I.V. day! I was a little nervous at the beginning of the day, but with Ian's good teaching, I was quite confident by the time it came to sticking & being stuck with the needle. :)



At the beginning of the day, we started with doing hemoglobin tests - the finger prick with the lancet. That hurt. Then we injected oranges with water till they were squirting out... :D



After that, we talked about IV's for a long time, then we each took a turn at sticking & being stuck. I hit Sarah's vein, but by the time that I noticed it, I had already poked through the other side, & so I wasn't able to leave the drip going. Sarah got my vein the first time.....it hurt....but I watched the whole time & after the catheter was inserted, almost died from laughing! ;D



I still think that I woudn't be thrilled if I knew that I would be stuck again, but it was very amazing & I am much more confident with running tests & IVs.



Here is a picture after the IV is in and running. Sarah is in the yellow & Vicki is on the side.

Another picture of the IV.....

I am in Boise visiting friends & taking a Midwifery class!! We are on our second day of skills training, & have learned a lot!! This class goes for 6 days, except for Thursday where we will spend the day at the Hot Springs!! I am looking forward to it :)

Check out www.FollowingGodInAfrica.blogspot.com for some pictures & videos of our stay in Africa. Don't hesitate to write a comment asking questions on our stay, etc!

Our 4th of July was so much fun! We spent it with the Harneds & Arndts...


Some volley ball games! (volley ball is my latest sport!) :)

A wonderful dinner......

And of course, lots of fun fireworks!!

Isn't this a neat picture.......

The guys had so much fun lighting and deciding which firework should go first, if there should be a couple at once, and what would have the greatest effect on the listeners!! :)

Oh, and of course the goats couldn't stay away :)

I know that it has been awhile, but I have been told by a few friends that they continue to glance here, so I will try to get back into writing!!! :)

The latest news is that Birch kidded prematurly with twin girls. They are thriving and in less then a week have gained a pound!

This is Hekima. In Swahili, an African language, Hekima means wisdom. Hekima was the smallest baby of the two. She weighed in at 4 1/2 to 5 pounds!

This is Joy.

Happy Birthday Jenna!!! Jenna is now 2 years old and growing fast! I am so thankful that God brought her into our family! :)
This picture is going on our wall!! It was definately the highlight of Jenna's "picture taking time"! :)

This picture is going on our wall!! It was definately the highlight of Jenna's "picture taking time"! :)

Our family had so much fun skiing this year!! We went to Silver Mountain as they had a homeschool discount. Here is a picture of Silver Mountain. ( I can't get the picture any bigger, or else it will pixalate.)


Jenna had so much fun skiing!!
Or should I say eating snowballs......:)

This is Jenna's aunt Alissa. Alissa didn't ski, as there will be a new addition to the family in June! :)

Jenna absolutly loves animals!! The dogs really relish her love for them.Her is Indian Princess Jenna! She is quite the sport, always loving to be outside and wear something on her head!

Also, she enjoys being high and free like a bird!

We are so blessed that God sent her our way. The adoption was finalized a few weeks ago, so she is officially ours. Praise the Lord!!

If you would like to follow our African adventure, please check out www.followingGodinAfrica.blogspot.com

Hello Everyone,

I am in Centralius (sp) Washington right now. Centralius is located about 2 hours south of Seattle. My family is here to celebrate all the late April birthdays and Kayla's 11th birthday + my 18th birthday!! We had a great drive listening to story tapes almost constantly!! :) It really helped us pass the 6 hour drive. We are going to be leaving for home tomorrow.

We were able to take this trip thanks to Cherish, Jenna's Aunt. She is staying at our home taking care of our many animals. Kasaw, one of my Alpine does and a few of the babies came down sick two days before we had to leave. What bad timing!! I am thankful that Cherish knows about goats and will be able to take care of them well.

Hasta luego!

Corbin, my brother, & I are planning on leaving for Africa on September 15!! We are very excited........& a touch nervous :), but I think that it will be a great experiance. We will fly out of Seattle & land in London. There we will meet up with the Bentons, a family that we have been friends with since I was 7 & who have been missionaries in Tanzania for 6 years.

After we meet them in London, we will get on another plane which will take us to the Rukwa Valley in Tanzania. We will spend a month there ministering & playing with the African children, helping a missionary doctor, & possibly teaching English.

