :)


It's especially cool if you already have a zebra print shirt. LOL!


I also got a John Deer one! Pretty cool huh?

About a week and a half ago we went over to my friend K's pool for an afternoon. It was a MUCH needed outing after being cooped up with the boys for several weeks since the surgery.


"I think I'll just watch cuz my mommy can't get in."

"MOM! Watch me swim underwater!!"

When they both did it at the same time it reminded me a bit of a show at Sea World. LOL!

Diving board fun. (I pouted on the sidelines. Don't worry the kids didn't see me pout. I was very discreet.)

Nice one Judah!

This was a nice dive by Judah.

Thomas flying high

"You want us to try WHAT?!"

I love this picture. I was worried however that they would land on each other's head. Didn't happen. I was greatly relieved.

"I'm not too sure about this."

"I think I can do this!"

SPLASH!!

Thomas tried to dive but mostly belly flopped. He told us it didn't hurt. (Yeah right!)

Noodles are so much fun. :)

I told Judah he reminded me of a jet ski. :D He loved that.


So they spent the afternoon having a water fight. :)

Gideon finally got back in!


He blew lots of bubbles. :)

A fun time was had by all. K, thanks so much for blessing us like that!!

Shoulder Update

Here's the scoop for those who don't know...

My surgery was last Thursday.

All didn't go exactly as planned.

I ended up having to stay at the hospital for quite a few hours after the surgery. I was under anesthesia much longer than expected and got sick from it.

Things were worse than they thought and the dr ended up going in and suturing tendons back together.

The whole recovery was supposed to take around 6 weeks originally.

Here's the scoop now-
The doctor and physical therapist say that I have to keep my arm in the sling and immobile (except for twice weekly PT) for six weeks. That will be hard. Then, I am looking at 3-4 months of physical therapy, and a total of 9-12 months before my shoulder is fully functioning again.

Pray for me that I will not go crazy. Thank-you.

TGIF!

Well we have almost finished another summer week here and I just have to say, "I SO love summer!" I would love it even more if I didn't have to deal with this shoulder thing. It makes playing with the kids harder! But, I can be thankful that I still have one shoulder. :)

The boys have had swim lessons the last 2 weeks and they have enjoyed them. The only prob is that, this year, not very many kids signed up for lessons so they put the whole age group in one class and didn't have levels. Most of the things the boys did they learned last year. Michael and I were a little frustrated because we wanted them to progress but they did learn to patiently wait even though they were bored. (This is a good life skill.) They also fine tuned some of last year's skills and that was good. So, it wasn't a total waste of money. :) They enjoyed being in the water for 2 weeks. Gideon just took the pre-school class again. He did learn to jump in by himself, dive for rings, and kick and move his arms simultaneously. He still can't keep himself totally above water without help but he is getting close!

Yesterday we went to a friend's pool and we had a great afternoon. The older boys are swimming like fish now. It's SO nice to be able to sit and slightly relax while they swim. The big surprise there was Gideon. He hasn't liked jumping in at the pool because he doesn't like to go under for long. Yesterday I had a life jacket on him because of my shoulder and he decided he wanted to jump off the diving board like Judah and Thomas. I told him to go ahead. Karen and I moved into the deep end and away he went. His smile was HUGE when he resurfaced. He did it over and over!! I was so proud of him. YAY!

I'm not sure what we are doing this weekend. I'm hoping to do our monthly shopping for July on Monday. I need to get that out of the way before the surgery on Thursday. :)

I hope that y'all have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings!-Angela

Busy Busy Busy!!!

We're all doing just fine here. :) We've just been crazy busy. What have we been up to? Well, I'll tell you...

First of all we're busy doing summer things; playing outside a lot, drinking lots of water, and hosing down the hot alpacas.

The boys started swim lessons last week and they will finish up the session this week. The coach is going S L O W L Y! In fact it's too slow but at least they get to be in the pool and have fun with other kids. :)

The alpacas are doing well despite the high heat. If you scroll down to the post before this one you will see the new alpaca news. :)

Our worship pastor called me on Tuesday morning and asked me for a favor. The choir is doing a service of encouragement through song tomorrow and one of the women who had 2 solos had to go out of town for a death in the family. :( He asked me to fill in for her. So I have been BUSY learning 8 songs this week, two of which I have solos in. OY! It's been FUN but definite work. Please pray for a strong voice anointed by Him tomorrow. My vocal chords are tired from all the hours of rehearsal. THANKS!

Michael's mom was here a couple weeks ago and we had fun spending time with her! She's such delightful company. She is so easy to please and not critical! We love her. :)

Michael and I celebrated 10 years of marriage on June 12th. We went away for the weekend. That's the first time we've ever done that! The boys had a fabulous time with good friends of ours who stayed at our house for the weekend and watched not only our boys but took care of the animals too. We are now indebted to them for LIFE! Hehe!!

I guess the only other thing is my shoulder. I don't remember posting about it before here. Here's the deal...

I noticed some pain in my shoulder about 4 (or so) months ago. It gradually got worse until it was pretty painful a lot of the time. I finally went to an orthopedic surgeon. I had already tried resting it and slinging it. He gave me a Cortisone shot and I waited 3 weeks. I got A LOT of relief from that shot. Then, I went back for a second one. Didn't finish it off. Tried physical therapy for a few weeks. Didn't help. Doc ordered an MRI and found out that I had 2 things wrong. Bursitis and arthritis. WHAT?! I'm only 32!! Anyway, the bursitis is swelling and the arthritis is swelling and they are irritating each other and pinching things and impeding movement, causing lots of pain, etc.

I am scheduled for surgery on July 2. Please pray that God will guide the Dr's eyes and hands. Pray for a complete and total healing!!

I know that I COULD PROBABLY try to rest it and do enough PT to bring down the swelling but it's pretty much impossible with the 3 young boys and the farm. I just have to do too much. Plus, I forget not to do things. I cannot sling it all the time because it could "freeze". That would be BAD! So, I feel, that this is the best option for me at this time.

After surgery I will have 6-8 weeks of Physical Therapy 3Xs a week. Fun, fun!!

So, that's what's been going on around here. :)

Hope that all of my readers and friends are having a wonderful summer!

Blessings!-
Angela :)