Butchering

Last weekend, we butched a bull at my parents house. Andrew and I have both butchered animals growing up, so we had a pretty good idea of what to do. It makes for a good day of conversations with your family...we started at 9am and were done by 5pm!

Marty and Andrew cutting meat up

My job was to run the grinder...when I had a lot of meat ground, Andrew started packaging it.

Then, my nephew Ethan came to help. His favorite job is grinding, so he took over!

Ethan and I (Rebecca)

Andrew and Kayla (my niece) packaging meat into bags.

Girls Weekend

A week ago, before my friend Sarah graduated from college, we had a girls weekend at my house...I met Sarah in my first year of college (fall of 2004.) We were roommates in the dorm. She graduated from Northern State and then decided to continue school at Wahpeton, ND for nursing. The job I took after college, happened to be only a half hour from her, so we have been able to get together the last 3 semesters. The work continues since I'm a teacher! Here I am working on 3rd grade math...one of my favorite classes to teach.

Sarah is good help at correcting papers whenever she comes over. She corrected the papers and I recorded the grades.
I was digging through my Christmas stuff in the upstairs of my house and found some lights. So, we started decorating the house for Christmas....I had more Christmas decorations than I thought!
It's amazing what we can find to talk about....one night we stayed up visiting until past 1 am! The joys of friendship.... :)

A Wedding

About a month ago, Andrew and I, along with his parents went to Iowa for a wedding of one of Andrew's cousins. (Jason and Stephanie) Here are a few pictures...

Mandy (Andrew's sister-in-law) and I. The flowers were edible so we decided to try them!

On the way back, we stopped in Brookings at Pizza Ranch for supper. Here we are (Andrew's parents in the front and us in the back.)

And for those of you keeping track...the big day for us is April 23rd, 2011! So, a little over 4 months for us!

Summer Fun

I thought I would put up some warm pictures to get us through the cold winter. Actually I do really like the winter just like I like every other season, because God created them all for a reason. There are many things that I enjoy doing in each season and certain things in nature only happen during certain seasons.

How high can you fly!

Last night

Last night Andrew came to see me after he got off of work. We made supper, visited, and worked on my teaching things for today. Things go faster with two people and the work is less. :) I put Andrew to work with correcting papers and writing out "problems of the day."

Thanksgiving Weekend Out West

Rebecca and I made an enjoyable trip out to the Ranch, doing some shopping in Aberdeen on the way. We started our black friday shopping at noon this year. I helped Anthony make a cover for our new water tank so it won't freeze.

Rebecca spent some time talking with Grandpa Dean, they seem to really get along well.

I had to cut a little wood to keep us warm.

We had lots of quality time spent canning, looking at wildlife, visiting with family, and just relaxing somewhere and talking.

Jodi served an excellent supper which was followed by entertainment from Madelyn and Blake which included singing, dancing, piano playing, and then we played a couple games of Skipo.

Blake is quite the entertainer and a big fan of Rebecca.

Blake that that I would look better with some lip stick, so I thought I would give it a try.

What an enjoyable time.

Bringing home food for the family

As I came home from working at the Norswiss Dairy after dark, I was talking to my sweetheart on the cell when I saw a deer on the road. I slowed down and the deer moved off the road, but another deer then ran right in front of me and I could not miss it. I wasn't going very fast, so the deer was meerly dazed. I told Rebecca that I had to take care of the deer. So I put it down and threw it in the trunk. When I got home I called the game warden and told him the situation. He said that I could keep it, so a couple days later when Rebecca came home for the weekend, we butchered it with the help of Paul, Melanie, and Marty.

Rebecca is certainly not grossed out by butchering anything and knows that food doesn't just come from the grocery store. She is holding half of the deer in the pictures.

Weekend with Denise....

A few weekends ago, Andrew had to return to Lemmon to do some farming business. I decided to go visit a friend that I met in college, Denise. I went there on a Saturday morning, just in time for a late breakfast. We did a little bit of shopping in a nearby town and then just hung out at her apartment. Later that night we caught up at her classroom working on school stuff. It's amazing what you can gather from another teaching friend. It's fun to go into other classrooms and gather ideas....we finished the night out after working hard with a movie and supper.

Flowers on Tuesday....

