6/22 - a heart pounding day on the farm! Jason told us the hens had hatched two baby chicks, so we went out to take pictures of them and found this guy eating eggs! We started with 10 fertilized eggs that we were trying to hatch, and he ate 6 or 7 of them about a week before they were supposed to hatch. Which did not increase his popularity ratings.
Josiah opened the hatch on the back of the coop and quickly closed it when he saw this guy. So I went to look, snapped a couple of pictures, and then closed it again. My brain went blank, and as I stood there trying to figure out what to do, a chicken inside the coop attacked the moving snake, causing it to lurch backwards into the unlatched hatch. It flew open, and the snake fell out on the ground a foot or two from where we were standing. Josiah and Levi both ran away, screaming. Levi started crying. I screamed and jumped back, and then started laughing. It was pretty funny. The snake slithered back up into the nesting boxes. I had Josiah stand (a few feet back) from the coop and watch the snake so we wouldn't lose it, while I went to amass enough weapons for a small war. When I came back, the snake was mostly on top of the boxes, with part of him hanging off the right side. I tried pulling part of him out with a stick, but wasn't exactly sure where his head was, so I chickened out. The snake did not appreciate being messed with, so he slithered over to the left side of the nesting boxes where we couldn't see him. I realized I would have to pull the nesting boxes out. Some of the chickens roost on top of the boxes, so I had to clean off the top before the boxes would budge. When I finally (with heart racing) pulled the nesting boxes out, the snake was gone! How in the world did that giant snake escape?? We were standing there the whole time. I checked inside the roof of the hen house, all around on the ground, everywhere. His ratings plummeted. We gave up and went inside to cool off.
Here's a pic of one of the chicks our hens hatched. You can barely see it's beak up in front of it's mama. Actually we're not sure who it's real mom is, and these 2 hens were fighting over it. The next day, this chick was gone. We're assuming the evil snake got it.
This is the other chick - which as of this post is alive and well! Jason moved this baby and mama into a pen in the garage for safety. Of course the baby is very vulnerable, but the mama needed protection also. When the 2 hens above lost their chick, they decided to kidnap/adopt this one from it's mama. They pecked her on the head/crest until she had a bloody spot and missing feathers. And even though she was hiding her head from the other hens, this mama refused to leave her chick. Awww.
6/24 - I took the boys to Hurts Donuts for a treat after summer school/camp. When I described it to Josiah before we went, he said, "That doesn't sound like a place you would ever, ever take us." I guess I have a reputation.
6/25 - Jason figured if we were raising one chick in the garage, we might as well raise a few more! So he brought home 4 more chicks. The hen accepted them as hers almost right away. It was the sweetest thing. They would all crawl up under her to stay warm and sleep, and when they were awake sometimes they would hop on her back and ride around!
6/26 - The last day of Josiah's summer school/camp. He's the one in the back row in the blue shirt and yellow mask. They sang several cool dinosaur songs for the parents. Josiah's favorite was about T Rex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfgSO1eI6Bk
6/28 - celebrating a belated father's day with Paw Paw (and Mi Mi).
6/30 - our car needed it's 100,000 mile checkup, and we had a really bad experience at the dealership in Springfield, so we opted to take the car to the Joplin dealership. They were super awesome and gave us a loaner car for the 5 hours they were working on our car. We spent the day exploring Joplin. We started here at the wall of hope, created after the EF5 tornado in 2011.
We also stopped at Cunningham Park. Josiah is reading the names of the people who died in the tornado.
There were a lot of cool things at Cunningham Park, and some like survivor stories that just made me cry! And of course the kids loved the new playground equipment.
Then we went to Grand Falls. It took us a long time to find this place! After a couple Google maps fails, and asking several people for directions, we finally found it. There were a lot of big rocks for the kids to play on. It was a lot of fun!
After lunch we went to visit Aunt April (she works downtown at the Courthouse), and then we went to Joplin City Hall. They have this Heartstrings of America hanging that shows all the different places where volunteers came from to help after the tornado. Pretty amazing!
