2011 Look Back

Well here it is 2012 already. Where did 2011 go? We all ask this question as the year ends, but as me and my family look back we know where it went. We spent the year either having the time of our lives or trying to keep our heads above water. Literally it is sink or swim around here.  There were a lot of "firsts" happenings with us this past year.  Hang on and I will try to give a quick synopsis of how things went for us.


January 2011 we sold 10 goats at Monroe sale barn and the kids pocketed them a huge wad of cash in their pockets.




In February Brandon got his 1st speeding ticket ever.  He was only going 70 in a 55.  No big deal- a couple of phones calls, and several hundred dollars later and he had a lawyer take care of it for him.  He drove like a grandma for a while until the scare wore off!


We had been toying with the idea of going to Disney World and we began searching for rates and deals and best times to go. We booked in February and went the beginning of March. We checked them out of school on a Tuesday and spent Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the 4 parks at Disney. The kids (and us) can back empty pocketed, but have the trip of a lifetime under our belts.


April I had surgery to repair my “leaky” belly button. To you that don’t know this story, it’s not really something you need to hear about in detail. Boy am I glad I did have it fixed! 
Easter week I took the girls to the Whitewater Center so they could do the ropes courses and the ziplines.  This was the first time they had ever done anything like this and they loved it!  Emily was sore for several days after.  She is not known for her physical abilities, but this was something she did well at. 


We got the leaky belly button fixed so as Spring approached we had to conquer the problem of our chimney and roof leaking. We found out in October of 2010 that we had a problem and we began “fixing” this and “fixing” that, but it didn’t help our problem so by May we were faced with the dilemma of tearing all the stone off of our chimney, the siding off that side of the house, and waterproofing the area that seemed to be having the problem. Our contractor knew we had a problem when we built the house, but he thought he had fixed it. So here we are 3 ½ years into a new house and we found out our chimney was rotted under the stone. We did get the contractor to by supplies, but Brandon didn’t trust anyone to actually do the work so he did it himself.



This Spring we started going to a new church.  We now go to New Life in Locust.  DIfferent kind of church experience than normal, but seems to keep us coming back.  They have lots of groups and good activities for the kids. 



We spent most of March, April, and May worrying about them shutting down our kids' school.  We were granted 1 more year and are coming up on another crucial time for the school system to make some decisions


Abigail won the Superintendents Award for her class and she also got an "most Likely to Run an Organic Farm" award.  How cute!  That comes from all the time she has spent around Maw Maw Kaye in her immaculate raised vegetable beds.


My nephew graduated from High School and took a job that led him out to Utah for 6-8 weeks at a time so that was a good new beginning for him to experience.


When school let out in June we bought Abigail’s birthday present early (the Bansai waterslide) and we invited different kids over every week and put the slide up for them to play on. We had a birthday party and made everybody sit out in the 100 degree heat while the kids played with the water stuff. We got our money out of the slide by summer end.


In July we got an invitation from one of our friends to come with her to race car driver Marcos Ambrose's house to go swimming and of course we had to go!  He wasn't there because he was in Daytona for the race, but that was OK, we enjoyed his pool anyway!
In August we went on our summer vacation with the Johnson family.  We went back to Georgia where we spent vacation 2009 with them.  This is starting to become a tradition since we generally only get to see them at an occasional softball game and on our mandatory New Year Eve party every year. 


Both Emily and Abigail got saved at church this summer also.  We are really proud of them and hope they continue to love church and learn more about God.


In October my car got 252,000 miles on it and decided to work its little headbolts loose on us.  We thought motor was blown, but it was only the headbolts.  We went ahead and had it rebuilt anyway.  The motor went out on October 10 and on October 14 I hit a deer with Brandon's Mustang.  During the previous week Brandon had torn down his truck to replace the clutch, the catalytic converter, and get a new exhaust system put on.  So... here we were with all 3 of our insured vehicles unusable.  We dashed to get my old truck back on the road with insurance and inspection and we borrowed my moms' 4-Runner till all could be fixed.  This was a very stressful month but we took a break Halloween weekend and went to Rick's cabin with the Austin family.  This too is becoming a tradition of ours. 


November brought around Emily's 10th birthday!  WOW!  We had a party and she invited 3 friends from school to spend the night and we ended up taking 3 more girls that were siblings of 1 of the invited girls.  We had an hilarious night with the all 8 girls.  Brandon was outnumbered 1 to 9!  We stayed up till after 1am and got up early for a tour of the "farm". 


Thanksgiving week flew by and sent us speeding into the Christmas month.  The last weekend of November my cousin had a toilet emergency on a Sunday night.  Brandon wanted me to go with him but I had just got out of the shower.  So we haul the kids out on a school night, me in my pajamas and flip flops over to her house.  He had to crawl under there house and he messed with a clean out valve and in the process he tore his jeans and got human waste on him.  He gave up and told her she was going to have to call my dad the next day.  So it was 10:30 when we left and we saw deer 1/2 mile from home.  We were almost completely stopped when we literally "bumped" the deer and it fell over and we rolled over it. We came to a skidding stop on the  its' back legs and it was kicking and hollering underneath the truck.  It pulled itself with its front 2 legs back towards the field  and Brandon jumped out of the truck and went and tackled it.  I had to go home for the gun and then Brandon used his 1 and only shell on it and missed.  It had begun to rain and I was in a brier patch in flip flops with pajamas on.  We had to load the deer in the truck and take it home to shoot it.  I drove and Brandon held the injured and fighting deer in the bed of the truck.  Boy are we rednecks...


December Brandon made a large purchase of 25 beef cows.  His plan is to send the kids to college with his profits, but hopefully we will get something in turn for it along the way too!  His hobby has gone from just chickens, pigs, and goats to a herd of hungry eat you out of house and home cows too!  We sold 15 goats early in the month, but had to turn around and put all that money into tires for the goat hauling trailer and for trailer repairs on there regular trailer, so that was pretty much a wash.


Abigail decided in December that she wanted to take ice skating lessons, so that is her new adventure.  Stay tuned for pictures of that...


Brandon and I went on our annual trip to Charleston the 1st week of December for our Oyster Crawl as I like to call it.  We walked and ate, the walked some more and then ate some more.  We love Charleston in the winter time.  This year we greeted by nice 70 degree weather which was perfect for exploring the city. 


As you can see we have had a very eventful year.  I don't know if this is good or bad.  I hope that 2012 brings us a little less of the harsh events and maybe a little more of the relaxing ones.