flashback friday: the proposal i'll never forget, backstory

this is the last flashback friday about the proposal i promise.this post is actually more about all the little details before and after the proposal that i don't want to forget, and an update on my precious jersey calf that came along with the beautiful ring farm boy gave me. 

farm boy officially bought and picked up the ring the day before valentine's day. on that same day he gave me flowers, chocolate and took me out to dinner with a gift certificate his parents had passed on to him for an italian restaurant in town. we were leaving for indiana the next morning to attend my grandfather's funeral, so it was our early valentine's day slash birthday celebration since my birthday is also on valentine's day. 

ironically on our way to dinner, i mentioned to him that if he would just buy my darn engagement ring he would also get flowers, chocolate, and a gift certificate for dinner from the s.e. needhams jewelry store where i had already picked out my dream ring. i had no clue he was already in possession of the ring, and that my flowers/chocolate/dinner gift combo were all from the exact promotion i had told him about. 

although, i never got the surprise of an engagement ring that night or on valentine's day, he did inform me about an amethyst ring he bought me! the store didn't have it in my size, but we went in the next day before leaving for indiana and ordered one, and i love it! and of course, everyone joked that it should have been an engagement ring.

after all of the proposal excitement, and lunch at mis amores with everyone involved, it was time to get to work on a proper home for our new baby girl. we cleaned out a calf hutch for her and moved it over to farm boy's parents' house so he could take care of her easier.  

after all that work she was finally in her new clean and comfy home. we took a family picture that farm boy posted on facebook to get help with naming her. we got some great suggestions from all our friends, but farm boy came up with indy and i instantly loved it. indy, short for indiana, was a great fit for our little girl. 

 

farm boy was busy all week long feeding indy a bottle twice a day, and of course i helped on the weekends when i came to visit.

everyone took a liking for indy though, especially farm boy's sister, kelsie, who was in charge of feeding all the babies at their family's dairy down the road. she sent us this picture one day after taking indy for a walk around their house. 

she even made a debut in our engagement pictures!
i love this picture of her. so cute!

and i wish with everything in me that i could show you another cute picture of indy, who would be over 8 months old now. however, just three short weeks after the proposal farm boy woke up to a very sick baby calf. he rushed to the vet and picked up medicine for her, but by the time he returned she was already gone. unfortunately that's the name of the game in agriculture. not every one will make it. we knew we were taking a chance raising her, especially in the winter. calves are very fragile, especially jerseys who are about half the size of other dairy breeds. you have to take every precaution you can to keep them strong and healthy the first few weeks, and we thought we had. she had been slightly sick looking a few other times and we treated her quickly, but the morning farm boy found her she was much much worse. 

when farm boy told me she was really sick that morning i said a little prayer for her, and when i got the news she was gone, i cried. if i think about it enough, i could probably cry again today. 

i love love love jersey calves. she reminded me of all the times my dad made me walk out in our pasture to bring in the new calf one of our cows had during the night (that's how i got my farm girl muscles), all the times feeding countless little brown calves twice a day during milkings, all the times i would groom the cattle up and show them at fair.

i had big dreams for indy. we would breed her to a great jersey bull. she would have a sweet little indy jr. heifer calf (hopefully). and then indy would have been right there in the milking herd, although she would have been the only jersey in a sea of holsteins, i know she could have held her own!

indy will always have a special place in our hearts. i mean how could you forget this face?

(little secret: she is still the background picture on my iphone's lock screen! i can't bring myself change it.)

don't you all worry though, an indy II will be in our future. hopefully sooner, rather than later. 

last little note: if anyone is interested, my amazing fiance, at the time, wrote up a blog post about our whole proposal story. you can check it out here. he actually includes way more backstory since he was the mastermind behind it all, so check it out for even more insider details!

   

flashback friday: the proposal i'll never forget, part 2

if you missed part 1 of this crazy proposal story, check it out here!

so after finishing my morning job at the farm, and getting the okay from my boss on campus i headed to preston for the day to help out farm boy.

and i guess i need to back track just a tad, because as i was hesitating to go to preston for the day farm boy pulled out a secret weapon and offered lunch at mis amores (which is only the best mexican joint in cache valley), and we all know i can not turn down good food so i was in for sure after that.

after thirty minutes in the car i pulled into the driveway, and found not only farm boy but his mom, grandma, and sister all hanging out in the house. farm boy and i decided to go get lunch before working on anything, and before i knew it we had convinced everyone else to come along as well. they all acted pretty busy, and his little sister had just barely eaten lunch, but in the end they kind of reluctantly decided they would come, and i thought none the wiser about it.

we all piled into his mom's car and headed to lunch, and farm boy quickly started telling me about a "new addition" to the farm that i had to see asap. he proceeded to direct his mother to one of their family's barns where this "new addition" was located, so i could see it before lunch.

it was a muddy wet day and us ladies didn't exactly wear appropriate shoes to walk through a barn. we gave the suggestion that this wasn't the best idea, but farm boy insisted we see, so we all headed into the barn, and at first i was super confused. i didn't see a thing new or different, until farm boy directed me to the other side of the barn where a small baby jersey calf was hanging out in a pile of loose straw. and i was ecstatic!

