our first baby

no, i'm not pregnant. i mean our cotton! this is the baby that kanyon has to feel the "labor pains" for instead.

kanyon is farming on his own for the first time this year starting last january. its been an exciting year to start actually. all of the farmers are excited about all the moisture that we have gotten that we usually don't get!

last night, when i told kanyon that i was going to post about his cotton, he goes "uh.. you might let me see it before you post it just so i can make sure you don't say something stupid." so this is what i'm going to do:
***DISCLAIMER:  i am an amateur farmer's wife. i don't claim to know much about cotton or farming it. i'll try and be as accurate as i know.

ok, now that thats out of the way.. kanyon planted his cotton in the month of may and a little in june (that was a re-plant).

these are pictures of some of his crop, planted in may:

this is his dry land that he needed to replant, so its only a week old. but its comin up so good!!

this is kanyon's tractor that he bought last year - a john deere 8130.

kanyon has about 385 acres of irrigated cotton and about 300 acres of dry land. that means the dry land is only watered by the rain and his irrigated have these irrigation systems on them:

during the summer, kanyon has to check the circle systems (or irrigation systems) a couple times a day to make sure the systems are moving like they are supposed to and that the pressure on the water wells are correct. he has to fix somethin on the systems all the time. like yesterday:

the water wasn't comin out right or something. checkin a well --

its definitely a full time job overseeing those systems during the summer. not to mention the sand fighting (done with a tractor), spraying round up with a spray coup (looks like an airplane that he drives over the fields with), and all the repairing of a million things. i'm probably undershooting all that he does, too.

thats whats goin on with kanyon right now, though. i'm pretty impressed how up and about he's been since his wisdom teeth extraction.. i was down and out for two weeks before i was able to leave the house! and did i mention that he was awake the whole time during his surgery? i just found that out a few days ago.. *shudder*

it really is so pretty out in west texas.

name game

so when i made this blog, i didn't really intend to keep the title as my name this long, but i can't think of what i want it to be!!

i want it to be more of mine AND kanyon's blog and i want it to have to do something with cotton.

can anyone think of any fun names to do with cotton?

busy weekend

sorry its been 5 days since my last post, we had a busy weekend. we had kalith's birthday on friday so we had dinner at texas roadhouse that night! then saturday, we had a kairos meeting (if you don't know what i'm talking about, i'll fill you in later). then a baby shower on sunday.

but what i really want to say is - i plan on going out and takin some pictures of kanyon's cotton in the next couple of days so that
1) i am a good wife interested in her husband's stuff
2) i can make sure that kanyon really does do stuff all day
3) you can see what he does

it really is all extremely cool once you know more about it. i have people all the time, especially people from houston, say this when i tell them what kanyon does: "people still farm?!? i thought machines did everything!"

prepare to be enlightened, city people of the world (of whom i used to belong to).

wisdom teeth

well kanyon is in austin today getting his wisdom teeth taken out. he signed up for this experimental things so he actually gets paid to have them take them out if he will take their medicine after. his sister jada did it first so we knew that its okay. thanks for taking that risk for us, jada.

after his surgery, he has to stay there for 6 hours after so they can monitor him on the meds. he can't use his phone but they allow him to have a computer so we've been skyping today.

i had grand plans for posting the funny things kanyon would say under the influence of drugs. it was going to be a really funny post, trust me. but all i got was this:

Erika: i'll get you some soup today
Kanyon: k
Erika: so whatcha doin now?
Kanyon: movie
Erika: well i finished another twilight book today.. she just came out with another one. guess that tells you how much work i've done today.
Kanyon: yeah
Erika: i was hoping you would be so loopy we we have some funny conversations on here
Kanyon: nope

Thanks for ruining that, Kanyon.

p.s. I promise I did some work today..

for jason and stephen

two of my best friends are in south africa right now doing mission work. they are two of the best people you will ever meet.

with them being in south africa and with them both happening to be soccer lovers, they get to hit up some world cup games, no big deal.

in honor of them.. i want to share this awesome video by one of our favorite artists, k'naan. one of his songs was remade to be an official world cup song. and its amazing.

if this video doesn't make you pumped up, you must be asleep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTJSt4wP2ME

miss you, boone and stephen.

house tour, part.. four? gah-lee.

ok, here are the pictures that i thought i had yesterday that i didn't that i was going to have last night but couldn't but now have. got it?

our bedroom!

thats my bridal portrait above the dresser.. didn't lavanda do a great job? www.lavandawasonphotography.com

done with the house tour (singy voice)!

our house, part 2

i'm sorry i didn't get this out last night.. i thought that i had already taken pictures of our bedroom so when i went to post this, i had every room except our bedroom! and then i accidently left my memory cards at work last night so i couldn't take a picture last night. soooo... here is the rest of our house except for our bedroom!
i'll do a post on that tomorrow after i take a picture of it.

our bathroom:

 vaughn and i painted the woodwork in the bathroom. that was a bundle of fun.

four coats of paint.

small beveled surface area.

bundle of fun.

