I am prego!

Man, I've been a slacker lately as far as blogging goes. Maybe it's because we're finally starting to get a life up here and have things to do. :) Anyway, on our way back from our trip to So. Cal. for Shane and Ericka's wedding, we found out that we're pregnant! We're excited!! I'm about 2 months in and so far so good. I've only had one day where I really felt sick. I thought I was going to throw up in the middle of church. But other than that, I've just been slightly nauseous off and on. Nothing major. Strangest craving? Monster Tacos from Jack in the Box. I haven't had them in years. Gave in and had them last week. Lets just say now I remember why I don't eat there anymore. When we told Melia about the baby, the conversation went something like this: Mommy: "Guess what! Mommy has a baby inside her tummy!" Melia: "Hold it?" (with arms outstretched) Mommy: "It has to grow for 9 months and get bigger and then it will come out and you'll have a baby brother or sister." (Melia goes and plays for a little while.) Melia: (pointing to her belly button) "I got baby brother in my belly button." Mommy: "No, mommy has baby brother or sister in her belly." Melia: "Baby brother loves me." (Later lifts up mommy's shirt looking for baby brother.) Side note: There's a squirrel on our porch about 3 feet from me with a gigantic nut in his mouth! That's one cool thing about living up here. :) Anyway, we need to start looking for a doctor up here. Bo's health care through work won't kick in until 3 months from now, so we'll have to figure something out. God has been really taking care of us in every little way. I know we'll be ok. :)

It's Been a Whole Month Already?!

Where does the time go? That is the question. We just got back from a week and a half vacation to So. Cal. for Bo's brother Shane's wedding. It was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of family and friends, but not nearly enough. There were many people we wish we could have seen, but time just ran out. On our drive down, we stopped and saw our good friends Chris, Vicky & Lenore who just recently moved to Napa. Melia and Lenore were so cute together.
Once we got to Bo's parents' house, the first thing we wanted to do was go to the beach. We miss it so much!
Shane and Ericka's wedding turned out great and we had fun at the reception. Melia was a little dancing machine! We couldn't get her off the dance floor. I think it's genetic.
On Sunday, we visited our old ward for church. It felt just like coming home. It was so good to see everybody. After church, we hung out at Matt and Piper's and had some friends over for dinner. Lots of fun! This is Maia teaching Melia how to dance like a ballerina.
We did lots of other things too, but I don't feel like writing a lot today--you can see more pictures on our website. :)

This week we had the chance to go to a farm sanctuary where they rescue farm animals from awful situations and let them live out their lives in peaceful surroundings. As we walked through, our tour guide told us the individual story of each animal--the terrible circumstances it had come from and how it had overcome and recovered there at the farm. She even told us about the little personality quirks each of them had, their gentle nature, and how they were now serving to help educate people. Animals have incredible resilience and, when given the right kind of care, just blossom.
Even the turkeys and the chickens, who you wouldn't traditionally think of as friendly, just walked right up to us and let us pet them and just hung out with us.
The pigs loved having their bellies rubbed and even kicked their back legs like a dog does during a belly rub!

This cow was so gentle and sweet--I thought her coloring was just beautiful too.
This is a dog they are fostering until they can find a home. He was rescued from Mexico and only has three legs, but he is the sweetest little dog. He played with Melia for about a half hour while we were waiting for the tour. He was very playful and got around just fine.

I have recently looked into the subject of farm animals and the conditions in most of our country's large scale farming facilities and I've found it really just deplorable. I think it would sicken most people. But most of us just go to the grocery store, buy our meat and don't take thought for where it comes from. There are no laws protecting farm animals because they are thought of only as commodities instead of actual living beings who deserve respect and proper care. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian. I'm not saying that we should be. I'm saying that things need to change. Some simple things that we do are buy organic, free range meat where the conditions the animals live in are better. We are also cutting back on the amount of meat and animal products we eat. One thing I'm definitely saying is that laws need to be changed to make conditions better for the animals that are spending their lives suffering through terrible conditions and ultimately giving their lives for our use. Farm Sanctuary and many volunteers have worked tirelessly and have gotten Proposition 2 on the ballot. It's an effort to ban some of the most cruel confinement systems used by the large-scale farming facilities. Here's basically what it will do:

If voters vote yes on November 4th 2008 California will no longer enable the use of:

• Veal crates - narrow wooden enclosures, just 2 feet wide, which prevent calves from turning around, lying down easily and even walking for the extent of their short lives.
• Gestation crates - 2-by-7 feet metal enclosures that confine 400-pound breeding sows (pigs used to supply the pork industry with piglets) for most of their four to five year lives. Prevented from taking more than a step forward or backward, and unable to turn around, sows will live their lives in these crates and are freed only briefly to be moved to similarly restrictive farrowing crates to give birth.
• Battery cages - small wire cages in which several hens are packed together so tightly that they are unable to even stretch their wings. Never touching the ground, the lifetime living space allotted to each hen is less a sheet of copy paper. Battery cages are used to confine 95 percent of all laying hens in the U.S. and allow giant egg farms to pack hundreds of thousands of hens into a single shed.

