A Day at the Farm with Brooks!

A trip to the farm finally!! My Boss, the vet where I work has been wanting Jaycie (and the rest of us)to come to the farm so he could show her around and get her to help him in the garden!! Brad was finally able to get a Saturday worked out so he could go, and we made the trip!

It was a little over a 2 hour drive-down near Hico- to their "little" 250 acre farm. Jaycie of course did fine, just asking the infamous "are we there yet?" quite a bit. She was ready to be there with Brooks! Kaylie just doesn't like the car and complained, but we finally made it. We usually offer to put in the DVDs for Jaycie on longer trips like this, but she didn't even want it, she just wanted to be there! And we of course took Cowboy with us! That was even more excitement for Jaycie! Jaycie loved having Cowboy there, and their dog Millie too! Cowboy was scared of Millie some, she was just so much bigger than him. It was pretty funny!! He wanted to play, and would run at millie, but anytime Millie came at him, he ran with his tail tucked and hid behind us!

We finally got there and our little Odyssey somehow made it up their monstrous mountain driveway -not paved - ALL rocky road!! We might take Brooks up on the offer to meet us at the bottom and drive us up in his truck next time!! We got out and settled and they showed us around the house. It is decorated beautifully and looks like a old rustic bed n breakfast with the rooms set up upstairs. Both the girls loved the stairs and every time Jaycie had to go potty, she HAD to go upstairs and use the bathroom upstairs! Then it was about lunch time, so i fed Kaylie her food and Brooks' wife Jo offered to make Jaycie Mac n cheese - which made her day!! I think she just about ate the whole box herself!! It was probably a good ting Kaylie can't eat mac n cheese!! Probably because Jo didn't put broccoli in it like Mommy does!! Brooks had smoked some chicken on the smoker for us and they put together a real nice lunch for us.

Brooks kept asking what the girls liked to eat and stuff, and i kept telling him not to worry about it, i would bring them stuff. Well, we got there and he had gotten Kaylie her favorite dried blueberries from Sams - the big bag - and juice boxes and fresh strawberries for dessert- Jaycie's favorite!! So much for not worrying about it!! From what i understand it wasn't just Brooks - Jo too!!

Then we finally bundled up - yea the one bad thing was the weather had turned cold the day before!- and headed out to the garden! jaycie helped plant some potatoes and cover the onions with some hay! She really liked it and was listening to everything Brooks said! She didn't even mind too much getting her hands dirty!!

We also went over and looked at their "Sunday" house that they had lived in while building their new one. It's just like a little bitty efficiency, but would be perfect for us to come and stay for a night or two! It has a huge front screened in porch that you could even sleep out on! And they say you can see ALL of the stars from there! They asked us to come spend the night, so we'll have to do that this spring, when we are sure the weather is going to be a little warmer than what it was that weekend!

Then we went and saw the greenhouse and another big hit, the tractor!! I think this is where we spent most of our time. Jaycie got up first to drive and it didn't take long for Kaylie protesting cuz she wanted up there too! Jo showed her what all the levers and petals were for. I stood in front and would say "go" and she would press the gas and shift the gears, then i would say "stop" and she would jump off the gas petal and pull the off lever. Then she had to give mom a ride and then a family pic!

Then we went over to see the mulch piles, where Brooks ran Jaycie up the side of one and took her up to the top! Jaycie really does love Brooks, he plays with her and talks to her all the time at the clinic and then this weekend he took her and showed her all of this fun stuff! Then he takes off and does something silly like run up the mulch pile!! I think the feeling is pretty mutual - he says he really likes when the girls and I come up to the clinic on Tuesdays to "work". We're really lucky to have him in our lives!

After that, it was time to go in and get warmed up in front of the fire! We had all gotten pretty cold outside!! After hanging out a bit, we realized just how late it was getting and decided we should probably start "packing up" and heading home!

We really enjoyed our day out there! It was a lot of fun! Good company, good times, good food, all equals "must do it again!" I told Brooks and Jo thanks for taking a day to entertain our family, cuz we definitely move at a different speed than what Brooks is used to, so I hope they really know how much it meant to us!