SCFB Annual Meeting

I love December for many reasons.  

I love all the excitement surrounding the upcoming celebration of our Savior's birth.  

I love the smells, the warmth and the beach.  

Yes you read that right.  I love the beach in December.  

No even though we live in South Carolina we can't lay out or play in the waves(typically),

 but we get to visit with many of our friends.

this past weekend was was the 70th South Carolina Farm Bureau annual meeting!  

For most families the only worries at home are making sure everything is turned off and that they have all they need.  However for a farm family leaving home for a few days is a little more labor intenstive.  The farm work doesn't stop because we aren't there.  The cows still need to be milked, fed and cared for.  So how do we leave??  William does as much as humanly possible before we leave.  He gives extra hay to all the livestock and we make sure all pastures have extra water or that the automatic waterers are working properly.  He makes sure that everyone who is scheduled to help knows about any fresh cows (milking cows that just had calves), any expected births, feed deliveries and a million other things that could (and usually do) happen while we are gone.  We rely on help from William's parents plus our 2 paid folks.  Then we pack up the car & the family to drive 4 hours to Myrtle Beach.  

Even though leaving the farm is difficult, 

once we arrived it was a flurry of activities, hugs, and laughter!  

I dropped the boys at the hotel and headed straight to the convention center to watch 

our friends Tracy, Marie, Carrie, and Katie compete in the Young Farmer & Rancher Discussion meet.  

They all did an awesome job!  Carrie actually won (this was her 1st time EVER competing) and will be going to San Antonio to compete in the AFBF meet!  It's been 4 years since I made that same trip and I know she will love it every bit as much as I did!

After that I rushed back to the hotel and changed so William & I could head to the awards & recognition program.  Rachel was staying with us so she kept the boys.  

We were ecstatic to see that our friends JEB & Jane won the achievement award and our friends Kevin & Stephanie brought home the Excellence in Ag award!  Needless to say lots of celebration occurred! 

We also enjoyed a sweet moment with our favorite Women's/YF&R coordinator, Faith.  To say thank you for all of her hard work and dedication over the last 14 years.  That is 14 years of committed service with a bunch of wild and crazy folks.  She is leaving FB after the first of the year to take a position as a 4-H agent, where I know she will do AWESOME!!  

Saturday started bright and early.