She's here!

This may be the only way we can have a female baby at this house but we've got a new foal! Got up this morning and there she was, standing with her head through the fence. Amanda and I went out and rubbed all over her and got her imprinted on us. Missy didn't seem to mind at all. Wasn't until the baby went to nurse that we realized that mama wasn't to keen on that baby crawling under her and sucking on her. She tried to kick the baby. We got on to her and tried to direct the baby in from the side instead of coming back behind mama and mama still was pinning her ears back and getting ready to kick, and Missy is not a mean horse at all. Missy and the baby wandered around and baby got behind her and Missy did get a kick in on her. We called the vet and they said they have a foal in there right now that the mother wasn't letting nurse and was kicking. They said try blindfolding the mare and ease the baby up there. If that didn't work, bring them in. Well I put a towel over Missy's head and she was ok with that... for about 30 seconds. Amanda says let's take them in. I carried the foal to the round pen so Missy wouldn't kill it and Amanda goes in to get the boys up. Missy started getting antsy because she wasn't by the baby I so run get her and bring her over. I was glad she wanted her baby. I held Missy and started expressing milk from her myself as the foal was nuzzling her. I slowly directed the foal back while praising Missy and pretty soon the foal was nursing. Got her to nurse one side, then walked her around to the other side and had her nurse there. Vet said we need to keep an eye on them today but, with all Missy has been through and with her leg being swollen and one of her teats also, it makes sense that she wasn't too keen on letting the baby nurse. They're gonna come out this afternoon and make sure the foal is getting enough and Amanda is going to have to be watching all day and make sure Missy doesn't get grumpy again but we gave Missy a larger dose of bute (painkiller) and between that and having nursed now, we think they'll be good to go.


While we were doing all this I was thinking how difficult it was when Garrett was born and he wouldn't latch on and nurse. Amanda was trying so hard and doing everything the nurses and Dr's said but it just wasn't working. Lots of women had told her "oh, it's so easy, it's so natural." Whatever. It may be, or it may not be. Garrett never did nurse really well. Luke did. With our horses the first two mares did great. Missy isn't. It depends on the mom, on the baby, depends on how much you're willing to try and be patient. With Garrett we didn't know soon enough for Amanda to pump and put it in a bottle so he had to go back in to the hospital and get an IV and sit under the tanning lamp, at least that's what I called it, to get his billirubins down. With Luke, it was easy. What matters is what I was thinking when the foal got up from her nap and went to nurse for the second time - what a blessing! The baby, how God made mothers perfectly built to care for their babies, and capable of learning when it doesn't necessarily come easy. So awesome. Just a week and half ago we thought Missy might not live and here she is healthy, well pretty skinny but with a healthy baby by her side and they're both doing well. So many awesome blessings.


If y'all want to come see the foal just holler at us and make sure we're around and come on out. We still need a name for the little girl too!

Soon, very soon!!!

No, this isn't our foal but Missy's baby should be coming soon!!! She's got colostrum now so we should have a baby pretty quick. We've had two foals here in the past and we weren't sure exactly when either of them was coming. Just got up one morning and there they were. Missy is penned up by the house now since she's getting over her illness. She had one of her legs swell up even after that so we had to do extra meds and Amanda is hydroing her leg twice a day. Because of that we've been checking the leg every day and watching her teats since we're right there looking at her leg. Two days ago nothing out of them. Tonight Amanda had me check and I tried to squeeze a little milk out and ended up squirting a huge stream. After all Missy and this baby have been through recently we really hope the baby is o.k.. The Dr's said it could still be sick when it hit the ground. We're praying for a healthy foal.

We haven't talked about a name for the baby. Don't know if it's a filly or colt, what color or anything. Daddy was a sorrell, Missy's a sorrell. Both of them have paint blood in them so it could be a paint. No telling! Post if you have any ideas of great horse names. We'll post a picture as soon as the baby gets here.

But, they're just too cute!

Do these look like killers? No way! Vet said they could have been the culprit of transmitting a disease to Lilly. We're waiting on a culture to tell us for sure but Missy, one of our other horses got sick with the same thing this week. She's pregnant and due any day now and she was also Amanda's first horse. We raced her in to the vet school because we knew how fast Lilly went down. Three days in isolation, two of them under ICU care but she is back home. We are sooo excited. They said the baby was doing bad at first but they checked again today and the baby looks good! Missy is separated from the other horses but she's getting the royal treatment. New water trough, new high dollar hay, extra feed, all her meds, she even gets yogurt to help replenish the good bugs in her gut.
It's possible that a wild bird transmitted something to the chickens and they transmitted it to the horses. But they're just too cute to be horse killers! These are actually brand new ones that we ordered and we know these guys are innocent. A couple of good looking long tailed brown and light brown leghorn roosters, some Americauna pullets (lay blue and green eggs) some puff heads and some other just cool looking birds. Can't wait for them to get big!

