What's for dinner?

Egg!!! Not eggs. Just one. It's my $400 egg. Cassie went out to check on them tonight and found the egg right where it was supposed to be. In the drop down chute near the convenient little door on the end. It's huge! And brown! And I can't wait to eat it. Tomorrow's breakfast includes egg. Real bacon from a recent slaughter. Real milk straight from the cows yoohoo. It's like I'm on a farm. I'm gonna where my boots tomorrow and start chewing tobacco. YEEHAW!! I'm going to go pick up a bail o' hay and haul it around in my truck. Probably not.

Anyways. Got AN egg. One. Let's see if they keep on coming.

It's business time....

Conditions are perfect...for laying eggs.
They have everything they need. Warm dry nesting area. More food than they could ever eat. Fresh, dry straw. Protection from predators. Loving children to keep them on their toes. I hope we get some eggs soon. I have a feeling they are laying eggs somewhere that we haven't discovered yet. Oh well. Its entertainment for guests now. The kids love it too. I could really care less at this point. My part is finished and I broke down and bought a carton of eggs today. I downloaded some 'how-to' on cleaning chickens this weekend. It seems pretty easy. It may come in handy at some point.

weeee...good times.

Holy crap. we did christmas with the in laws yesterday. Her brothers were transporting 3 huge vending machines from my in laws to k falls. they had a trailer. they suckered me into helping them. i knew i shouldn't. my back hurts so much i am just shy of throwing up from the pain. i didn't sleep at all last night. tossed and turned on the couch. now i am hungry for breakfast but alas, no eggs from the flipping chickens, so no breakfast. just a big bowl of pain. It seems like a long time to go before I get to see my chiropractor tomorrow.
anyways, not all news on here is upbeat and happy.
stupid vending machines...good riddance.

Our Christmas Day.

We started the day with breakfast, eggs and bacon and milk. Then we loaded in the car and passed out gifts to the kids at the Manor. I have to tell you this fun story, it made our day! The manager gave me a list of kids living at the Manor. There were 14 altogether. Our friends from church gave us enough gifts to pass out among the kids. Every kid had at least 4 little gifts and 1 large gift. Neatly wrapped with their names on them. The Millers showed up to help us pass them out. The first room had a little girl and she was over joyed and didn't know what to say. Here's my story:

Cassie and the kids were walking to a room and I saw a family coming home to the Manor with groceries. They had 2 girls. The girls said, "Look mommy, those kids have presents!! Wow!!" They didn't know they were next. I had their gifts in my hands as I walk to their room. Their door was still open as I walked up. I said "are you Maggie and Juana?" They said "yes...." I said, well then these are for you." Their eyes popped out of their heads and jaws dropped. One squealed with glee. The mom said in a broken and humble voice, "what do you say girls?" And 'thank yous' came the scream of happiness. The mom asked what church we were from. She said over and over thank you, you don't know what this means. I could hear the girls yelling, "I can't believe this!!"
Yeah. That alone made my day. I wish you could feel that. I could see us as a church doing this on an even larger scale. To reach out to so many that have so little. On a day that means so much. I'm not meaning this to gloat or brag. But to share with you. The church was involved. We used money left over from the BBQ that the Stirring gave us to finance it. We used stuffed animals from our friend Mary. We used little goodie bags from our friend Christal. The Millers chipped in. We chipped in. Someone from the 10:00 service chipped in with a box full of awesome things.

Next we went up to see Mr. Miller at Mercy. He was rambunctious and eager to get out of there. Not sick and mopey. He'll be back to himself in no time.
Then we went home and open gifts. The kids had a total blast of course.

We ate chex mix.

Family came over. We BBQed tri tip, spinach salad with candied walnuts, sparkling apple mango cider and cookies.

The chickens occupied the coop. The coop is rocking with 4 new chickens. I hope they get along. They are awesome. Reba (the rebel and way small, hardest to catch), ...dude, i totality cant remember their names. Not like to come when you call them. So I will name them teriyaki, spicy, BBQ & country fried.

