42 day 'trip'

It feels like forever since we were on an adventure or had uninterrupted sleep or had time to just do anything.  So we didn't actually go on a trip for 42 days but have been on a 42 day 'trip' with these little guys . . .

Yes, it is that time of year where we put everything in our lives on hold except for school/work.  For the third year in a row our house is controlled by Colin's 52 show broiler chicks.  They arrived just as Colin was taking his last semester exam and released for Christmas Break; isn't that nice!

We were super busy taking care of these guys 24 hours a day 7 days a week . . . they were checked on a lot . . . seriously you can not imagine!  I can not even tell you how many times I woke up in the middle of the night (multiple times) to check on them; it was worse than having a newborn baby and puppy.  The first few weeks we took shifts of on the hour (Colin) and half hour (Heidi) and as time went on and we headed back to school/work then my parents checked on them at least every 2 to 3 hours while we were at school/work.  I tell you it takes a village!
In the end we went from day 1 . . .

. . . to day 9 . . .

. . . to day 15 . . .

. . . to day 28 . . .

. . . to day 38 . . .

 . . . to day 42 show day . . .

. . . to THIS . . .

I think we are both still in a bit of shock!  Out of 79 pens (a pen is 3 chickens), Colin's best pen of chickens were 1st place also known as Grand Champion.  I don't know who was more excited?  The other pen of birds placed 11th; so both pens were very good!  We worked hard . . . me, him, my parents . . . we all put in a lot of time and energy to care for these birds.  Of course Colin had an amazing teacher that spent many days stopping by our house to check on them, give advice and suggestions, and picked the pens to take to show.  I really don't know what we would have done without Mrs. Snyder!

Now how many days until we get to go on a real trip?