Table, Chickens, and other events.

Wow, so it's been 3 months since I've posted.  Things have been busy.  Lots of things going on.  After winter melted away and each day wasn't on par with an arctic expedition, we started doing some fun things.  First off, we built a table and planted some vegetables, then my dad ran a marathon, and most recently, we got some chickens.

Here are some pictures of the table that my wife and I built.  It's pretty awesome.  We got the plans from a website called knock off wood.  It's a really awesome website.  There are some benches that go with the table and we have the wood to make them, but I just haven't made them yet.

We bought the wood at home depot.  Cut it with a power saw.  Screwed it together.  And it only took about 4 hours.  Pretty cool, huh?

Now, in the same realm of coolness, but possibly even more cool, we got chickens!  2 baby roosters and 16 baby hens.

They are pretty adorable.  You can see the rest of the pictures here.  They have to stay indoors under heat lamps for a few weeks, and then we'll put them outside--which means that we need to make a chicken coop before they get too big.

In just the one week that we've had them so far, they have grown quite a bit.  At first, they were really small and fluffy.  They are still small and fluffy, but the feathers on their wings are growing a lot and they are starting to get little tail feathers (not just any little tail feathers, but probably some of the most adorable tail feathers you've ever seen).  And they are getting a little bit bigger too.  Anyway, lots of fun overall.  Kind of messy, but definitely worth it.

Also, my dad ran another marathon.  This is his 7th overall and 2nd in Champaign (Chicago twice, Champaign twice, Akron, Louisville, and Dayton).

And one more thing.  My wife planted vegetables inside.  We'll have to move them outdoors soon.  Cucumbers below:

And I think that's everything.  Now that I've gone back and looked at some photos, I'm realizing more that it has been a pretty eventful 2010 so far.  I also took an actuarial exam.  CAS exam 5.  I don't think I did well on it, but it was my first attempt and I didn't get much studying done.  Better luck next time.  We also went down to Kentucky to visit my mom for mothers' day.  It was really fun.  Oh, one more thing.  I replaced the sump pump in our basement and found out how much water I can pump with a hand pump in case the electricity goes out.  They electricity didn't go out and our basement was fine.  I just wanted to know how much I could pump manually in case I needed too.  The answer is "more water than I thought I could pump, but still not very much."