It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I love snow. Not so much driving in it but I love that it makes the world white. Just like being in the temple. Granted the next day most of the snow looks gray and yucky. But for those few hours after it falls and before all the roads get cleared it is so beautiful.

We had our first big snow storm of the winter season today. We must have gotten at least a foot of snow this afternoon. It was so crazy. I woke up and we had no new snow but several schools where closed already. Well, it started snowing at about 8:30 and then the rest of the schools sent the kids home. I left work at about 1pm and it was white out conditions. I don't think I got above 25 mph. When I got to the farm I had a big job ahead of me. Plowing the driveway. All I can say is I'm so glad that we have a tractor. It took about an hour to get it cleared. Then I went and feed the animals which only took about 20 minutes. By the time I finished that I needed to plow the driveway again. I finally got home after 3pm and took a very long hot shower. My toes are still tingling from being so cold.

It finally stopped snowing about about 5pm right after Aaron finished snow blowing at the hotel. He also got out of work early today since all the libraries decided to close. I guess you don't need tech support if your are not open. I think he really likes that job.

So now I'm in my nice warm house listening to Christmas music and enjoying the Christmas tree lights. I love this time of year. If I had my own world we would always have Christmas lights. Every month would have a holiday with it's own color of Christmas lights. Maybe they would match the gem for that month. That is a fun thought.

One Year Anniversary Trip to Long Island

For our one year anniversary we went to Long Island to visit Aaron's grandparents and aunt's. We had a wonderful time. We got to spend a few days down there. We a fabulous dinner at Aunt Margie's house. It was so great. Home made sauce and meatballs. A true Italian meal.

To pay for our room and broad we raked up the leaves at grandma and grandpa Zsembery. it was nice to see them and hear some of their stories. It is so nice to have grandparents again. Mine have all passed on and I miss the wisdom and history that is now gone with them.

After driving home on Monday we went to the Palmyra Inn for a wonderful evening together. We ordered pizza and watched some movies and had a wonderful time together. I love having such a loving and fun husband. He brings such balance to my life.

The Passing of a Pearl

I had a horrible day today. Nothing major happened but nothing seemed to go my way. I even managed to pinch my hand as I pushed my cup holder back in when I got to work. Have you ever had one of those days? I kept thinking to myself "I should have never gotten out of bed."
On rainy days I go to my parents house and feed the animals before going to work. Everyone was happy to see me and get some hay. My oldest pygmy goat Pearl has been sick for a few months now. She has bad days and I give her some medicine to help her not be in pain. She has been isolating herself for awhile now which is never a good sign for an animal that likes to be in a herd. This morning she was in the stall by herself and I gave her some hay and then I was off to work.
When I came home after work she had died. It is so sad to lose a pet. I'm grateful that she is not in any pain anymore and that I was here to bury her. I now realize why I was having such a hard day.
I will miss Pearl but I'm glad that she can run and not have any pain.

Happy Halloween!

No Trick or Treating for me this year. I will be handing out candy at Susan's house since she has a new baby and does not want to have to get up hand out candy. It should be fun. Tony is taking David trick or treating so that leaves me and Benjamin to answer the door. He is dressing up as a cow. Maybe I should dress up as a herdsmen. HEHEHE

Peaches, Peaches and more Peaches!

Aaron and I where about to get 4 five gallon buckets of peaches for free a few weeks ago. So what does one do with so many peaches you ask? Well, you put a moving in and sit in the kitchen and cut up peaches for about 3 hours. Then you put them in the frig and the next day you can them for hours on end. We ended up running two caners and had about 36 quarts when we finished. It was so crazy. I'm still not convinced about all the canning stuff. I did make a really yummy cherry peach pie out of one of the cans that didn't seal right. So I guess there are advantages. Thank you Sister D for pick the peaches for us and thank you mom Z for delivering them. I think our kids will enjoy them since I have a felling they will be around for a few years.

Fun on the Farm

Here are some pictures to update the animals on the farm. The big brown goat is a Toggenburg. They are a milk breed of goat. Not sure if we will ever milk her. Aaron's younger brothers bought her from the neighbor but needed a place for her so we brought her home in the back of Aaron's Volvo. She seems to be getting along with everyone. She is very pretty and seems to like her life here on the farm.

