the newest addition to our family....

Izzy Emu De Winkle

He/she came out of the egg around 3 pm today.
It's a BIG bird!
Look at Tys' face as he checks out Izzy!

look at the Emu hatch!!

After being in the incubator for exactly 50 days, one of the emu eggs had a crack!
I noticed it yesterday morning. We're so excited!
It's been breaking out really slow. The last picture you see here, I just took this morning, so there's exactly 24 hours in between the first and the last picture here. So we're trying to decide if we should help the poor little guy or not. Some people say it's bad, because maybe he's just not strong enough yet, but other people say it's fine to help it a little bit...
So if you have any experience or suggestions... leave a comment!

The first crack (the egg in the back on the right)

Trip to California!

Hi!

Thanks for surfin' by!

Rudi's mom & dad were in California, and they saw that there were some cows for sale and wanted Rudi to come look at them. Well, since we kind of wanted to go on a trip before the new baby, I thought it would be fun to come along. And so we left on Sunday morning to drive all the way to Ripon, CA. We stopped a couple of times (food, bathroom, diaper change etc...) and got there about 10 pm. Tys did super good. He is so good in the car. He took some naps and played real sweet.
The next morning, on Monday, we got up early to head to the sale in Hanford. We wanted to be early so we could see the cows. We met a lot of people there. After the sale we went to look at some heifers at a heifer ranch. It was really hot out, so me and Tys stayed in the car, where there was AC!
After that we went to tour a Jersey-dairy. It was a very nice dairy! It was really fun to see.
Then it started getting late, and we still had to drive back to the hotel in Ripon. We had dinner in Tulare at the Black Bear Diner, it was really good! We got back around midnight.
On Tuesday, Rudi's parents had to go back to Idaho. Rudi and me and Tys stayed to look at more heifers and we also wanted to spend some time by the ocean.
In the morning we visited Rudi's Grandparents, then went out for pizza, at Rudi's favorite pizza place; "Pizza Plus". We ate there with his parents and 2 of his parents friends. Then we had to travel south, and his parents went back to Idaho. We stopped by Ahlem's dairy in Hilmar. Visited with Mr. Fisher. he knows a lot about genetics. Rudi says he's learned a lot from Mr. Fisher. Then we went to the heifer ranch to pick heifers. That was a really hot job! Rudi had me write all the eartag numbers down. Tys was sitting in the stroller (I was hoping he would take a nap in there, but it was too hot, I think). After about an hour and a half, we were done and got some ice cold water, which was really good!!! The owner of the ranch invited us over to have dinner with him and his wife, but we told him that we wanted to head to the coast. And guess what??? He said that he had a house right by the ocean in Cambria! And he said we were welcome to use it! So we headed to Cambria. And it was wonderful. A beautiful house, up on a hill. Everything was so nice, the guestroom was just ready for us! We had a great time and slept really good.
We woke up and decided to explore Cambria, what a fun town! Lots of cute little shops and restaurants.
After that we decided to drive along the coast on Highway 1. It was gorgeous! We enjoyed the drive very much. We stopped a couple of times to breath the fresh ocean air and enjoy the magnificent view. Then we headed to Santa Cruz. We parked right by the boardwalk. It was awesome. Tys loved the ocean!
Then our trip was pretty much over. We decided to spend the night in Reno, so that the drive home wouldn't be too long the next day. So that's what we did and we arrived back home on Thursday around 4 pm.

Here are some pictures;

Rudi and Tys with his Grandparents!

Tys' newest face

coffee in beautiful Cambria

Mr. Fisher with Tys and Rudi

By the ocean.


That was it!
I'll try to update our blog again soon. It's just that it takes a long time for the pictures to upload, because our internet is super slow.....

Oh, don't forget to vote on our poll.. Girl or Boy????

BYE!!!

Summer is here!

Hi!

I can't believe how fast the time goes by!
It's already the middle of May.
The due date is just getting closer and closer and this pregnancy seems to be flying by..

We're all doing really well. Rudi is just working hard as always. He's getting super-tan! I like it... He doesn't have my help on the dairy as much anymore, since I'm getting kind of big and just taking it easy. I still help him with the easy jobs, like running a gate or sometimes just hanging out for fun!

Tys is doing great, except for that he has molars coming in and that's no fun. But he's pretty good about it. He usually gets a really bad diaper rash, which really hurts him.. poor guy! I feel bad when that happens. He's getting closer to walking, he'll do three or four steps now, but he's kind of scared it seems like, so then he'll go back to crawling.

I'm doing great, my belly is growing good. We just had a check up at the doctor yesterday and got to hear the baby's heart again. I'm measuring a little big, same as when I was pregnant with Tys. I'm trying to take it easy, because I definitely feel a little sore after a busy day... :(

We're working on rearranging our yard a little bit. We're going to get a storage-shed and they just poured the concreed for that last week, it's beautiful. Rudi got rid of all the gras, since it had a lot of dead spots and wasn't in that good condition. We're planning on making a patio out of brick and planting new grass. We're also going to get a fence. We're very excited and can't wait till it's all done!


The boys' and Dutchess' footprints in the concreed!

This is what happens when you leave Tys and Logan unattented for a minute...
All three boys, Tys - Gideon - Logan. I did all their hair in a mohawk, but Tys decided to destroy his!
The beautiful tulips and daffodils!

Peter trimming our big tree!