Gobble Gobblin´ Good Time!

I hope EVERYONE had a FANTASTIC Turkey Day and that you all have as much to be THANKFUL for as I do. There is just somethin´ about coming home and being around "your people."

I have to tickle her to get her to smile at a camera these days :).

We had LOTS of time with family and friends and it seemed like the holidays just kinda flew by. Over the Thanksgiving holidays I went to two Thanksgiving gatherings, a dance Wednesday and Saturday night, Black Friday Shopping, a Ranch Sorting get-together, and to help Uncle Mele pick up, write-up, tag, pen cattle for the sale on Monday. Yeah....It was BUSY, but me and Uncle Mele got a little time to bounce some ideas off of each other. The license still hasn´t come in the mail, but it should any day now :).

So starting from Wednesday when we got to town...Kyle and I met up with a few friends at a little dance hall that has re-opened in Nechanitz. We had a really good time!! Lots of our friends showed up and we ran into a few class mates we hadn´t seen in awhile. The Emotions played and I was really impressed. They need to get them back there sometime!

Megan, Me, and Shayne

Kyle and a few of his classmates: RaChelle, Cordes, Jenny, and Lauren!

Then for lunch on Thanksgiving we went to my Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Fritz´s. We had lots of turkey, ham, sweet rice, potatoes, rolls, sweets...the list goes on. We looked at some deer horns that my cousin and her sweetie shot.

Sue´s Horns

Kim´s Deer (Sue´s Sweetie :))

Then, Kylee helped Cody tend his herd :) and saw Uncle Mele palpate a few cows for him.

They were trying to pet Smokey :).

I´m pretty sure this calf was ready to come at´r, so I snatched her up real fast.

Can´t say that this happens at everyone´s Thanksgiving....

Kylee and Aunt Mandy. Kylee was tryin´ to figure out what Uncle Mele was doín´ :).

Then we played a little 31, sat around and visited, watched Kylee play with the puppies and left for the next one with some of Mandy´s Cranberry/Apple Sauce in tow...(It´s REALLY good.)

Kylee was lovin´ on Moon and leadin´ him around until we left.

She kept trying to make him look in the house through the door. Reminds me of how we looked trying to set up show lambs when we were little.

She got it done!

We had dinner at Kyle´s Mom and Daddy´s. Kylee played with all her cousins, we ate more turkey, and started figuring out our Black Friday plans.

Here she is with Kelsey and Kaben on Kinsey´s scooter - which I now have to track one down for her for Christmas. She LOVED it!!

Her and Kandon on the 4-wheeler.

I went with my Mom and Sister and my little Brother and his friend met us at Wal-Mart. My sister, brother, and his friend have NEVER been. Mom and I have gone before. So.....Mandy wants a laptop and a shop vac and a camera and maybe a few other things. Chance and Ben just kind of came along to check it out (I put them to work :)) and Mom mainly wanted to look for things for Kylee. The main thing I wanted was a camera and later decided I also wanted a hard drive. I´m gonna do my best to not bore those of you that already think I´m CrAzY for taking part in this. We all got EVERYTHING we came there for and wound up going home with a little more. We are all pretty good at makin´ friends with the people around us, so we didn´t have TOO MUCH craziness. We did have a  little.

My sister waited in line for the computer for over 2 hours and saw one girl she made friends with exchange words with this guy that was trying to help her b/c she thought he was trying to steal her computer :). They didn´t bring out the cameras until right before midnight and after they cleared out some of the toys that you could start buying at 10pm. So...I was already in line for the hard drive. I put Chance and Ben in charge of grabbing a camera for me and Mandy.

My little brother is not really AGGRESSIVE like me, Mandy, or Mom. He´s kind of calm, likes to be funny and make jokes, and isn´t exactly Mr. Muscles....so I was nervous. They wheeled the cameras out and he was standing by Mom and our shopping cart. I´m looking at him like "GET OVER THERE!!" He looked confused. Finally...he came over and we got him there. He wasn´t right in the front, but I figured he was close enough. So....midnight is approaching. (In the mean time these two people get grumpy with me and another girl that was in line for a hard drive. Ultimately we told them that if they didn´t like people and felt claustrophobic in such a tight space, with so many people, that Black Friday shopping was OBVIOUSLY not the place they needed to be. They got all chummy after we gave them a couple of memory cards....:).

Anyways...back to Chance.... I see him and Ben laughing and cuttin´ up with these other people in line. Definitely not very DETERMINED to get those cameras. So I´m texting him and making faces and hand signals at him and he´s looking at me like..."I got this" when I knew he was not ready for what was about to ensue.

He even lets Little Girls beat him up :)!

It´s midnight. They unwrap the packages. I get my hard drive and snatch a different camera that was right beside the hard drives....just in case Chance doesn´t pull through for me.

I was right between both of them, so I had a REALLY good spot.

After I pick myself up off of the cameras that I was pretty much pushed into I look over at Chance..... He´s still fighting for the cameras...none in his hand. I just look down at the one I grabbed and think at least I got one.... Then I look up again and the people in front of him just start passing cameras back to HIM!!! I couldn´t believe it. By the time I made my way to him...he had 3 cameras and a hand FULL of memory cards.