Andrew was back in Lemmon this past weekend, so after he returned on Monday, he came to my house on Tuesday to see me. And, when I opened the door, there he stood--along with some flowers! It was a perfect way to end the evening after conferences at the school.........
---R

The Best Part of the Day

This is what I opened my mailbox to one day last week... (and if you can't read the envelope very easily, it's a letter from Andrew...) It's a good end to the day! :)

My School

A couple of weeks ago, the students at the school I teach at wanted to show us around their colony. So, we made an afternoon of it and took a walk around the colony. The colony had just gotten a few sheep the day before and the kids had not seen them yet. One of the highlights of the walk for them was going down to see the sheep. We got their just as 2 Hutterite men were going to give them vaccinations. After trying to get the sheep out of the barn for awhile, we decided that standing on the fence watching the sheep was probably scaring the sheep from coming out. So, we backed up, and then the sheep soon came out of the barn.

This colony mainly has turkies (about 90,000) and makes pallets that get shipped out to customers. They also have a few pigs and just recently--- 17 lambs and 1 big buck.

The excitement of the school week was the arrival of the lambs and the buck. Apparently the buck was wild and a teenage-boy chose to ride it for fun----made for good stories that the kids came with to school the next day!

Ready to watch the sheep come out of the barn and head into the coral area to get vaccinations.

And the sheep weren't coming with us all on the fence, so we decided to back up---and they soon came running out.

I walked with the older girls on our walk. We made quite a trek around the colony seeing everything.

This is about half of the students from the school. We stopped for a picture outside of the laundry building.

Fall has arrived

This last weekend, I went home to my parents house and helped Andrew do some fall activities. We cleaned up the garden (took down tomato cages, took down wire around the garden, picked the potatos, hauled in the pumpkins and squash) and also made this cute fall scene. I like to make a fall scene with the old corn stalks and use pumpkins from the garden.

Andrew at his best

In the basement of my house, I have a woodstove/cookstove. Last time that Andrew came up to see me, he made supper on it. Although it took a little while to cook, it tasted good!

Me and my niece

My 10 year old niece Kayla and I practiced hitting the baseball last weekend....she's a pretty good ball player...her brother Ethan hit the ball a few times as well as taking pictures and recording it on his phone.

Bringing in the Hay

Rebecca, Paul, and I spent a good part of the day hauling round hay bales in from the field. Rebecca and I stopped for a picture by the beautiful trees in autumn.

Paul built another hay wagon out of an old chevy truck but we will need to put more horses on it as it is a bit heavier but can hold 11 bales. It is nice that both of us like horses because it is a lot easier to do use them with two people. I have also learned a lot from Paul's horse experience.My soon to be Bride and I stopped for another picture. It was a wonderful day!

One Step closer to getting HITCHED

Less than an hour after becoming engaged(9-18-10 8:30 p.m.), we are two of the happiest people in Sioux County North Dakota. We spent most of the day hauling bales, but ended it with a big bang. I have never had a doubt in my mind that Rebecca was the ONE, but have always prayed that she would think that I am the One as well. Thankfully she must, because she said YES and took the ring. We aren't sure yet when we will get married but I am extremely excited for that next step in our relationship.

The Sparkling Ring!

Rebecca's superintendent's mother lived in Morristown.

I had never seen Sitting Bulls Grave, so we made the four mile detour close to Mobridge and took in the beutiful view of the Missouri River.

A New School Year

This is a picture of the school kids that I have this year...This is my 2nd year of teaching at White Rock Colony School. This year I'm teaching 3-8th grade math and 1st-8th grade science. I have 13 students in the 3rd-8th grade. The year is off to a good start. This is the start of the 5th week of school.

Last Sunday

We started off the day by going to church. I was the organist at our church this last Sunday....something I do one or two times a month. It's fun to play and it's a good chance to use all of my piano music that I have. I like to play the piano before and after the service for pre and postlude music.

After church, we went out to eat at a new restaurant in Watertown--The Italian Garden--but I forgot to capture the moment with a picture....Following dinner we went on to Huron, SD for the State Fair. The summer is not complete without the state fair!

We went on the Ferris Wheel and this is a picture from the top! We also looked at all of the animals, went through the vendor building and ate some fair food.