All these confinement systems are so cruel that they are already banned throughout much of Europe. In the U.S., a growing number of restaurants, supermarkets and even producers have pledged to stop using them, based on their inherent cruelty.

I think Ghandi said it best: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

Embarrassing Moment

So last Monday, Bo went to play softball with all of the missionaries on their day off. I took Melia down there to watch Daddy play. After the game was over, all of the missionaries got together for a group picture and Bo and I were taking the pictures for them--about 15 different cameras for about 25 guys. Then comes the moment--Melia falls and starts crying, I bend down to pick her up and I hear my pants rip. Where you see my hand is the back of my pants where there is a rip about a foot long. So I play it off, continue to take pictures in front of these 25 guys and carefully try to keep my back facing everybody, which was kind of hard once we were done taking pictures and everyone was walking around and Melia was running off to the playground. Luckily, I was able to get Melia and get back to the car with only the dad on the playground seeing the back of me. They weren't even tight pants. Go figure.

The Battle Wages On...

Bo's second attempt at ridding the backyard of his nemesis consisted of pouring a bucket of soapy water down the hole where they have their nest. Unfortunately, after he started pouring the water, he got freaked out and just threw the bucket and ran back inside the house. Luckily, he didn't bring any of them inside with him this time. But the next morning they did not seem to be affected.
His third attempt delivered somewhat better results. He took 2 cans of bug killer and shot them down the hole and at the same time flooded it with water for like 4 minutes. The next day the nest was still there and functioning but there were actually some dead yellow jackets as well. I think his confidence is growing. Yellow Jackets: 4, Bo: 1/2

Battle with the Yellow Jackets

Ok, so a few days ago I was sitting here at the computer while Bo was outside working in the yard. All of a sudden, I see Bo running past the window without his shirt on, flailing about. I wondered what the heck was going on. Then he runs in the house bringing with him a swarm of Yellow Jackets (a kind of wasp that is known for it's aggressiveness, as we found out that night). Why did he think it was a good idea to bring them all IN the house? I don't know. Anyway, he runs back out of the house, leaving 3 of them inside to attack me. I got stung on the top of the head (they have the ability to sting over and over and bite at the same time) before they flew back outside. Finally, Bo had gotten them off of him and came back inside in time to kill one that was still inside. I asked him what happened and he said he was just raking leaves and accidentally raked over their hive in the ground. They all attacked him and he had them all over his shirt, which was why he was now shirtless. He ran away at full speed and they stayed right with him. He said he thought about jumping in our neighbor's pond for a second--I asked him why he didn't just jump in our pond in the back yard and he said it was too nasty. Go figure. So instead, he just panicked and ran inside the house. Later, he decided to go back out to get his shirt. Turns out it still had 3 yellow jackets on it. So again, he ran back inside the house bringing with him 1 yellow jacket. As I ran in the bedroom to get away, I saw Bo grab Melia's bib as his weapon of choice to fight off the yellow jacket. When it was all clear, we looked up how to treat the stings and ended up sitting on the couch in pain for hours with a paste of baking soda and water smeared all over our heads. We looked pretty pathetic. This is what we get for moving up here to the wild! Yesterday, Bo bought some stuff at home depot to kill them and went out last night to do it--thus the outfit in the picture. Well, today he checked the hive and he said they were all still alive and well as if nothing had happened. At that point, I told him we'd better call in someone to take care of it, but of course, he doesn't want to do that. Why? He said it's a pride thing--he wants to be the one to finish his battle with the yellow jackets. He was already concocting in his head what hoses, tubes, pulley systems, etc. he'll need for Plan B, so this may be an on going project for a while. So far it's Yellow Jackets: 2, Bo: 0.

Paradise: Things that Make You Go Hmmm

*Yes, this is actually the name of a place of business. I don't think it means the same thing in Northern CA as it does in So Cal.
*The local video store does not alphabetize their movies.
*We saw a couch in the back of a pick up truck that actually had seat belts and kids riding in it.
*The radio station Jack FM is called Bob FM up here.
*Our neighbors were out in their backyard the other day (which we can see from our place). One guy was in a gorilla suit dancing around while the other video taped him.
*There is a Mexican restaurant named "Meehos". Yes, it's spelled phonetically.

Disclaimer: None of these things are bad, just different. :)