Farming traditions from way back meet present day scenario...

OK, leave it to my weird-o husband to discover an old farming tradition and bring it to real life in today's world.....

About 2-3 months ago, Tony smashed his finger while trying to fix the toilet. This resulted in the nasty black bruised piece of the nail growing out and broadcasting his mistake to the world. When my dad saw it, he enlightened Tony to an old Farmer's tool that was used when a sow and a boar (yes, a MALE and FEMALE PIG) were put together in a pen to mate. Apparently, the farmer (=my father, grandfather, etc) would notch their fingernail at the base on this day so that it was visible. When the nail grew out, the farmer knew it was time to pen up the sow so she could have her babies.

Fast forward to the year 2009. Just imagine what this conversation got Tony to thinking about. *sigh* Yes, you are thinking right. It takes pigs 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days from fertilization to delivery of the baby (Thanks Uncle Bob). As of Monday, Tony has notched his fingernail to start the official countdown for the kid. Seriously. Isn't that the pinnacle of any expecting woman's gestsational period? The day your husband notches his fingernail so he can countdown the days until his pig gives birth to a litter? :) Let's just hope he doesn't try to pen me up for delivery in a barn stall.

Signing off....OINK.

Family Cruise 2009

Well, this post was started in early March...but I'm finally getting around to finalizing it! We went on our 'babymoon' the last week of February. Tony, myself, his sister and her husband, his brother and his friend, Grandpa Halsey, Grandma Replogle, cousin Vicky, and Aunt and Uncle Norbert and Justine all went along. We left from Miami and visited the Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, Tortola and the Bahamas. It was so great to escape the cold weather and to relax with family.

In the Dominican Republic, Tony went Whale Watching with Jen, Stefan, and Grandpa. The Dominican Republic is known as a breeding/birthing ground for the Humpack Whales from February through March. No one really knows why they go to this particular location....but luckily they were there when we were there! They saw several whales, and saw one mother with her baby! In the picture below, you can see the spray from the whale off in the left side of the picture.


I decided to stay on the ship this day and just relax. I heard that a LOT of people get woozy and sea sick from the whale watching tour, so I decided to do a behind the scenes tour of the cruise ship and see how they operate. I got to visit the bridge and take control of the helm for a little bit...oh, that's right. We were parked!
I knew a lot of laundry was done on the ship...but didn't realize HOW they did it! It was amazing. They had washing machines the size of a small bedroom!! And dryers about the same size! Then they took the linens and put them through these HUGE machines that finished drying them, pressed them and folded them! Below is a picture of a tablecloth coming out of the machine.
I also got to see where they stored all the provisions for the week! They bring on board everything they would need for the week, and use nearly all of it. There were separate rooms for beef, pork, poultry, seafood, fruit, pastries and dry goods. I could NOT believe the quantity of food that was required. In a week they go through 7000 pounds of sirloin steak. They bring on board 7000 pounds of watermelon. Below is a picture of the dried goods. Look at all that rice! I don't even think I ate rice the entire week on the ship... but some people must have!
During the tour, we caught this artist carvine an ice sculpture for the chocolate buffet. He was formerly a wood carving artist in Bavaria. Such an amazing talent!

This is our group who went. We had such a great time!

As always, a snapshot of the muster drill is exciting :)

The first night at sea, we were chosen to be one of the couples on the Not so Newlywed Game! Uncle Norbert and Aunt Justine were chosen also! (They were the 50 year plus couple). Norbert and Justine ended up winning the entire competition! I think we gave everyone a few laughs at this event!
In St. Thomas, we went out on a sailboat around the Virgin Islands. Tony and I both agree that this is one of the most awesome places we've ever been. We really want to go back and spend an entire week there. Hopefully we'll get to go with the family on a vacation to St. John sometime in the near future! (Felix the Fetus will be part of our family then!) Anyways....Tony had never sailed before...and I think he really enjoyed it. The smile on his face in this picture captures the good time we both had.


We were also selected to have dinner with the Captain and Crew! Jeramy, Tony, grandma and myself got to sit with the Cruise Director, John. John is from Australia and has been doing the cruise director type job for >7 years. He was amazingly full of energy and was probably one of the best cruise directors I've seen! He wasn't over the top...but right at everyone's energy level.

After dinner with the Captain and Crew, we played the ever-exciting cruise ship game known as Quest. For those of you who have not been on a cruise, it is basically a "Let's Make a Deal" type game. Everyone gets into teams of around 8-10, and then an MC asks for various items/tricks. For example, they may ask for a shoelace out of a shoe (we got ours from Uncle Norbert's), for you to show your tattoo, amongst many other crazy things. You have a set amount of time to run to the front of the room and show it to the MC. You get points for getting up to the front in the alotted time (the first person gets more points). Our entire family participated in this! We even got grandpa to go up to the front and show them his fake teeth!! Needless to say, we won the competition!! There is quite a competitive streak in all the Halseys!! Below is a picture after we won...you might be able to guess from the picture that the final challenge was swapping clothes with a teammate.......that is how Rob and I ended up wearing each other's clothes. Doesn't he look nice in Red?

Every night when we came back to our room, we had a cute little towel animal made. Here was our elephant!

Jen, myself and Tony enjoyed the White Hot Party.

Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Justine and Norbert are all ready to get off the tender boat and onto the Private Island in the Bahamas!

Here they are relaxing on the Bahama beach!!
Here is a towel monkey hanging in our room!

We did splurge a bit on this trip and decided to get a balcony. Then we decided to splurge and get a suite off the back of the boat. It was so awesome being able to sit out on the balcony and listen to the engines rumble and smell the freshly baking bread. In the picture below, you'll see our room circled.