** edit: my mom helped with a lot of painting too. sorry, mom :) i was just talking about the woodwork.

 i must say, though, that our bathroom is one of my favorites, decoration wise.















the guest bathroom:

the color came out kinda funny in this picture. its really a hunter green with navy blue and tan on the shower curtain.

when we first saw the house, i planned on chunkin the lights. but after vaughn cleaned them off, i kinda like their vintage look.

but the picture doesn't really show it well because the glass fixtures have a design on them that you can't see.













the guest bedroom:

this is basically all my college bedrooms combined.. not that gender neutral.

this is a vanity that my parents got me a long time ago that i still love. i've gotten lots of compliments on it! good job, parents.
















the office / work out room / second guest room / catch-all

i just realized i didn't move that box! just imagine it without that junk box that kanyon put in there the other day.

see? catch-all room.

we haven't painted this room yet and it really needs it. you can't tell from the picture, but there are a lot of nicks and scratches all over the walls.

i got an awesome treadmill from my parents for graduation. thats that big black thing folded up.

we have really great closet space in this house. there's two in this room.












alright, i promise i'll finish up this house tour tonight! lauren baker is coming in town today so i'm taking her out to a fancy steakhouse. k-bob's!

which is not fancy or even known for having good steaks. sorry lauren. gotta work with what we got in lamesa.

ruidoso, nm

kanyon and i just got back last night from his grandmother's (Mama Brown) family reunion last night. we had a lot of fun! apparently everyone in west texas has been or goes to ruidoso regularly.. yet i've never heard of the place until i started dating kanyon. houston doesnt have mountains just a couple hours away, ok! houston has galveston. BUT houston does have restaurants. which may win in my book.

anyway, here's some pictures:

bailey & landon (kanyon's brother and his girlfriend), a bear, kanyon, me

i don't know why the exposure on this picture is weird.

or why my husband couldn't smile.

another bear haha. this is kanyon's cousins' little girl, sage. she's adorable.

the boys played golf, no exaggeration, every spare moment. even if that meant waking up at 7 am on a vacation. who does that?

the last night, we went go kart racing with all the cousins. it was a blast! but that might have a lot to do with the fact that kanyon couldn't beat me all four hundred times we raced.

more house pictures coming later today!

our house - part 1

in this post i will show yall the living room and the kitchen since there are more pictures for them than for the bedrooms. trust me.. this will help:

i'd also like to point out that i am on hold with office max at work and their "on hold" music is rap music. i think someone's getting fired tomorrow at office max.

 

the front door is there on the left. 

kanyon and i spend hardly any time on that couch watching seasons of lost. (thats not true.)

on the left, that is a canvas of one of kanyon and i's engagement pictures sitting on a haystack. we are also planning on buying a cow hide to put under that table to give it some depth.

did i just say "give it some depth"? ... i think vaughn and her hgtv is rubbing off on me.

this is where my african elephant and zebra live on the wall behind the table to the left of the above photo.

kanyon and i found this lightswitch plates at the houston livestock show.

ok now to the kitchen --

we did a total makeover to it - pretty much everything you see here.. is not the same as before.

aunt jaleen and i painted the cabinets the cream color. lauren baker and i painted the walls yellow. kanyon and his dad did some redesigning and moving of the cabinets so we could have the microwave there. they also put the new counters in. kanyon did the backsplash by himself (close up pic later). meme and grandad gave us their fridge. i took off one of the cabinet doors to make open shelving for the dishes.

there's probably more but i've most likely blocked the worst of it from my memories.

we still haven't bought curtains for these windows, which i'm hoping will make this room a little smaller.

my cookbooks, and my card holder, which is filled with my young life kid's graduation announcements..

why weren't these cute cards in style when i graduated??

a close up look at our everyday dishes.. i love 'em.

 one of my most favorite purchases..

thanks ann!
www.heartfeltdesigns.biz

 a closer look at our back splash. i think it looks like old metal ceiling tiles.


 well, its 5 minutes after my work day ended at work so i'm leavin!

203 gum street.. great street name, huh

welcome to our house! we love it. we do have a lot we still want to do, but who doesnt?

this is the street view.
status: definitely not done.

there was not much shrubbery or plants anywhere. we planted some shrubs in the front that will eventually cover that orange paint on the bottom front. and we are planning on lots more shrubbery and flowers.

this porch will go someday. we would like it to face the street more so kanyon plans on tearing up this cinder block one and building a larger one angled more towards the street. maybe even covered?

also - we plan on painting the trim a cream instead of the mauve or orangey pink it is now. that will make a huge difference. kanyon has planted that walkway with monkey grass recently. thats as far as we've gotten.

one of our favorite parts of the house - the backyard!
status: very unfinished.

kanyon planted some grass some weeks ago and we're just waiting for it to keep growin. that little house in the back is a back apartment that we are going to clean out and make kanyon's leather shop.
that open part on the left of it is a little storage area that we'll make into a dog house.

a view of the other side with the car port and the storage shed. see that grass comin up FINALLY?

and this is what the back of the house looks like with the teeny little cement porch where the yellow chairs are.. we plan on building a wood deck someday. we have a grill, a fire pit, a swing, and some chairs that we want to put on it. we like sitting outside but that little porch can get small. like crowded with two people small. like you have to kick someone off if you want to open the door small.

not to mention i'd feel a little better if there was a deck between me and the hognose snake that lives under our house. *shiver*



i'm going to save the inside of the house for another post since it would be so long, and i may even split it up into two posts.. thats way too much waiting for uploads, people.

the street names in welch are named after types of trees.

why couldn't we have lived one street over on hickory street? or elm street?