The growth on Mirabel's back is Ruby. She is almost two months old now and her favorite thing to do is to jump on the nearest llama who is laying down and dance around on her back. If Danny Boy or Patches try to get up there too she butts them off.

Danny Boy and Patches are both doing very well. They are running and jumping around. Total boys. Getting into things and butting each other. I'm so glad that they have each other to play with.

Hobbit, the cow, is doing great. He thinks that he is a dog. He wants to follow you around everywhere. He is so funny and loves bread. A high carb diet makes the best beef. I don't know if we will ever eat him. He is like a pet and I love him but I also love a nice Porterhouse Steak. Life is full of tough decisions.

The Pitter Patter of little Paws

Here are some pictures of the new little one in my life. I found the kitten at the farm last week. She was just sitting there in a stall with a calf and crying for her mama. But no one came. So I gave her a bath, cleaned her eyes and put some advantage on her. Then I gave her some milk in a syringes which she sucked right down. I brought her home and gave her two more baths. Then Aaron used the tweezers and picked fleas off of her for awhile. (Needless to say I also put advantage on Mister and Aggie just in case). I picked up some kitten milk replacer on the way home and made her a bottle. She took right to it without any problems. She we will have "Little One" or "Shrimpette" for awhile. Just until she is old enough to eat solid food on her own. Then we will be finding a home for her. She is cute but we do not need more cats than people in our house.

I must be alittle slow=:)

Sorry about taking so long to update this. It has been alittle crazy around here. One of my other goats had two boys. We kept wait and watching and expecting it anytime. Then when no one was around she had them all by herself. I guess she just wanted to have them on her own. Everyone is well. One is black and white and the other is brown with black points. Both very cute.
Another fun thing that we did was have my softball team out to the farm. We did a hay ride and a petting zoo. They loved all the baby goats and the cow the most. We had a yummy food and lots of it. There was a fire and lawn games. Fun was had by all.
I cut my hair off and donated it to Locks of Love. it turned out so cute. The hair dresser said that I should always have my hair cut like this. Maybe someday I'll take a picture of it.
Well, that just about updates my very exciting life. I know it doesn't seem like a lot but the other everyday things are just to boring to tell on this blog. Work is OK. Can't wait to move on and start our family. Someday.

We have a new kid!

One of my pygmy goats had a kid yesterday. Opal had a tiny little girl that is almost a copy of her. She is so cute and small. Opal had a very hard delivery and had to help the little kid out. She is pretty sore but both are doing well. The kid is nursing and Opal is taking it easy. I'll post some pictures as soon as I get them downloaded.

Guess who's pregnant?

Take a guess to see who is 6 months pregnant. Me or my friend Courtney?

Utah

We took a family trip out to Utah for my sister's wedding. It was quite the adventure. My mom, dad, sister and her two boys and then me and Aaron. Between the 5 adults we were able to take care of the two boys.

I was able to see 3 of my 4 brothers and 3 of my 5 sisters. Plus many other family members. It was so wonderful to be with family. Plus to have the a wedding to go to that I didn't have anything to do with. That is a great feeling.

As well as seeing a lot of my family I was also able to see my roommates from Utah State. It was great to see them again and meet their many children. Plus I got to see my good friend Sherilyn. All in all it was a fabulous time and a chance to catch up with friends and family.

Congrats! It's a boy.

For our 6 month anniversary we got ourselves a kitten. Aaron's sister has a cat that had kittens about 8 weeks ago and we decided we needed one. My 8 year old cat Aggie thinks this is some cruel job but she will get used to it.

When I first saw the kittens they were a week old and as I picked them up the kids told me their names. The said "This one is Misty" and I said "This one is a boy". So we started to call him Mister. His full name is Mr. AZ for Amsden to Zsembery or Aaron Zsembery. We mostly just call him Mister.

It is fun to have a kitten around. He is full of energy and loves to follow you around. I hope that he and Aggie become good friends.

From Newly Weds to Parents of 9!

