2017 went by so quickly, I wasn’t prepared for the holidays this past season and barely
even got around to ordering New Year greeting cards for our friends and family!
While
at first I felt not much had changed on the Homestead this year, looking back,
we had quite a few new additions. In January, we added a male boer goat, Mr.
Billy Goat, which resulted in our females having babies in June. Sunny had twin
girls on June 10th (London’s birthday), both of which we sold off to
be family pets. Roxie had a lone male kid (June 2nd), who we have
kept. We also added a wethered pygmy goat for London, who she named Murray
Christmas. She will be showing him this summer for 4-H. The last addition to
the herd was an unexpected surprise. We had a random Ram show up early one
morning but he won’t be around much longer. We estimate him to be between 15-18
months old, which means he’s about ready for processing.
Our
garden was almost a complete loss this year. We literally, as a family, played
the live version of “Wack-a-mole”. First, we planted late due to all the rain.
Keeping up with the weeding proved to be a challenge as well and soon it was over
run over by mice & voles. Poor Sophie couldn’t keep up. All the flooding last
winter caused all the vermin to move closer to the house. As we begin to think
about our 2018 garden plan, one thing we need to resolve is the rodent problem.
At least we have another barn cat. We had a young orange tabby show up on our
property over the summer. He was so skinny at the time that we didn’t have high
hopes, but we started to leave food out for him and Slim is no longer so slim.
He now let’s us get within a few feet of him and even Sophie, the anit-cat cat
has adjusted to his presence.
The
chickens from last year have survived and we again raised a couple of turkeys
for Thanksgiving dinner again. The taste of the fresh eggs and turkeys just
can’t be beat.
In the
Fall, we said goodbye to full time daycare (at least until Summer arrives). Due
to Sydney’s October birthday, she qualified for Transitional Kindergarten,
better known as TK. Because the girls’ school is so small, the TK class is the
Kindergarten class. And we were pleased to hear at our Parent-Teacher
conference in October that Sydney was doing well, so well in fact that she is
actually doing the full kindergarten curriculum and will continue to be graded
as a kindergartner throughout the rest of the year. We’re still not sure if we
want her to move on to 1st Grade next year as we still question her maturity
level. We’ll make that decision in March.
Sydney was
also able to start officially participating in 4-H this past Fall. I continue
to lead the Baking project which both of the girls thoroughly enjoy. We meet
about once a month. Both girls are also involved in the Arts & Crafts and
gardening groups. We’ll get Sydney started in Pygmy Goats in a year or two,
though she goes to the meetings now anyhow. London was part of that group last
year, but this will be her first year with an actual goat to take to meetings.
London
is doing great in 2nd Grade. As her teacher started our Parent-Teacher
conference, she is one smart cookie. She is testing near the top of her class
and above average for the state. She’s reading at almost a 4th grade
reading level and loves to read too. Sometimes the house will get real quiet
and I will find her with curled up with a pile of books beside her. And now she
has several series of chapter books to work through. Over the summer London
traveled by herself for the first time, flying to Tucson to spend a week with
my parents. She spent several days at a Hotel/Casino with them swimming almost
the entire time – I think she only went inside the hotel to sleep!
We, as
a family, joined the world of organized sports last spring. Cameron and I
coached the girls’ T-Ball team. We had a tiny team, literally. Several of the
girls on the team turned 4 the month before we started the season and even the size
Small shirts looked like dresses on almost all the kids, minus London and two
other girls who will all move on to a coach-pitch team this spring.
In
April, Cameron and I snuck away for a week-long vacation to Dominican Republic
with several of our friends and friends of friends – who have since become dear
friends too. It was a trip two years in the making and was designed to replace
our annual wine trip to celebrate all our birthdays. That is because Cameron
and several others turned 40 in 2017! We had a blast on the trip, which started
by flying first class, for the first time. We took a red-eye so we mainly slept
our way there. We stayed at Excellence El Carmen, an all-inclusive that had
only opened in September 2016. Our suite had its own private pool which I
enjoyed relaxing next too. We ventured off property a couple of time. We toured
a cigar factory one day, went horseback riding on the beach another and zip
lining through the jungle on a third day. It’s a beautiful country but the
poverty levels are unbelievable. It was nice to see that our resort provided
quality housing for its employees on the actual property.