On a different animal note... I had two jobs in college that I didn't realize were teaching me parenting skills. One was in junior college - I cleaned out about 40 kennels each day at a dog boarding facility. The second job was at the Swine Center at A&M. I cleaned up after 100-135 hogs every day. How did those teach me parenting skills? Well, Luke walked out the front door and pooped and peed on the front step. Luckily I knew how to wash poop off of concrete, glad I had those jobs. I guess we've house trained Lukamus. Now if we could just house train the chihuahua.

These ain't no normal gophers...

I thought they were gophers. Nope. I've never seen gophers dig holes this big. See where the surface is?Notice the cave behind Chad & Will? Gophers are put to shame. Bears would be jealous. Earth moving contractors want to hire them. I need a backhoe to clean out the tub after they came in. Scrubbing bubbles won't do it. Think they are having fun? Oh yeah!
















They did finally get cleaned up. Tonight was dodgeball night. Once again, we didn't get all the good pics. Seriously, time to work on the photo skills! We're gonna try and scam some photos tomorrow from someone with a decent camera. Taking the memory stick and see if we can't steal a few snaps. Here's a great shot of, no, not action, just getting ready for action! (Notice our mascot in the goal. Only safe place for a stroller!)

Here's one of Chad after he got out. He does look pretty cool though doesn't he?!?! Should have seen him playing soccer after dodgeball. He was running over the adults. I overheard someone taunting adults on the other team - "you're getting smoked by a 4th grader". Actually he's a 5th grader if that's any consolation. I'm just glad he was on my team.
We've been having a blast having Chad and Will here this week and getting to hang out with everyone from church. Great fellowship time. Serious competition. I think I even heard some edifying trash talk. I didn't think it was possible but there was some good natured ribbing and a lot of uplifting. It was fun with the adults and kids playing together and working hard as teams.
You know what I'm amazed about? It wasn't my kid stuck in the creek! It was one of Garrett's best friends that we'll leave unnamed but his initials are HH and we go to his house every week. Just like Garrett, "Forget the path, let's go this way!"

Gophers and kickball

We have gophers. Big ones, the two legged kind. Had 6 of 'em today. 2 of ours, 2 nephews, and 2 boys from church. I'm glad we limited them to under the trampoline, somebody might break a leg. Had to make sure nobody was jumping while they were digging. Can you say headache? Last time our nephews left I spent hours filling in holes. 4 boys can really dig but 6 today, WOW! They're a lot of fun. By the end of the day Amanda was tired but good times. We're glad we get to have the boys for spring break. They planted my garden for me Sunday afternoon, we have some great video game tournaments in the evenings, lots of wrestling. It rocks! Chad, the oldest nephew, just walked up and said they had 13 holes and 20 interconnecting tunnels. Impressive.

Tonight we met a bunch of people from church at a Mexican food joint then we all went to Austin's Colony park and had a game of kickball. Regulation kickball, brand new bases. Precisely spaced bases and pitcher's mound (at least as precise as we could step them off). Then we picked teams. It became husband's against wives, parents against children. As our buddy Matt said, it was biblical. My team won. Amanda's team lost. She said the teams were unfair. Patrick picked everyone on Amanda's team. Heather picked ours. Does that mean that Heather is a better coach than Patrick? Hmmm.
That's both teams, or what was left by the time the game was over. Heather's camera is better than ours so go check her blog. She'll probably have pictures up soon. The Garner zoo +2 is down bottom right. See the shadows? Yeah, that's us!

Sad, sad, sad

OK, so my grieving process is different from some peoples. Deal with it. The picture is Lilly's grave. (No, she's not in there in the picture.) Lilly was a 5 year old palamino filly we kind of inherited from my brother. She passed away this weekend. Serious colic. Vet did what he could and we thought she was doing better that night. Nope. I made the long ramp for her grave so I could slide her in. I didn't want to drop the poor girl in a 6' hole. That's disrespectful. Amanda doesn't like the picture. Makes her sad. I like it because I could help her have a decent burial at least. Luke was telling everyone at church that Daddy was burying Lilly. Amanda said several people did double takes. "What did he say?" Garrett picked some of those little white flowers that grow like weeds in the yard. As soon as he got out of the truck he had me show him the grave so he could put the flowers on the grave. He's got a good heart. The good news is Bumper is back in the house. He's my heeler that I got when Amanda and I were just dating. One of the first times she saw him she had come over to the house and I was outside doing something. Came back in and she was laying on the couch watching tv with Bumper. I was not happy, he's not allowed on furniture. Somehow he and Amanda both won. Go figure. He's11 now. Can't hear really well. His poor ears have shriveled. He can't jump in the back of the truck anymore. He sleeps by my bed on an old quilt. He's happy. So am I.