Chance was like 3 people behind the tall guy to the right.

So we venture over to my Mom... We get there and realize that Mom ALSO has cameras... 3 of them (one in every color) and memory cards. She said she looked at Chance and thought the same thing I did....He wasn´t gonna get´m. Mind you...that MOM was on the OTHER side of the aisle. So....she had to run around the aisle to the other side where ALL these people are GRABBING and PUSHING to get to the items they want, push through them, grab 3 cameras (1 of each color), the memory cards and STILL get back to the shopping cart to make sure no one snags something out of it - BEFORE we get there. I´d have to say that´s where we get our SCRAPINESS. WHEW!! It WAS as INTENSE as it sounds. I´ve been Black Friday shopping in Katy and College Station and never saw it that CrAzY!! I mean someone got stepped on over SHEETS.....from WAL-MART! Then...we had breakfast at Denny´s where I laughed off a few calories. My family is NuTs...but Hilarious!

The Wal-Mart employees and Security kept telling us if we were on the white part of the aisle we were too close. We all had to squeeze onto the brown part, which was a single strip of brown tile, OR move into the clothing section.



People are in line on the other side...the same way we are.

Me, Mom, and Mandy made a few more stops then went home to catch a little sleep. Then a few hours later...Kylee wakes me up and we meet my Mother-in-Law at Bealls in La Grange to try and get this Zebra Print Duffel Bag with wheels. They didn´t have it. She still wanted to see if Wal-Mart had a few things - so we decide to drive on over to Giddings, see if the Bealls there has the bag, and go to Wal-Mart there. I couldn´t hardly believe it! They had ONE Zebra Print bag left!!! Lois didn´t get everything she wanted, but we still did a pretty darn good job.
Okay....SO...if that´s not enough adventure for one weekend we decide to got to a little Thanksgiving gathering at a little ranch out in Caldwell to do a little ranch and arena sorting. Well...it rains pretty much all morning, but we decide we´re still going. I´m kinda glad. I got to visit with Mrs. Shirley and dance a little jig with Buddy. Plus...they haven´t seen Kylee in a LONG time and she really enjoyed herself.

Kylee playing in puddles... I was just happy to see water on the ground.

Well...the main sortin´ pen has water standin´ in it, so we decide to do some 3-man arena sorting. This is where there is a line across the arena. The calves are numbered and they call out a number and you run them across the line in numerical order. No other calves can cross the line until they are supposed to and if a calf runs back you are DQ´d. Well it was all for fun b/c the rain kept people at home, but we had a good time. Little Miss Kylee Jo sorted some cows with me and Aunt Mandy and enjoyed every minute of it.

Later...we moved it over to the covered arena where we did some actual 2-man ranch sorting....all practice. Kylee really liked that!! 2-man ranch sorting is ultimately the same concept I described above except there is no line. There are two pens and a gate. One person works the gate and the other goes and gets whatever number the announcer calls out. Then...depending on the circumstances, the person in the gate usually switches off and goes to the herd and gets the next number. That cycle keeps going until all the calves are penned in the correct order without any mistakes in the opposite pen. Your working in a much smaller amount of space also.

Later on that night we met a few friends at a little dance hall in Fayetteville. I hadn´t gone out with Little Sister in a while, so it was a much needed outing!

Willie was breakin´ down with all of us gals. I got my first cutting/penning mare from him many years ago.

I´d say Mandy had a good time :)!

With all of these goins on...I still fit in a few hunts. All these people shootin´ deer have me itchin´ to get one. The right one´s gotta walk out though and so far....no bueno.

My Father-In-Law´s Buck he shot this past Wednesday.
(Low fence 12pt..probably scoring around 140)

McKenna´s (Kyle´s cousin) 8-pt buck.

Uncle Mike´s 12-pt buck (Kyle´s Uncle).

To end the holiday break....I rode around with Uncle Mele on Sunday... pickin´ up cows from people that wanted to sell´m at the sale on Monday. We had to pen some, doctor on some, load´m, unload´m, check´m in, tag´m....you get the point. IT WAS COLD!! I kinda dig cool weather, but not COLD weather :/. It was good. I got the chance to pick his brain a little, make sure what I was plannin´ on doin´ was the right thing to do. We bounced around some ideas and the best way to go about them. We talked about what steps we need to take, upcoming auctions, what works, what doesn´t, tax stuff....all kinds of things really. It´s just what I needed.

I´ll be honest... I´m exhausted just reading about all this excitement. BUT.....It´s time to BUCK UP BABY!! The holidays are approachin´ and I´m fixing to get REAL busy with EVERYTHING - (Real work, auction stuff, upcoming fundraising auction, the holidays, other events....). There is just simply....NO TIME TO WHINE!

Thanks everyone for reading. I APPRECIATE it.

Praisin´, Figurin´, and Just Plain Doin´!

Hey Everyone! My mind is on overload (What´s new...right?) Well...I´m waiting on some pics for JG Prom before I blog about that, but I have LOTS of other stuff to talk about, so I´ll start with...