Then as the evening goes on, my uncle calls and said he has 7 ice chests full of fresh crab. A truck rolled over on I-5 and they were given fresh crab. IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!! So I race out and score 15 large dungeness crab. So we boil them up and eat them, They were hands down the best crab I ever had. As big as dinner plates!

We end the night with Catch Phrase and a stinky house, with tri tip left overs and crab.

Cookies Delivered!

Thank You to everybody who helped. We didn't bring a camera with us, it was dark and would have been weird.
These people live in a dark place. These cookies sure did shed light on the entire complex. By the end, people were coming out of their rooms, thanking us after realizing what was given them. They just sat and watched us deliver the rest. Not one room turned us away. We managed to invite several people to the Cascade this week. One lady asked if we were from Bethel. I told them..."The Stirring." Then they said, "the BBQ"s!!! Oh you're those people!! Thank you thank you thank you." From their lips....thank you, everybody who chipped in.

Cookie drop off

If I missed you tonight for getting Cookies to me, call me at home: 244-4282 or my cell: 917-9232 and we can make arrangements to get them tomorrow.

Thank You to everybody who chipped in.

Pink Eye

Any ideas to fight this? I am on day two and it's starting to hurt. It's hard to drive. It fills with goop constantly. Bed time is awesome. It welds shut. This is worse than when I had my eye surgery. It's just nasty. I'm washing my hands constantly with anti-bacterial stuff. Anyways, what can I say. I have pink eye. blah.

Cookie Deadline

Hello Friends.
Those of you that wish to help with the cookie plates, we will need those by Sunday Night, December 21st. Please bring them to church or CALL ME and I will get those from you.

Chicken coop hell

Here's the update. The darn thing is still in my garage while my vehicles nap outside in the cold. As soon as it is dry, it's going outside. Jake and I painted on Linseed Oil to protect it from the elements. Good times. Also, Julianne managed to burn her hair in the propane heater. It smells great. Feel free to ask my wife when she plans to cut Julianne's hair. Cassie seems to think she is growing it out to touch the ground. Ugh. Cut the darn stuff or I will. What was I....oh, yeah, chicken coop. Almost done.

COOKIES!

We need them. I'm restless tonight. I should be exhausted. My mind is already going. Getting ready for this week. Switching gears from weekend duties to work week duties...haha I said doodies. Anyways. What?......Oh yes....COOKIES. I should redo this....

Hello. Cassie and I are bringing 28 plates of cookies to the Market Street Manor on Monday Dec. 22nd, along with an invitation to Cascade on Christmas Eve.

Bringing Cookies so far is:
-Kristyn Miller
-Annie
-Kristen from the Bridge
-Bethany Hardy
-Rachel Scarbrough
-Stacy Sparrow
-The Cables
-Pastor Joel
Anybody else?

Let me know. We are looking for homemade. The good stuff.
If you can, bring it to church on Sunday night, (this Sunday, Dec. 21) and Cassie and I will get them from you and make the plates up that night and deliver them the next day. Or call me 917-9232 and I can make arrangements. Feel free to join us Monday night after work around 6pm to drop off cookies to 28 rooms.

Also I will have a list of kids names-ages-room numbers that are staying in the manor so we can get them Christmas Gifts. We will drop those off Christmas morning. Again, feel free to join us.

Julianne's leg is doing better too. Dr. Daddy got some non-stick band aid dressings and she is a happy girl with a happy knee. It's still a nuisance, but on the mend for sure.

Weak-end

So with my trusty new propane heater set up I had no excuse to not work on that chicken coop. This isn't just a little box with chicken wire around it. This thing is a mansion for chickens. 2 level, 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 4 car garage...this thing rocks. I spent all day Saturday and all day Sunday working on it. It's 90% finished. I have to find a jigsaw to cut a hole, which is marked and ready. Then build a ladder. Add 2 hinges. Throw up a dowel for a perch. Then spray it with linseed oil. I tried to lift it today...wasn't happening. I managed to get a piano dolly under it. Now what? I used every piece of lumber I bought plus scraps I have been saving forever. It rocks. It has trap doors everywhere. My kids wish they had a place house like this. Next time you visit I'm sure my kids will be more than willing to give you a 'tour de coop.'
You want to see it? Too bad, I'm tired. I'll post pictures when it's done-er.

