Yes, I am sighing.

Yes, I am happy.

Why am I happy, you ask?

I shall illustrate, with a series of pictures and inadequate descriptions.

I am happy because of this guy.

This insane, fantastic, amazing, crazy, wonderful guy.

(Probably shoulda' warned ya'll that this was going to turn sappy rather quickly. XD)

I'll refrain from peppering you guys with more adjectives than necessary. Suffice to say that Mr. G here and I are officially in a relationship/long-distance thingummy.

Put simply, we like each other. A lot. ^-^

So yeah. That's the path life has taken me at the moment...we used to be a bit more serious, as in asking 'deep' questions and figuring out where we stand politically, spiritually, socially, etc...but since we made it 'official' a week ago we've spent a lot of time talking about whatever and emitting the occasional happeh sigh.

(I must say, I kind of had an inkling at Barberville, but I didn't expect things to get to this point. The guys staying for a week helped a bit with the whole 'we meet again and click' thing.)

So...yeah. Don't think that I'm not excited--I have been more or less in a constant state of spluttering euphoria for several weeks, actually--but it's more of a 'banked' excitement, ready to tear loose at a moment's notice. *happeh sigh*

Er...kind of like this strange individual. Just minus the icicles.

Anyhoo...I figured I should let ya'll on here know, just in case things should get really serious really quickly (as they seem to be getting) and I don't completely blindside everyone. XD

Your deliriously happeh hostess,

Da Fox

But first, a quick digression.

When writing a blog post, I always wonder how to present it in accompaniment with the pictures I supply.

Oftentimes, my idea is to tell a story, not necessarily portray the best pictures. But occasionally my perfectionist side squeezes in and starts railing. "By putting up quantity instead of quality, you're compromising your posts!!" it screams in its little squeaky voice. "People aren't going to take your photography seriously if you put the mediocre pictures up too!!"

My quandary is simple: do I post a sequence of pictures, regardless of the mediocrity of some of them, or do I just post the best and highlight the experience? Sometimes I find that just the highlights are enough. But other times the mediocre pictures are necessary to preserve the quality of the post and the story.

Today, I have decided that in some cases quantity does equal quality when trying to tell a story with pictures. So bear with the occasional mediocrity within and enjoy the story, please.

This post displays the Domestic Side of the guys when they were here. Maybe it's just me, but when guys are guests (at least, these guys), they function better when told to do something. Even if it is cooking and washing dishes.

Not to mention they're just hilarious to watch when they're being 'domestic'. XD

This is in their pasty unbaked form...but the biscuits and gravy were AMAZING. *whimpers at the memory*

Another example of being domestic...Obi volunteered (i.e., just did it) to wash dishes for nearly every meal for the first 3-4 days. On the 4th day we found out that he HATES to do dishes, and out of guilt I tried to shoulder him out of the way for at least the preps.

(I practically had to fight him for it too. O.o)

It seems like we washed a lot of dishes while they were there too...but we cooked a lot too, so I guess that time was justified.

And it wasn't boring drudgery either.

Okay, contrary to what it LOOKS like, Will is getting ready to talk. Not sneering at Gabi's back. XD

Okay, enough domesticity! This particular day when Will skipped--er, had an excused absence from school, we drove a couple of towns over to check out the frozen creeks. Mwahaha.

It's an Acevedo sandwich...like an avocado sandwich, but warmer. And less green and squishy. XD

Oh yes. And there was McDonald's.

...I got tired of cooking. XD

I would like to point out that I am in no way responsible for this picture's occupants, other than the fact that they make faces when I point cameras at them.

And they can look semi-normal...sometimes...O.e

And then there was the creek. I have never been here aside from this time (we thought about going to Wildcat but it's technically 'closed' during the winter and we didn't feel like breaking more rules than necessary), so it was quite the interesting tour. Even if some of the ice was a little...uh...creaky.

I think we were trying to sit while waiting for the train that we kept hearing go past...it never did, and we just got annoying wet spots on our jeans. XD

The railroad track is a little ways up the creek--if we went up the wall and kept going for about 20 feet we would have been directly on the tracks.

The icicles were numerous that day...

...and quite large. (For size reference Will is about 5' 10")

But they were nothing compared to...

THE RAILROAD BRIDGE. 8D If we hadn't been living in fear of the eventual train (which, like I said earlier, we kept hearing but never saw) I would have totally gone up and taken pictures of the tracks.

Alas, it was not meant to be...sigh. Someday.

Thus ends the latest post and my feeble attempt to capture even a fraction of everything that happened over that week...

Your hostess,

The Fox

And they had NO idea what to do with snow.

It was hysterical...but let me start at the beginning.

A couple of weeks after Isaac and Lydi got married, my brother and I were talking back and forth with Lydi's brother's Obi and Gabi. After learning that they had never seen snow in their lives, we said, "Hey! You guys should come up sometime when we have snow! Wouldn't that be AWESOME??"

To which they replied that yes, it would be beastly awesome. Some dates were flung around, we settled on sometime in January, etc etc.

