Valentine's Day we will never forget

Only One Valentine's Box this year because Ryker and the 6th graders do a dance instead of Valentine's Boxes. Too old for it now. Jesse helped Cy put his box together last night. Thank goodness for his teamwork while I'm at the salon. 

Ryker got all dressed up for the dance. Last week each boy got to choose 3 girls to dance with and the girls got to choose 3 boys to dance with. So each kid had a dance card  to dance 6 dances. Like the Fox trot, swing etc. I wish I could have been there to see him having a great time. But thankfully a few moms were there and took some pictures and thought to send them to me.

This one Ryker is dancing with Emily Akerlow. 

This one. Haha. All the guys. I love it.
Left to Right: Jayden Hunsaker, Sammy Serio(back), Emilio Castinada (front), Eli Bodell (back), Landon Burbage(front), Landon Thompson, Viliami Maukuai, Cole Hanks and Ryker!

Ryker wants to say a few things about the dance: "Everyone was so freaked out that it would be so scary, to be honest, I kinda was too. But it was SO fun.  It was one of the best experiences of my life. I felt comfortable dancing with the girls I was assigned because we are all friends. I had such a great time( Landon Thompson is holding two cookies in his hand, when he originally already had four... haha )."

I got home from work around 3:30pm. And it was about 4 pm when I asked Ryker if he could go check on the chickens to see if they needed some water. Within a few moments after he went outside Ryker came running back inside in tears, screaming "They are all dead and there are feathers every where!"

I was confused thinking I know that had water recently that they had water so how could they all be dead. Jesse and I followed Ryker outside and to our shock we found 7 chickens dead. With feathers throughout the chicken run. What the heck happened?

We quickly realized that some animal HAD to have gotten inside the coup and did this. But what? Ryker was hysterically bawling about it. He was so traumatized at finding them like this. 

A few months ago Jesse had put one of our Night Owl Cameras out by the chicken coup. So we started to do some investigation on maybe we could see if something got in and when. And sure enough something got in. And not just a little something. A freaking BOBCAT!!!!! Around 1am.

The weirdest thing to me is that he didn't eat any of them. He just killed them for fun? And he still left 7 alive. Why not kill all of them?

Over the next hour or so the boys and our renter kids were investigating the area for prints and how the bobcat could have gotten up there etc.

Man this will be a Valentine's Event the boys will never forget. haha. not haha. 

I still went ahead with our  Valentin's Dinner. Last year I cooked a special dinner for all 4 of my valentines and they loved it so much that they wanted me to do it again. So I did. I think it will become a family tradition from now on. 

We ate by candle light. 

Fynn said "We should Treenx with our cups." It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about. And it wasn't until he picked up his cup and did a toast with my cup. So then we all did "Treenx" together. Haha. 

During our dinner we all went around and told each other what we loved about each other. It's my favorite part because it's a moment that we all have to open up our grateful hearts and pour our love and gratitude out towards one another. It's bonding! I love it. 

Cy gave the family this cute card he made in his Spanish class. 

The boys were invited to go downstairs to play games with our renters. Which was perfect cuz then Jesse and I could watch a movie alone together. The boys came back around 9ish and they cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for bed. I had fallen asleep while all of that was happening so when Jesse came back to bed he woke me up. I got ready for bed and climbed back in bed with him. About that time it was 10pm and Jesse decided to check the security camera on the chickens. I hear him say "Oh my gosh he's back!"

And sure enough the bobcat was searching all around for a hole to sneak in. Thankfully before dark Jesse had secured any holes and adjusted the camera so we could see the whole coup this time. And it was kinda freaky to watch this bobcat walking all over the top of the coup trying to get in. 

He even climbed down in between the neighbors fence and the chicken wire and got stuck down in there. He had to back out and then we didn't see him again. This all happened around 8pm. 8PM!!!! That is all the while we were still awake. Yikes. AND we learned that the addition had a window wide open that the bobcat could have easily hopped in, then would have been IN OUR HOUSE!!! Eek. So thankfully THAT didn't happen. 

Our 7 last chickens lived to see another day.

And Happy Valentine's Day!!!!