Tony loved relaxing on the balcony.
The last night of our ship, we had a plate of Belgian chocolates and chocolate covered strawberries delivered to our room with a note from the head chef, thanking us for our business!

Baby Ultrasound. It's a.. ... ... (keep reading)

On Friday, Jen and I went to her doctor for the baby's first ultrasound and to find out whether it was a boy or a girl. Now for those of you who would shun technology and say you would prefer not to know what you're having... I say bullcrap. People have been trying to find out the sex of their baby for millennia. That's why you have all of the other lovely devices to predict your baby's sex at an astonishing 50% clip - you're carrying high, you're carrying low, heartbeat is fast, heartbeat is slow, you dangle a needle over the belly and it spins clockwise, etc, etc, etc. Besides, if you dislike technology so much, what are you doing on a computer in the first place? Shouldn't you be reading a book by candlelight? :)

So, seeing the baby was really an amazing thing, but a bit surreal. I *knew* that what I was seeing was right below Jen's belly button but there sure still seemed to be a disconnect in my brain about the reality of it all. It was like I was watching a weird science experiment and I didn't get really excited about what I had seen until about 2 minutes after it was over. The baby didn't cooperate at first about letting us see what it was. It was laying on its belly with its back toward the ultrasound machine and in the classic fetal position... so we couldn't see where we needed to see. So the nurse checked all the other items that she needed to check... and it was still in the same position. So she started jostling Jen's belly saying, "C'mon, move, move" and after what seemed like forever the little guy decided to roll over and show us all he had... It's a boy!

The first picture is what we saw on the ultrasound. However, for clarity, since people always have a hard time picking out detail on ultrasound pictures, I have also provided a "rotated" view AND a photograph of Peyton Manning in approximately the same pose to help you visualize..

We honestly would have been happy with either, but it is nice to have a boy for a couple reasons. Number 1, my grandpa wanted a boy to make sure the name "Halsey" keeps getting passed down. All of my male cousins with the name "Halsey" have thus far had daughters. Also, Jen's parents presently have 6 granddaughters and only 1 grandson. So 1 more grandson will even that out a bit and give Jen's dad another boy to do boy things with.

And, not to forget about Sanders, we'll leave you with this sad little picture. It happened about 2 weeks ago when Jen trimmed his nails. Afterward, we walked into the kitchen and saw BLOODY PAW PRINTS everywhere!! So Jen got out some corn starch and I poured it on his little paw to stop the bleeding. It was quite the site after he tried to eat the corn starch off the floor.

Also, in the mail the other day we got a pair of doggie snow boots Jen ordered for him. Let me let you in on a secret. DOGS DO NOT LIKE SHOES! We put them on him on Thursday night when they arrived and trust me... hilarity ensued. Here's a funny video of him walking in them!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

So this morning I woke up to let Sanders out to go to the bathroom. He proceeded to take 4 'hops' out the door, and 4 'hops' directly back in through the door. He gave me this look like "You want me to squat and pee in this stuff?" So, I was suckered in from looking at those puppy dog eyes, and shoveled him a path to a spot in our backyard to relieve himself. And he actually used it. Then he proceeded to want to run and play in the snow. He loves it. The only issue is that his hair loves it too. Snow sticks to his hair the way that lint sticks to a lint brush. Needless to say, he always comes in soaking wet after a little play time. But it is OK, because look at how cute he is!!

Cool Art

Tony made the piece of art you see above. He made the box/stained it that the corks are in. Then he arranged 2 layers of wine/champagne corks into the box. The group of grapes in the center are made out of the corks from bottles of red wine. The leaves are cut out from labels from the wine bottles. The tendrils are made from corkscrews. He is amazingly talented, isn't he?

Sanders loved the corks too. Every time we weren't looking, he would sneak into the spare bedroom where Tony was assembling/laying out his creation and would pick up one or two corks and carry into the living room. He didn't normally chew on them too much!

Hannukah and Christmas time!

Our friends, Anat and Kevin, had a Hannukah party this year. I learned a lot about the Jewish traditions, including that Jelly Donuts are a tradition! My neighbor Brooke helped me make some of these yummy donuts to take to the party!Below are Brandi, myself and Anat at the Hannukah Party.

We spent Christmas Eve with our awesome neighbors, John and Judy, and their daughter Jenn, and their son Joe and his wife Stacey. We had great appetizers and soups!


I had to laugh when Tony got my brother in law a "Maajor Awaaard". Yes, the infamous leg lamp from "A Christmas Story". How hilarious!
Here are some pictures of Sanders having a great time on Christmas!

Somehow Sanders ended up getting gift wrapped during all the excitement of the day!
He loved visiting and playing with Richard and Kaleda.

Sanders got a new rope toy from grandma and grandpa!

Gingerbread House competition!

My friend Mandy and I decided to build a Gingerbread house during the holidays to compete in the Hamilton County Library's Gingerbread house competition. There were about 40 entries. We won the blue ribbon for the Group division, and we also won People's Choice Award! Here are some pictures of our AWESOME gingerbread house. We may have to compete in the Conner Prairie Gingerbread house competition next year.

A couple of points about the house:
-There are pink ribbons on the back (I still have to upload these from my other camera). Those are for breast cancer awareness. Mandy lost her mom to breast cancer this past fall. The words inside the barn are "In Loving Memory of Denise"
-The theme is "Santa left his toys", so Mrs. Claus (dressed in pink) and the elf are waving up to Santa to bring him back
-There are hoof prints in the snow. Not sure you can make them out on these pictures.

-Notice the weathervane. All directions point south...that was Tony's idea!
-Everything on the house is edible!

And, since this blog is technically about Sanders....here he is making himself comfy under the Christmas Tree!