We had a great day in Joplin!
7/3 - Jason's Aunt Carolyn and cousins Rachel and Jessica came over so that Rachel's son Isaiah could see our chickens. And play with the kids. Josiah snatched my camera off the counter and took some fun pics with him. :)
7/4 - Fourth of July and Levi's Batman birthday party! We even found Dark Knight fireworks.
AND - the evil snake was defeated!! As you can see, it's every bit of 6 feet long. After they killed it and were holding it up, you could see egg yolks running out of it's mouth. Eeeewwwww. This guy has eaten his last egg!
The kids with some of their daytime fireworks. Tanks, snakes, rockets, and parachute guys, among other things. And some fun water rockets to play with.
Time for cake! Thanks Mi Mi for making your famous chocolate cake! And thanks to Ooo Ooo for making homemade ice cream to go with it!
Opening cards and cracking his brother up.
And Jason's favorite (ha) - family pics!
Then we did sparklers and shot off some night time fireworks. It was a fun party and the kids loved staying up late!
7/6 - Breakfast in bed for Levi's real birthday! Happy 4th birthday!
Then I took the boys to start swim lessons. We had swimming every Mon-Thu for 2 weeks. Josiah did a fantastic job and is becoming a really good and confident swimmer. Levi only cried a few times (which is an improvement from last year), and on the last day even went underwater! That is huge. I'm very proud of their improvement! And bonus - we got to go with friends!
After that, we went to lunch at Chick-fil-a with friends.
Fun with mustaches! These are Levi's 2 best buddies - Cael and Ben.
In the afternoon we took our cat Daisy to the vet. She had been sick for a couple of weeks, with drainage from her eye, a hoarse throat (her meow sounded like hissing), and a crazy thing happening with her eyes where one would be fully dilated and one not. The vet said it was just a virus and gave her a shot. More on Daisy later.
That evening we started VBS at our church (6th-9th). I helped with Levi's class. We all had a great time!
7/10 & 11 - we traveled to west Texas (Lubbock) for our nephew Alex's wedding. It was a long drive (about 10 hours), but we were excited to be there for his big day.
7/18 - we went to St. Louis to visit our great friends, the Hardins. On Saturday we went to Illinois to Eckert's peach orchard. You can eat as many peaches as you want while you pick! We had a great time (and a very sticky Levi)!
We also got to go swimming with our friends, and eat some delicious German food (narrowly missing the naked bike parade that was about to start nearby). Thanks for having us Nate & Jen!!
On our way home we made a spontaneous (very out of character for us) decision to stop at Meramec Caverns. I guess their billboard advertising paid off.
It was one of the biggest and most amazing caves we've been to!
And the kids enjoyed the gift shop.
7/21 - went over to our see our friends (the Huggins family) and have a play date. I helped Melissa pack a little. They left to move to Florida on the 27th. We will miss them!!
7/23 - Some friends and I volunteered at the Ronald McDonald house in Springfield, making a meal for the families who are staying there. It was very fun and rewarding. These little dudes are getting ready to ice this cake. And yes, they all washed their hands :)
More of the Huggins family that is leaving us - WHY are you moving??? :) Jack is Josiah's best friend. Their move was hard on him (and me), but now we'll have a super fun place to visit!
7/24 - I took the boys to a Springfield library event at the Mediacom ice park. It was blazing hot outside, so it felt really strange to be wearing gloves and hats! They HATED ice skating. Levi cried the whole time, and he didn't even fall. But, it's always good to try something new! Maybe when they're a little older we can try again.
Then we walked down to the splash park and spent some time wading in the fountains. This part of the day was unplanned (but a fun detour), so I was unprepared - we had hats and gloves but no swim suits. Next time we'll definitely spend more time there. They enjoyed the fountains way more than the ice park :) Then we had lunch with daddy which is always a treat!