This
seemed to be the year of travel for me. On New Year’s Eve, as I reflected back
with friends, I realized I had traveled every month of the year except for
January, July, August & November. And only two of those trips were for
pleasure. I attended conferences in Omaha (June), Charlotte (September) &
Houston (October), attended an offsite meeting in Napa (March) and three weeks
of leadership training took me to Seattle (February), Phoenix (May) & San
Diego (June). My leadership training was an amazing experience and I met some
great people from other Cat Dealerships throughout Arizona, California &
Nevada. But gosh did all the travel make for one crazy quick year. Because of
the traveling I never got into a good running routine, and only ran in one race
this year, my 5th Run to Feed the Hungry 10K on Thanksgiving. This
year I am resolving to run much more, working to establish a training schedule
at home and scheduled to run a 10K on Superbowl Sunday.
With my
trip to Phoenix, I was able to head out a few days early. I took Sydney with me
and we spent the weekend with my parents in Tucson. Sydney stayed for the week
with them, getting to meet my Aunt Maryanne, cousin-in-law Amber and her daughter,
Stella, who is just a few months younger than Sydney. The two had a blast and
Sydney can’t wait to see Stella over Spring break in April.
The
first week of December, Cameron’s mom, my parents, the girls, Cameron and I
headed to Hawaii to celebrate an early tropical Christmas. This time we went to
the island of Maui, staying at the Wailea Beach Villas, in an amazing 3 bedroom
penthouse with great views of the ocean, Molokini and the sunsets each night.
We even saw whales jumping and spraying from our lanai. With a fully stocked
kitchen, we ended up eating in most of the trip. We spent most mornings down on
the beach and afternoons by the pool. The place was pretty quiet so most days
we had the pool and spa to ourselves. One day we did venture out to the Maui
Ocean Center, an amazing aquarium. It turned out to be the perfect day since it
was very windy. After lunch we headed up a winding road to Maui Winery, where
we tasted a wine made out of fermented pineapple juice. While it definitely was
sweet, it was still very enjoyable.
Cameron
celebrated his 5th year with Armstrong Medical. Hunting remains his
number one interest with Tulley almost always by his side. She won’t even look
at him for a day or two if he heads out without her, and boy does she know when
he does that! When it’s not hunting season, Cameron is busy with projects around
the property.
He has
spent much of his free time this year moving dirt around our property. He is
trying to build up a new pasture for the goats that won’t flood when it rains
while also slowly digging out a pond in another part. Little did he realize, instead of digging a
pond, he ended up leveling an area for the girls to ride bikes and scooters.
London received a new bike from Santa this year and it doesn’t have training
wheels. Our driveway isn’t level or a great place to learn but after a walk out
back on Christmas, we all realized that this area was perfect. In two short
lessons, London was riding on her own. Of course, now as I write this letter,
the rain has arrived, so it may be a while before she can get back out again.
Another
big change that occurred this year is that the girls decided to share a bedroom
and turn London’s room into a playroom. Now they only have to keep one room
clean all the time and the playroom only has to be cleaned once a week. This
also means that both girls get both dogs each night. Tulley still tends to
sleep with Sydney and Gibson with London.
We did
have to change the handle on the girls’ bedroom door to a knob. Jake, one of
the indoor cats, kept breaking into the girls’ room to go snuggle with London
at night. This would result in one or both dogs coming to sleep with us and
even Sydney sometimes. Two labs on our bed, along with a possible child and
Kelsey, our other indoor cat resulted in no sleep for both Cameron & me.
Jake must now settle for weekend morning snuggles with the girls. Kelsey
remains pretty much the same, preferring the safe refuge of our bedroom and bed
23 hours a day.
I do
hope to get our blog back up and running this year. As much as I had adventures
and pictures to share, I just didn’t have the time or energy in 2017 with all
the travel and commitments. Stay tuned to see if I can keep up with 2018!
Love,
Cameron,
Sarah, London (7) and Sydney (5) Cenedella
