John and I have been married for 7 years. What a ride this has been. He is from Oregon. I know he must love me a lot to move all the way to NM out in the dry, hot dessert. Oregon is so nice God only knows what I was thinking by moving back here. Anyways, John grew up on the race track and on ranches. He is my cowboy!! He is the greatest dad. He loves all these stinkers to death. He always treats me well. He is very affectionate for sure. He loves the Lord which is the most important thing. He works a lot of hours each week to provide for us. He has a great testimony for sure about his past. I am sure that he has finally settled down now with us. On Sunday afternoons you will usually find him out with the horses and kids. He has pretty much given up football because he realized you won't get to watch much because of all the kids wanting his attention. Now that is a true dad...... On Saturday mornings he always gets up and makes a big pancake breakfast. The kids love it and I enjoy the break. On Sunday is the best day for me. He and Adam do my chores and give me a day of rest. Who could ask for a better husband. I can still remember the day we met. I knew I loved him from the minute we met.He stayed and talked to me for probably an hour and his pick up ran the whole time outside. Obviously fuel was not what it is now... He was so funny. I was working in a dry cleaners. He kept bringing more clothes in every day. I thought man this guy has tons of clothes... Well, he had been buying more clothes (Western shirts and Wranglers) so that he could come in and see me... What a sweetie. On August 11th 2001 we were married and by September I was pregnant. That is when the ride began for sure. This man would do anything for me I am sure. He has built chicken coops, spent tons of $$$ building a fence for what he calls my rat dog that we got from the humane society. Built me goat houses, He has always helped me with all the children. When they were babies he would even get up at night when I did. Now what husband will do that..... When I was pregnant with Ride I was so sick with my kidneys. John took care of so many things and still worked his job. Praise God for healing for sure. When the twins came we had to change the routine. Since I nursed them both we had to alternate. He was exhausted and so was I... Now that a babies days are done he is getting more rest than usual. If you can call 4-5 hours of sleep a night good. He is a special man for sure. He loves us all so dearly. I am so proud of him and proud to be his wife. I am so blessed to have him for my Valentine.
Awww...I love so the roller skate picture! So cute! God has surely blessed us with wonderful husbands! Marriage is such a blessed gift and also such a refining fire. I know I wouldn't be where I am today without Derek and his spiritual guidance challenging me to be a better and more Godly woman.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea about letting the chickens out just before dusk--that way they can atleast get out a little. What about the boy roosters that were born--do you have to kill them or get rid of them--will the male roosters fight? Or if they grow up together are they fine? Do your goats eat the weeds--I sure hope ours will--I hate the idea of using pesticides--although even if we did it would hardly make a dent on the five acres!
My grandma lives in Snowflake which is right by Showlow. We live about 5 hours from there. Wittmann is a (rural) suburb of Phoenix. We live about 30 min from what we call "town" which is Surprise, AZ, another suburb of Phoenix. We used to live in Surprise and when it came time to buy our first house we found one that was huge but the backyard was teeny tiny...I had always dreamed of growing my own food, having goats and chickens and thought--there is no way in this tiny little box! So Derek got a job in Wittmann as an EMT (he's trying to become a fireman) and we moved out here! It really feels like we live in the middle of nowhere! But we love it. But we are definitely desert too--it gets 110+ degrees in the summer. And living near a river (dry 90% of the time) our soil is very rocky--so we have to deal with that when it comes time to plant.
How fun--we'll be learning how to milk together! It can't be that hard, right?!