Two things (at least)

Let me just say that it's a pain having divorced parents. If you are the victim of parental divorce, you know what I mean. Not to say that there aren't good things that can come from it... but it's a pain. And now I'm an adult, so you would think the whole custody thing should be over, right? Well, not when you live out of state. Very frustrating!!

Anyway. Yesterday I went on our bank's Dairy Tour, which is a big event we organize every year. Since I am now part of the Ag (Agricultural) department, I helped plan and attended the Dairy Tour. We went to three new or recently improved dairies. One had a robotic calf feeder, so they don't have to hand-bottle-feed newborn calves. Another one had slatted floors which helps limit the amount of cleanup they have to do (which, even from the little I know about dairies, would be a lot when it comes to cows and poop). The final one was huge and very automated - a 5,000 cow dairy. I know you probably don't have a reference to say "is that a lot of cows comparatively speaking," and again, neither do I, but to give you a little bit of perspective, before this dairy was built, the largest dairy in the county was 3,500. In the county! Anyway. It was a neat experience, and even though California is a big dairy state as well (it's the cheese!), I doubt I would have ever gotten a similar opportunity if I was still living in California. And the smell wasn't too bad, for the most part. In California, when you drive past Chino you can smell the manure from the freeway... so I was a little nervous about going INSIDE three dairies! But I survived and I learned a lot, even though I don't remember all of it.

So I am heading to California tonight - I get to see Rowan!!! That boy is going to get so many snuggles he is not going to know what to do with himself! :) And I will go to my friend Julia's wedding, which is going to be awesome/amazing/fantastic/so much fun! And I will be out for a full week, which means I have a week to do what I normally try to cram into two-and-a-half days!! Awesome!! Since I will be busy next week, don't expect a lot of posts. I might surprise you, or I might be snuggling/admiring my new nephew. We'll see ;-)