Cut to about a week later. Gabe Lynn and I had been keeping in contact for a bit, and he got me hooked on this game LotrO (Lord of the Rings Online, which I cannot play because my computer started having issues and nearly died after I installed it. ANYWAY.). We had a little thing going where while we played we would talk on the phone and he would give me tips and pointers on how the world worked, etc.

During one of these playing sessions I mentioned that Obi and Gabi were coming up in January and it was going to be amazing. The words seemed to hang a bit awkwardly after I said them out loud, and in the brief silence afterward I blurted, "You can come too, you know!" And before I knew it we had three guys flying up to see us.

Cut to a little over a week ago.

This looks natural but is, in fact, entirely staged. When they first came up the stairs I flung myself at them so hard that I cut Obi's lip (not sure how, and I didn't find out until later O.o) and bruised Gabe's collarbone.

What? I was happy to see 'em. Sheesh.

Also: the floor in the airport was DIZZYING. I felt like I was suffering from vertigo every time I looked down (or watching the beginning credits to the Hitchcock movie Vertigo. THAT'S a weird movie.).

The trip home was...ah...interesting. XD The funniest part was that the guys were drifting in and out of service range for their phones, so every so often someone would say "I HAVE SERVICE!!!" and the other two would scramble to see if they had any messages. It was hilarious.

We picked the guys up around 10:30 in the morning, so by the end of the two-hour drive home there was still plenty of time to explore and show them around the house and pasture and surrounding land.

So eventually we all were in the horse pasture, looking at drifts.

I think Obi grabbed a handful of snow (the dirty kind, no less) and ate it at this point. *shudders* I know the whole peck of dirt thing, but still...it was kinda nasty.

No, he's not kicking the cat. Even though it kinda looks like he is.

There was a lot of fascination with stepping in drifts and checking out the holes left in the snow. Which was understandable.

The disappointing part was that the snow wasn't/isn't the greatest for making snowballs (too powdery), but they made do.

I am so glad I had a camera, because that made me exempt from the snow-throwing (not even snowballs, just flinging armfuls) that ensued within the next five minutes or so.

Okay. Pretend that there was a huge snow-flinging fight and you just missed it. (I have a video, but it's not uploaded yet).

There were no gloves to any of them, so they lasted about 5-7 minutes before we had to go up to the house due to numb appendages.

Which brings us back to.....

......this picture.

Yup. They're Floridians all right. XD

This was before we discovered that Gabe is allergic to the dog. So if they were still here the dog would NOT be practically in his lap. XD

So. Day 1 of the Floridian Invasion ended on a highly successful note with How To Train Your Dragon (the strange part of which none of us could remember the next day what we had seen. I guess it didn't make that much of an impression). The next day the introduction to snow continued in earnest with one of the most epic snowball fights I have ever seen....

Your hostess,

The Fox

...has been really stinkin' busy. O.o

But good as well.

So. For the past four days I've been working for the farrier. The days have been long, kinda hard, rather cold, and sore-muscle-inducing, but it's great too. I don't have a whole lot to say here, but I'll try to explain the pictures here, at least.

This here is Ladybug...she rides with us EVERYWHERE. And she is very happy and generally an awesome dog. (Joe calls her 'Killer Dog', which cracks me up.)

This horse should be given a medal, because she stood very quietly and calmly with nary a flinch while I spent ten minutes wrestling a shoe off. Pulling shoes takes a lot of leverage, let me tell you...

Oh yes...one of the places we went on Monday had two little donkeys (not sure if they were minis or not...they were roughly the same size of the miniature pony). I have officially fallen in love with them and want a little donkey now.

The miniature pony...she was a bit of a pain to trim, but when they're that tiny it's easy to subdue 'em. XD

This was my favorite... *squeezes* He acted kinda like a dog, by coming over and leaning on my leg until I would scratch his head or pull on his ears, and when I knelt down to watch Joe trim the full-sized pony he would rest his head on my neck and back. XD

(I'm know that that's not good ground manners...but he was still stinkin' adorable.)

Ahh, cute pony...but I still like the donkeys better. XD

Ye olde rig. I've driven this baby a few times over the week, and according to Joe I'm getting the hang of it. Just don't let the clutch out too quickly...be smoooooooth. :P

This is the knife-sharpening-station...it's attached to the inside of the trailer door and has a whet-stone type thingy and a buff brush. I'd say that the knives get sharpened every other day or so...dull knives are NOT fun to use. :/

I sharpened these...aren't they purty? In a glittery sort of way. XD

This is a very nice stud that Joe trimmed...I got several videos of the process just for the heck of it. I maaaay post it, if I ever get around to it. XD

Ah yes, I gets to wear an apron. I can't do a whole lot yet (not strong enough/don't have the right technique for pulling or nailing shoes), but I do get to rasp their hooves. The apron keeps my jeans kinda clean and if the rasp slips and hits my leg it won't tear my jeans.

So that's been a brief glimpse in the past week...most of the times we've been working in barns, which REALLY helps (it may not be extremely cold temperature-wise, but after standing around for a couple of hours in a cold breeze certain parts go numb and it's not pleasant). I'm really enjoying this job...it's long hours and hard work, but very interesting and I get to meet a lot of really neat people.

Your hostess,

The Fox