Celebrating Early

It's been a busy weekend! Graduation, shopping, crawfish boil, and birthday celebration! I'm turning 23 on Tuesday, the 19th but we always celebrate the Sunday before at Brandon's MawMaw and PawPaw's house. His MawMaw made carrot cake for me and it was awesome! Here a couple of pics.

Graduation

So I've finally GRADUATED! Yay! No more stressing over homework or exams! No more waking up at 6am (at least on a daily basis)! No more crazy professors! I'm just thrilled to pieces!!! I never thought this day would come; it seemed like it never would. But I can finally hold my offical degree in my hand at last! However, like the 9o% of college graduates who don't choose a career that puts their degree to work, I too will not be using my expertise in Nutrition. I am offically a software developer! Haha. A bit odd how that worked out, but that's life. Anyway, here are a few pics from graduation. These are from Ms. Kim's camera. I'll have more when Wendy emails the other pics to me. :)
Me while I was waiting to walk on stage to get my dipolma! Suprisingly enough, they said my whole name correctly!

Me and Hubby
Ms. Kim, Brandon, Me, and Lauren (The background is wonderful, huh?)

Buster has a new home

So the little raccoon (Buster) Brandon found a couple of days ago has been relocated. He was the cutest, sweetest little thing, but he absolutely refused to take a bottle. We tried everything we could think of to try to get him to eat, but he just wouldn't take. Brandon and I decided this morning that we weren't experienced enough to work with him, so Brandon brought him to a wildlife rehabilitation specialist over in Livingston. There, he'll be taught how to re-enter the wild once he's old enough! Thank heavens for wildlife lovers!

McTingle Farm = Animal Refuge

So apparently, our house is a refuge for animals... Brandon came home from work yesterday to find this lil' critter on our driveway!

Vacation Time Is My Favorite Time!

While most people were headed to the beach for Spring Break, Brandon and I were headed to the snowy slopes of Utah! Trendsic (the company I work for) gave us this awesome opportunity! (They paid for everything!) We flew out to Utah Thursday night and arrived in Salt Lake at 11:30pm. The rental house was an hour away in Heber City. You have no idea what it took to get out their alive! Thanks to Brandon's awesome driving skills, we made it in one piece. :) As you can see, we were super tired by the time we got in! Everyone was asleep except for Jelani (of course).

It was a sweet house. Here's the view from the back porch.

Friday morning, Jamie, Holly, Joe, and I took turns helping Kaliey and Allison build snowman. It turned out really cute! As you can see, it has Reese's eyes, a Cheeto nose, a Twizzler mouth and pig tails, of course! :)

Later that evening we went snow tubing. :) Brandon, Jelani, Jillian, Zack, Josh, and I had races and of course the girls won every time, although Brandon denies it. :) This pic is after we were done.

On Saturday, we all headed to Park City for skiing and snow boarding. Skiers included: Joel, Holly, Jared, Joe, Jamie, and Josh. The snowboarders were Brandon, Jelani, Zack, Jillian, and I.

Joel, Jared, Zack, Brandon, Jelani, and I went half way up the mountain to go down the "Home Run" slope.

Brandon in all his glory :) He did pretty awesome with it, especially because it was his 1st time and he didn't have lessons. He did have one really bad fall, but luckily he was ok. We went and got some hot chocolate.

Joel and Jared were extremely good at skiing. They didn't realize they'd have to wait on all us snowboarders every 5 mins :)

This is my brother Jared, who lives in UT. We were really glad he and his family could come hang out with us the whole trip!

It was Jelani's 1st time snowboarding and he turned out to be really good at it. Of course, he had his fair share of falls and actually went off the side of the mountain one time, but he did awesome.
We have lots of fun. Check out Keri, Holly, or Jamie's blog for more pics!

McTingle Farm Update

I figured it would be a good time to update everyone on how all our lil' critters are doing since "Winter 'O Death" is pretty much gone. :) Yay! Everything is starting to get really green and pretty again.

Sweet Pea is doing great! She is absolutely loving the nice green grass that's been growing. Pretty soon we'll be getting her a "play mate" so that she doesn't have to be alone. It's going to be a boy so we might have some babies in the future!!!
The chickens are having fun. Brandon has been letting them out lately and they are lovin' it! It's pretty cute how they stick together, and when they've had enough, they just mosey on back to their pen. :) We've had an unfortunate set of events which has left us with only 2 hens and our rooster. We've got 4 more on the way though.
All the pups are doing good too. Max is getting really big! He has really turned out to be a great dog! He's got a great temperament and listens very, very well.
Brandon's really been trying to work with Snow. He's got some "issues." His last owner didn't do such a great job raising him so we're trying to teach him a few things. He seems to be getting better... slowly, but surely.
And Coda, Lauren's dog, is doing great too! He listens really well also. He and Max get along really well!
And of course, Toola is lovin' life. He's got 2 little kitties to pick on and chase, so he's happy as can be. You can tell by the pic below that he waches their every move! However the little sucker has been getting into the trash lately... like knocks the whole thing over and digs through it... If anyone has any suggestions on how to "cure" him of this bad habit, please let me know!
The kittens are wonderful. They're growing, but not too much! :) (I wish they could stay little forever.) Anyway, they have their own cute personalities. Clyde is the "social butterfly." He loves to be loved on. But he can be a turkey sometimes. If he wants my attention or is feelin' kinda crazy, he will literally climb up my leg! And it hurts! He always catches me off guard too... Bonnie on the other hand, isn't quite as social. Every now and then she'll come love on us, but not as often as Clyde. Brandon is their favorite. Anytime he's on the couch, they'll both go take naps next to/on him. Quite precious. :)

This is a pic of Kailey and Clyde. She told me later that they were "best friends!" :)
Oh, and I almost forgot! Brandon made a new home for our quail! He built it so they could be on the ground rather that having to walk on chicken wire... and its a lot bigger too. They've been making all kinds of "happy sounds" since we moved them.

We've even gotten a few eggs!

Well, that about sums it up for the McTingle Farm. You're welcome to come visit us anytime!

Enrichment!

We made Spring wreaths at Enrichment tonight. Here's my finished product.... the lighting isn't very good.