So this weekend is mom and dad Zsembery's anniversary. We decided to give them a weekend alone and took all 9 of the kids to our house. We had lots of fun. I introduced the girls to my favorite treat at Wendy's. Frosty's and fries. A few of them even liked it. The kids went and played football in a big open field near us. That is one benefit of having a large family. On Sunday Aaron and I took all the kids to the Stake Conference. Aaron had to translate for the Spanish speakers and I so it was me and Jessica, Aaron's older sister, to watch the kids. I don't think I got much out of the conference. After church we took the little kids to the Sacred Grove. It was a chilly day but beautiful. Then we had waffles for lunch. Yummy! I hope that mom and dad had a nice time along. I think Aaron and I will be waiting awhile to have kids. Maybe 10 years! HEHEHE

A Triple Date

Aaron has 4 teenage brothers and his mom thought that we should take two of them on a triple date and help them learn how to be creative and have fun while dating. So we took Mark and Jamie and their dates out for a night never to be forgotten. We first went to Taco Bell b/c I had not eaten dinner yet. I had the new Bacon Club Chulupa. I highly recommend it! Then we went to Wal-mart. I gave them each a list of 9 things that they had to go find. While they were looking for them Aaron and I did some groceries shopping. After them found all the items I had them put them all back. We then came back to our house and played Skip-bo and Rummycube. After we played some games we had ice cream sundaes that we put on a garbage bag on the floor. It was so yummy. We all had a spoon and dug right in. I think everyone had a fun time.

We don't need no stinking squirrels!

Susan called me over last thursday to help fix a hole in her roof before a bird came and built a nest. As I climbed up the latter and started trying to fix it I soon realized that it was too big a job for me. So I called Aaron. He came over and started to rip things out and put in some new boards and then we heard them. "Squeek, Squeek, Squeek!" It was not a birds nest that we found. It was a suirrels nest. There where two babies in it. They had their fur but theirs eyes where still closed. Aaron handed me the babies and then said "Oh, there's the mama squirrel." She looked at him and ran away. So we brought the babies home and bottle feed them for about 2 days. We had to find someone to take them b/c it is illegal to own wildlife in NY for more than 48 hours. We found the number of an animal control and rescue officer online. We meet her and made the drop. She said that they were both female and going to a lady that already has a baby male and then they would go to a home that has been wanting squirrels for awhile. It was a great experiance having to feed them every 4 hours. Aaron is going to be a great dad. He could always get them to drink more milk than me.

Dairy Tour to PA

Aaron and I went with a tour group of a bunch of farmers to PA. We went to a meat packing plant and three state of the art dairy farms. One of them was Mason Dixin which is a very famous dariy outside of Gettysburg, PA. They have 10 robotic milkers. It was pretty awesome. (Watch the video!) We also went to two other dariy's that had some pretty cool stuff. I like the automatic sorting gate. Each cow has an electronic tag around their neck and as she leaves from being milk she is sorted through a gate to either go for herd health check with the vet, to the bredding pen, sick pen or back to her group. It would sure cut down on the time it takes to find and sort the cows yourself. We had a wonderful time getting away from school and work for two days. Our first trip as a married couple! It will be one we will always remember.

The Wedding Reception

We had our wedding reception the following Saturday night. It worked out so well. My sister Susan did the planning and decorating. She is amazing and should defiantly start her own business in the future. It looked so great! We had a tractor and cow theme. We even had a diary bar complete with little cartons of milk. My sister Karen played the piano for us. She is so talented. The best part of the reception was the fact that we drove off in a John Deere Tractor. My dream come true! What a great husband I have that can tolerate my John Deere fetish.

The Wedding Day

Aaron and I were married in the Palmyra New York Temple on Nov 17, 2007. It was the most remember able day of my life and not just because I was up all night. I've heard of people getting cold feet the night and being sick but this was just ridiculous. I was so sick that I actually had the thought "OK, we will get married and then go to the hospital. Well, needless to say I was able to make it the temple and we were sealed for time and all eternity at 11:17am. We had a nice little lunch for the family and close friends afterwards and then we were off on our honeymoon which started with a nice long nap since i didn't get any sleep the night before. We had a lovely honeymoon on Canandaigua and Seneca Lake.

Engagement Pictures

We went the John Deere Tractor Dealer in Savannah to take our engagement pictures. It was the same dealership that had the tractor at Empire Farm Days that Aaron hung the bed sheet on. We had a lot of fun taking pictures on all of the tractors. I loved being in a sea of green and yellow tractors.