Surf's up, dude!

You should have seen Garrett on the body board. First wave he rode all the way in. It was awesome! On the way out he would ride the board and I'd make him jump the waves like a jet ski then he'd turn around and ride a big one in. The kid's like a labrador retriever "Can we get in the water, huh, huh, please, can we get in the water, let's go, hurry up, yeah, yeah, let's go!" He loved the beach!

Luke liked the big sandbox at the beach. We had the boy's tonka toys and Luke drove his dump truck all over the beach hauling sand, shells, water, and then daddy hauled Luke around. I think he kept hearing Garrett ask about sharks or something so maybe that's why he stayed on the beach. He liked the waves as long as I held him and jumped over the waves and hollered a bunch. Laughed his little head off then.

We went fishing Saturday night off the T-head at the hotel. Caught a croaker and an eel. Disgusting! Sucker swallowed the hook too. Stepped on him to try and hold him down so maybe I could get the hook. Yeah, he wrapped around my foot. Lady fishing by us asked if he shocked me when he did that. "No ma'am, that species isn't on the Texas coast." Why did I have to catch a freak wanna-be snake 1,000 feet out in the gulf? That's just not right. Garrett and Luke loved seeing it but I was done fishing by then. Dad told me later that Asians love to eat eel. Nope. Sorry. Not even on survivor.

Now this is a scary thought. Amanda, Garrett and Luke in the torpedo room of a WWII submarine. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!!! Yes, those are torpedos on either side below the bunks. We toured the last remaining WWII era sub credited with sinking an aircraft carrier and also toured a WWII destroyer escort. If you haven't ever toured a sub, they are tight. No room to move around, really cramped. Luke loaded his diaper in the middle of the tour. My guess is that the people behind us weren't excited that I had to look at every switch, valve, door, nut, bolt, everything on the entire boat.

This was our first real family vacation. Only two days but what a blast! Oh, next time you're in Galveston stop at the Spot. It's on seawall drive. They converted an old house into a restaurant and added on to it a little. Got the pictures in a photo album at the entrance. Great burgers. Lots of meat, homemade buns, seasoned waffle fries. Kids meals come with a cookie from the in-house bakery. Sit on the upstairs patio.

My wife rocks!

" Her children arise and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:
Many women do noble things,
But you surpass them all." Pr. 31:28-29

That's my girl! Friday, August 17th, 2001 I caught her and tied her down with a little gold ring. Saturday, August 18th,2001 we arrived at the B&B in the picture above. Today we celebrated Garrett's 5th birthday. Tomorrow we celebrate our 6th anniversary. Am I glad? Yup. I suuuure am.

I told her one of the reasons I wanted to marry her was because she made me "better than I was, more than I am". Yes, it's a line from a Tim McGraw song but it's really true. She makes me grow. She's helped me grow in my career, helped me be a better dad, helped me see what God's love and strength can really do. When I wasn't worthy of being followed, she stepped up and said, no, make that SHOWED that God said her role was to submit and love me. Yes, we talked about it and always have known that's what God said but to see her really do it. Awesome.

My wife is smart (how many people ACE college physics????), she's funny (especially when she's not trying to be!), she is an awesome mom (gave up her job so she could stay home with our boys), she's a cutie (I love that smile!), she's MY girl!

I LOVE YOU GRACIE!

Check out this recipe!!!

I bought this cookbook along with a bunch of others at an auction several years ago. Our nephews are coming to stay with us most of the week this week so Amanda was looking for some good recipes. She opens the book and is looking around and Garrett bumped the book and papers started falling out of the back of the book. I made Garrett go sit at the other side of the table to play and Amanda kept looking. As she turned pages, this cute little red envelope falls out. I saw that envelope and knew immediately what it was. The question was, was there anything still in it??? I picked it up and YES!!! Not only was there something in it but there was a $50 something in it! Crisp. Clean Straight from the bank. Poof, there it was! There should have been a drum roll and smoke and strobe lights! It was awesome!

Now for the significance of this. We just started tithing again. Well, Amanda did. She does the check book and she's always been more dedicated than me about that. We had slacked off about it but now that she's home with the boys and we only have one income she felt that, hey, we've trusted God this far, we had better trust him all the way. She has been giving our tithe and last night I also pulled my cash stash out of my wallet and put my secret reserve in the plate. I have auction money sometimes and I wanted to save it for something but I felt God telling me to put it in the plate just like Amanda has been feeling God tell us, "Give Me your tithe." Then today, God shows up and shows out. We both listened and did what God told us and he blesses us.

Malachi 3:10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Ryan said blog some more so....

