Phish & Chicks

Welcome to summer!

Once again time has flown by, and as always we are keeping busy. Our garden is growing, as is my herb bed which is a new experiment this year. We're eagerly anticipating adding some snap peas to our dinner any day now (if they make it all the way inside). It's exciting to walk out in the garden and see how big our plants are getting!

Garrett and Drew are their normal selves - busy all the time and learning new things seemingly every day. They still live to play outside - on their bikes, roaming around the yard, checking the bees with Daddy, helping in the garden or various other projects, taking wagon rides to visit our neighbors, or heading to the park or playground. They are talking up a storm, and since our first music class last week, Drew has been singing me songs - it's wonderful. They also seem to get a big kick out of ignoring us and running away at times.... Which just makes the good times that much better, I suppose...

We had quite the exciting long weekend this past Thursday through Monday. Thursday Jim and I left the boys in Grandma & Grandpa's able hands and headed out to Burgettstown, PA (near Pittsburg) for a Phish show and night away together. It was one of those times when everything just comes together exactly right. The forecasted thunderstorms never showed up, we were able to take our time driving out and hit no traffic, our friends John & Malia happened to spot us out of a crowd of 19,000 from their front and center lawn seats, and Phish played an amazing show under the stars (which I could see for the first time ever due to our great spot). We couldn't have asked for more!

After a couple days of recovering and celebrating with our dads Saturday and Sunday, we headed out on our second adventure Monday; this time headed to Polk, OH and Meyer Hatchery to pick up the 8 chicks we had ordered in March. Meyer Hatchery is just shy of an hour's drive from us, so we loaded the boys up after lunch and they napped on the way down. When we arrived, we were handed a box with our couple-day-old chicks, and shopped for all the supplies we will need to care for them for the next four months or so. Then it was back out to our car and the trip home, serenaded with tiny peeps the whole way. The girls are now settled in their first temporary home in a 40 gallon aquarium in our house and will stay in here for at least a few days or a week - until they get a bit bigger and heartier. Then it will be out to the sunporch and a bigger box. In a few weeks, should we have it finished....they will be ready to move into their permanent home in the shed that Jim is renovating for them. We are all enamored, and Jim and I are finding ourselves to be nervous new chicken parents. If you happen to be in the area, stop on in, we'd be happy to introduce you!