Praisin´

I want to give a little more PRAISE to the LEDBETTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT. I know I mentioned how much they HAD IT TOGETHER, but folks....it is probably the smoothest run fundraising auction I have ever been to and a part of. There was no runnin´ around getting the bidders names or anything like that...we had them on a list - so when they called out their bidder number, we looked it up on our cheat sheet, gave them a big thank you like they DESERVED, and rolled on with the next item. You don´t really realize how much time it saves and how much better an auction flows until you do another. They had carbon tickets (3 layers). I got one to read and pass on to the lady recording it (Mrs. Read), one stayed on the item, and the other went to the buyer after they settled up (like a receipt). Whatever committee was working the auction - YOU ROCKED IT! BTW- Ya´ll really impressed Uncle Melvin too... He´s still talking about it.

Thank you - Mrs. Deborah Lancaster for the pictures!!

Here I am...doin´ my thing!

Uncle Mele...doin´ his thing!

Tommy - doin´ his modeling thing :) J/K...

I also want to do a little praisin´ (self plug fixing to occur) for Cable Advertising. I mentioned in a previous blog that an Auction House (general merchandise consignment auction) here in town decided to advertise on TV. We didn´t see a lot of new faces, but keep in mind that Sea Fair (a big annual festival in the area) and a 4-H Fundraiser, Auction, and Dance - were all going on the same evening. We did see several though, and those few people helped raise the bids a little bit (to make an item bring a little closer to what its actually worth) and still had everyone walking away with some pretty sweet deals. For example: It seems a little silly for a gooseneck hookup to go for $22 (what we bought one for a few weeks ago) when they are worth over $300. We picked up another one at this past auction for right under $100 - which was still a pretty sweet deal. Of course we would´ve liked to get it a little cheaper, but from a business standpoint - you have to keep the consigner happy also. The advertising started just a few days before the auction - so they´re just gettin´ started. Just imagine what a little more time will do.

Figurin´

I´ve been doin´ some figurin´ and I guess I´m gonna ride this auction train until it quits chug-a-luggin. I know that what I´m fixin´ to type applies to all sorts that are starting a new venture or discover a talent or something like that...so I hope you can identify. I have helped out at 6 fundraising auctions (actually auctioneering) and worked at 3 more or so...just kind of observin´ and spotting and what not. I have gone through these phases. (See below)

1 - YAY!! People think I´m good!
2 - Am I really doing this? What if those people were just being nice?
3- Hmmm...I guess I´m all right at this auctioneering stuff.
4- Can I really make this work? Should I REALLY pursue it?
5- I´ve still got a lot to learn...
6- Ok. Seriously... no one is holding these people at gunpoint. There is no reason for people to tell you you´re pretty good at what you´re doin´ if you´re not.
7- How can I get my license faster?
8- What can I do once I get it?
9- What kind of auctioning do I really want to do?

So...with all that figurin´ I´ve been doing....I´m left with more figurin´. One thing I´ve determined is.... I figure I´m pretty good at this auctioneering stuff and I ought to listen to the people that have heard me and BUCK UP BABY and go for it!! You can´t be scared! If you don´t try you don´t know and then you´ll be tryin´ to figure what could have been. I´m hoping Auction School and Uncle Mele can help me with this other figurin´.

I´ve also been figurin´ that ELMER (the buck I´ve been hunting) has gotten smart and likes to show up at the feeder late, late nights and early mornings (when its still dark). So...what am I going to do about that? Hunt that SON-OF-A-GUN wherever I figure he might cross. Actually...we all are. He needs to be culled and somebody needs to get him. I´m also figurin´ that this bow hunting is some pretty INTENSE stuff and I DIG IT!!

DOIN´

So this is what I´m DOIN´.... I´m going to auction school at the end of this week, completing the 8-day (10 hour day) course, and then scheduling a time to take my licensing exam with the state! WATCH OUT!!

 I also just helped Uncle Mele at an auction for the BURTON VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT. I really appreciate those nice people allowing me to talk real fast and help them raise some $$$. While we were auctioneering they got called out on a fire and they all had to light out of there. WE ALL NEED TO THANK A FIREFIGHTER! If there is one thing these wildfires should´ve taught us...its that - YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT COULD BE YOUR HOUSE ON FIRE! Fires don´t discriminate and these volunteers do what they can to keep us all safe and put those fires out as soon as possible. All of this $$$ we´ve been raisin´ is going to help keep US safe. Remember that when you´re THROWIN´ your hand up to bid on something at the next VFD fundraiser your at.

Scary stuff...

The auction went very well and EVEN MORE people are telling me to KEEP IT UP, so that´s what I´m doin´!

I was also very glad to be able to visit with Mr. Hodde a little while. He used to be at GIDDINGS LIVESTOCK every Monday - when I worked there and I just really enjoyed his company. He might´ve slowed down a little bit, since last time I´ve seen him, but he´s still just as good a company as ever! I hope he got to hear me sell a few items. He told me to tell Uncle Mele to get off that mike, so he could hear me - but I think he still got to.

BUCK UP BABY!! Throw those hands up and BUY something at the next auction you go to! Don´t be scared :)! Take care!