Since Ryan is the only person who has found our blog, we'll use his awesome pictures of the boys from Hope Group this week. Luke was zonked from VBS and Garett was, well Garrett. That boy never stops having fun. Full of energy and a heart of gold. In fact, he said one of the most awesome things this week. Amanda and I were talking about what if there was another rugrat and we asked Garrett "What would you do if you had another little brother?" His answer - "I'd love on him."

He hit it right on the head, didn't he?!?! Nothing more basic than that. I think most of us thought that way when we were his age - back when we were innocent, before we'd been burned. Before we'd seen what the world has to offer us. Garrett is old enough to have started seeing just a tad of what the world has to offer us but, you know what, he still loves everyone and everything. Sure, he gets upset and mad. He's human. When it boils down to it though, his heart shines through. When he's excited to go see his friends, when he's making friends with people he's never met (yeah, you know Garrett, talking to everyone!). He doesn't want to see anyone or anything get hurt. Not even the bugs that make Amanda scream bloody murder. He's got his mamma's heart and the joy of the Lord. Always laughing, always having fun, never met someone that he doesn't like. Makes you want some of what he has, doesn't it.

2He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:2-4

1st Aggie Baseball Game

The Aggies beat the defending national champions Friday night and we got to watch it. Live and in person. O.K., we only lasted until the 7th inning stretch but the game was already in the bag. It was cold and I told Amanda we couldn't take a blanket (bad idea!) so we were freezing and Garrett was ready for bed. Not to mention, Luke had loaded his diaper up and we didn't want the people around us to tell us to leave so...

It was a great game. We sat in the cheap seats out in right field so the boys could play. Had a couple of fouls go right over our head, students all around us harassing the first base coach and the right fielder. Hot dogs, a tub of popcorn and a great big Dr. Pepper cost $6 more than our tickets but there's nothing like a fresh hot dog at a baseball game. Luke took the whole night to eat his hot dog. Could've had something to do with the fact that he was bumming peanuts off the guy behind us. Who knows. Garrett just sat in our laps and watched the entire game. Yes, Garrett. High energy never slows down Garrett. Sat still. Sat quiet. Luke on the other hand mimicked everything everyone around us did. Hollering, taunting, whooping! We're definitely going to have to take them to more games! Amanda even enjoyed it. Of course it was kind of hard for her not too, she was out with 3 handsome Garners watching her alma matter BTHO Oregon State! Whoop and Gig 'em!

'Bout time we updated the blog.

So we're redoing the boy's rooms right now. Amanda is hard at work picking out bedding, cleaning, arranging, painting etc. I helped a little but this is my big contribution. I think I had more fun. Garrett's room has a construction theme so I took him to the shop and we played on machines and took pictures to hang up in his room. Spent about an hour up there and operated all kinds of big boys toys and Garrett couldn't get enough. Can you blame him?

Luke's room is going to be the farm. I'm envisoning pictures of working cattle, getting eggs from the chicken coop, driving a tractor, digging a pond with a bulldozer. Gotta get some equipment in there somehow, right?!?!

We also planted our garden this weekend. Garrett and Luke planted everything. Garrett used his special planting tool for setting the depth of the seedhole - his finger. Luke got to plant the canteloupes. Not quite 2 yet but he sure likes to help out. Got some awesome boys!

Short, sweet, to the point. At least we're blogging finally. We've moved from the dark ages of dialup and have DSL now. Hopefully you'll see more since it doesn't take us six years to upload things anymore. Sweet!

What the heck is a blog????

OK, so I finally figured out what a blog is. Hopegroup has one and I thought, hmm, that's kinda cool. Now that Amanda has a state job that's not in ICU, she has all this time to read everyone else's blogs. She comes home and tells me about so and so's story or the cool pics of someone else's Christmas tree, yadda, yadda, yadda. I guess now everyone can be nosey in our lives, at least as much of our lives as we put on the net. And of course the grandparents can see pictures of the boys. That's all anyone really cares about, right???
Why the Garner family zoo you ask... Is it because the family is nuts? Yeah, we are, and we think it's great! Is it because dad and the boys are hyper? We are, but that's because boys are supposed to run and jump and wrestle and get dirty and hunt and play with machines and... Is it because we literally have a zoo at the house - 8 horses, 4 dogs, 2 cats, 13 chickens, about 20 fish, and whatever birds happen to come up to the feeder at the kitchen window. OK, yeah, that's a good reason too, but it's really all of the above. You know what, I remember when I was a little boy and would go to the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, TX and watch the animals, spend time with my grandparents, all that kind of stuff. It was a blast. Don't you love the fun of going to the zoo? Well, we're lucky because we live in The Garner Zoo.
When we have time, get bored, or have something really cool, we'll "blog" some more. That can be used as a verb, right? See, I'm catching on!
Here's pics of Luke trying to keep Gus from eating the ornaments and Garrett with his cookies he made.
Welcome to the zoo!