Then we will meet up with Uncle Steve & drive to Lusaka, Zambia and spend a month there.

Corbin & I are really excited to have this opportunity to see if God wants this for our lives. I have been interested in being a midwife/missionary in Africa for a while, so this is a dream come true!!

We have bought our tickets & are now in the process of deciding about shots. I will try to keep you all updated as we make plans and see how this process unfolds.

Here is Lacey, my new horse! She is very sweet and well-trained. I got her a couple weeks ago, but wasn't able to ride her but once as we noticed that she had a funny gait-almost like a limp-with one of her back legs. We had the vet out on Friday, and she informed us that Lacey had 'string halt', which occurs sometimes when a horse hurts their leg & tendon. She reassured us that I could still ride her & that it shouldn't get worse! I was so grateful!! I am now riding her almost daily & really enjoying it. She is a little spirited, but I can still control her easily. It is so nice not to have to worry about her doing anything crazy. I have taken her on the road a couple of times and down our railroad tracks.

Here is Trip-Kasaw's 1st born.

Here is Emma (on log) & Boyer-Kasaw's other two kids.

Meet Oreo (on log) & M&M-Rejoice's kids

Time has flown! Deb had triplets on March 31. Those babies didn't want to leave their warm enviroment, but they are happy now to be able to play and jump around! Deb had 2 boys and a girl. The first boy was born with a front foot looped over his head. Then the girl and boy came quickly and easily. I named the girl Gracie and the boys Henry and Dirk.



April 9th showed that Rejoice and Gloria would be giving birth that day. Rejoice acted a lot closer, "pretending" to push, then getting up and going out to eat. Finally, I thought "this is it"!

But, again she waited and decided that she didn't like the idea of having babies. So, I headed into the house and watched her from the windows. She began pushing almost immediately in real earnest. I waited though for a while, as I didn't want her to change her mind again. When I did go back out, two feet and a nose were showing, but the baby was just not coming. I pulled and pulled and pulled. Still nothing was happening. I began to wonder if two kids were coming at once and I was pulling on two different legs instead. I tried to find where the legs connected and see if I could if it was one or two babies there. I decided that it was the same baby and pulled very hard on both legs. Finally the head slipped out and out came this MONSTER baby!!!!!! He was a buckling of course. Then about 30 seconds after he was born, two more feet again presented. I stood up to catch it, but the baby was too fast for me!!! It was a girl. She is big, but a much more manageble size. :)

The girl is standing up, the boy is laying down.

I had to leave in an hour to pick up my new buckling. My buck was getting too intertwined in my lines, so I needed a new one. Gloria was eating, but beginning to act much closer. I wasn't sure if she would wait for my return or not.



Linda had 6 bucklings for me to choose from and 3 doelings. One of her goats had given birth that day to quads!! I looked all the babies over carefully and finally decided on a girl from the quad batch and a boy from the Dam who produced the most.

Here is the buckling.

Here is my doeling.

When we got back home, I hurried over to where Gloria stood------there was a dear beautiful BIG buckling standing next to here. Gloria is a pretty small goat and when she was pregnant and I would feel for babies, there was "baby" all over in her belly. This boy is a big one. Not quite as big as Rejoice's, but big nevertheless.

I thought that I was done for a week, hadn't I just added 5 babies to my herd in one day? But, Hazal began acting really strange two days later. I thought something was wrong with her as she didn't eat or drink anything. I was getting a little worried. The next morning, she still wasn't eating or drinking. Her ligiments were still there, her udder was tight, but there wasn't much milk in there, and she wasn't due for at least 3 more days. I left with Grandma and Mom to pick up some medicine for her and when I got back, changed and headed out to give her the medicine. I noticed that there were some brown shapes over near here and when I got up to her, there were 3 babies. One still had a the sac over his nose, so I reached down and pulled it off right away. It was too late, he had died. The other two kids were doing okay. There was 2 boys and 1 girl in that batch. The boy that died was solid brown. I find it really interesting that she had three. She is deep, but I thought that there was room for one normal sized one or 2 small ones. Not three!! 'Course the girl only weighed 4.8 pounds and the boys weren't much bigger!! The surviving ones are doing really well. In 3 days, I have added 7 babies to my herd!!!



Only one more goat to go, and she is looking really close herself!! Quite busy to say the least!!

Here is a Colloge of my baby goats!!