 

you see farm boy is a holstein cow lover (he even has a shirt that is solely covered with a giant holstein cow face) while i on the other hand am a jersey cow lover! don't know the difference? see below...you have a very younger version of me showing a jersey calf at the indiana state fair, and then a slightly younger farm boy posing with his favorite holstein ladies on his families dairy in preston.

  

we've had many debates during our relationship of which breed of dairy cows is better, and we have just decided to agree to disagree. 

i digress though. back to this crazy story. as i was freaking out and going crazy because of my excitement, farm boy's mother decided to grab her camera from the car to take pictures. now you're probably thinking wow emma you should have seen that as a clue, but nope it wasn't at all since she loves jersey cows and taking pictures of them. i was still clueless of what was about to go down.

after i caught my breath and controlled my excitement, farm boy told me that he got the baby calf for me, which sent me into more excitement and curiosity. i asked him why and where he got it from since his family only deals with the black and whites, and he went on to tell me this long crazy story. he informed me that he had told the organic jersery dairy in a nearby town that if he ever had to treat a calf (and no longer be able to use on an organic dairy that does not allow certain treatments), he should call him so he could buy it from him. and apparently that had happened this morning, so he bought just for me and said we could raise it on his family's dairy.

since it was my calf, farm boy decided it was my job to tag her ear. and this seems like the perfect time to stop talking and show you lovely video that his mother was taking the entire time (and i had no clue about till later that day)! please ignore all my craziness in this video. i was in complete shock. i mean yeah i knew i was going to marry him and that meant he would be proposing soon, but i had no clue it was happening then. 

and since i'm not on top of the ball today i don't have the official video to put right here on the blog, but you can go to facebook and watch it here, or just copy and paste the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152647441610486&l=2474736748391038987

watch. enjoy. and don't laugh too hard when i ask for the millionth time "is this real?".

flashback friday: the proposal i'll never forget, part 1

before farm boy and i could get married, he had to get down on one knee and make sure i was in for the long haul. well to be honest he had known for a long time (over a year actually) that i was ready and willing to marry him, but protocol includes an actual proposal. and this boy's proposal did not disappoint one bit.

this story begins way back on the first day of 2013. i had flown back from christmas break at home in indiana (which farm boy was lucky enough to join for a few days as well) with my family. farm boy had picked me up from the airport and as we were finally rolling through cache valley he decided we needed to stop at a local hispanic market. as he continued to drive i proceeded to argue with him about where exactly it was at. i knew he was going the wrong direction and did my best to explain that to him, however he continued on his course and we ended up a couple blocks away from the market, but conveniently parked right behind logan's most marketed jeweler, se needhams. and you can just imagine my excitement when he proceeded to lead me into the jewelry store and casually tell the worker we were there to look at engagement rings!!

now before this outing we had never looked at rings...together. (i had previously looked with both my older sisters at two different jewelry stores in indiana the summer before. nothing ever came of the rings i had picked out there though.) i was a giddy little school girl checking out rings with him and finally saw a glimpse of light at the end of this dating tunnel. because at this point we had been dating for about 19 months, and i was beyond ready to marry this kid!

after i tried on as many beautiful rings as i possibly could, it was down to two gorgeous rings that were very similar. i turned to my handsome farm boy for thoughts and together we chose the very ring that is on my ringer today. now, i wish i could say a couple weeks after this visit he got down on his knee and popped the big question. i mean we had finally looked at rings together, picked one out, and even had chatted about getting married around the time of spring break. i had mentioned to my family, and some close friends of our new year's day outing and even tried on some wedding dresses just a few weeks later. unfortunately, the weeks started to roll by with no appearance of any such ring.

we quickly rolled through january, and then february. our original plans of a "spring break wedding" were long gone, and i was starting to loose hope that we were getting married any time soon. as march began, we were two weeks away from spring break, and just nine weeks away from my college graduation. and as i had told farm boy several times before, "if i wasn't married when i graduate, i was going back home to indiana to work with my dad." and he knew i wasn't kidding.

well wednesday march 6 i woke up and headed out to the USU south farm to feed my furry little calves before going into work my second job on campus for the day. farm boy had been milking cows in idaho that morning since 1 am, and as soon as he knew i was up feeding calves he sent me a desperate text asking that i head to idaho as soon as possible to help him for the day. i had to work on campus though so i hesitated, but he pleaded saying he was swamped with so much to do, so i emailed my boss explaining there was an "emergency" i needed to attend to in idaho and would not be in the office for the day. luckily my boss is the coolest, and there was no problem, so as i finished my calf feeding i headed to idaho for what i thought would be a normal day, but little did i know that there was a whole slew of sneakiness going on behind my back.

to be continued...