I hope these chickens like it or else my kids have a new fort.

Homemade Christmas

This year is tough. Cassie and I decided a month ago to make gifts for everybody. It's tougher than it sounds. You don't want to give a lame gift. I figured out what to make and it's not easy. Cassie is getting a chicken coop. It's what I was assigned to make for her. Pretty spendy if you ask me. However I did get to buy a few new tools for the project, so it's not all bad. Tomorrow Jake and I make serious headway on that, I'll post the pictures. Jake is getting new shelves for his bedroom. I'm making those as well. He likes to display his Lego creations. He loves knick knacks and Cassie makes him consolidate his craziness. Well this will free up some floor space. He'll love it. For Julianne, I am making her a bedtime story book. The stories are from my head and printed neatly in a book on card stock. I tell her stories that I improvise on every night or when I'm lucky enough to tuck her in. It's her favorite part of the day. She giggles the whole way through. So she'll have the stories laminated forever. Good times.

This is bad.

Please pray for Julianne. She fell off her bike the other day and barely skinned her knee. It was like, no big deal at the time. But we knew better. Whenever she breaks her skin open, it turns into a huge nasty rash and oozes all over. Well this time it is oozing and every band aid is sticking to the wound and bleeding out like crazy. The 'bruise' now resembles a bullet wound. It's huge and nasty and she is in a lot of pain. We know how to battle this, but it's a process and could use prayers.
Thanks.

Market St. Manor Cookies

I'm going to ask for your help on this one. My wife and I have this vision of delivering a plate of cookies to every room at the Manor on Christmas Eve or a few days prior, with an invitation to Cascade for the service. There's no way we can bake that many cookies. I just need a few people to commit to baking their favorite cookies to assemble on plates. Feel free to join us as we deliver them as well.
Take this with you too. When we BBQed hot dogs in October and brought soup in November, the biggest hit were the cookies. (and the salsa). But the cookies were devoured in mere seconds. They knew they were made with love. They knew they were not store bought. It was their favorite thing. Let's make an entire plate of their favorite thing, just because we can. I know you want to. Who makes the toffee? Who makes the white chocolate chunk cookies? Who makes those cookies with the Hershey Kiss in them? Who makes the divinity? Who makes the lemon bars? Who makes the peppermint bark? Dude. I hope we have people like this that want to help.

Chicken Coop Day 2

So today I had promised Jake we would dabble at building on the coop a little more as the weekend seems so far away to build again. So I moved the project into the garage. It's cozy. Radio, flood lights, warm, neighbors stopping by because they hear the buzz of the chop saw and clutch of the drill.
So Jake wouldn't let me cut one board. He did angle cuts, straight cuts, everything. I also let him drive some pilot holes with the drill and he slammed in and stripped out a few screws. He is so proud, as am I.
That darn chicken coop is a blast.
I'm being told to end this entry as my wife needs the computer.

Chicken Coop progress

Today was fun. Jake and I had great time together building our chicken coop. It will take a couple weekends to build with the limited sunlight.
I taught Jake all about responsibility of using tools and caring for tools. I set up the DeWalt chop saw (in the background) and he did his first cut of a 2 x 4 and did it perfectly. Also he enjoyed doing it. He makes sure we have a clean work area. He makes sure the saw is always unplugged when not in use. He learned we had to prepare the foundation first. Which meant digging in the dirt and preparing the soil before we built. He learned to measure twice and cut once. He also learned the value of wearing gloves. I'm a nut when it comes to labor and gloves.
So here is the first picture. We had some great quality time tearing apart Home Depot loading up our cart like crazy with lumber and hardware. We also worked on creating the plans together and where to put the trap doors to harvest the chicken eggs. It will be fun when it's all painted and ready for chickens this Christmas.
Good times.

Need cookies

Sorry, no hamburger feed...not my decision. i can't elaborate either.
just sucks.

So I guess we need cookies for Christmas Eve....
This is the easiest way to contribute and make the biggest impact.

We are making plates of cookies for every room at the manor and delivering them Christmas Eve. That's about 25 plates and a bunch of different cookies.

I'm not committing to this either.
If it happens, it happens.