efy with a side of trauma.

as i was getting ready to climb into the car in the byui stadium parking lot on the last day of efy, my phone rings. its michelle.

"jessica let me talk to your mom!"

she sounds close to tears. there are dogs barking in the background and i hear her yell "labby, sit!"

i give the phone to my mom and give my 10 newfound siblings our last hugs. as i give drew a hug, my mom opens the door and says,

"get in the car, we have to go!"

i give apologetic glances to those who i've neglected to give meaningful goodbyes to.

i get into the car with that great post-efy feeling.

and then my mom tells me that the dogs had gotten out and ate my bunnies.

... it took a second to sink in.

"tiger?"

"yup."

"ralphie?" he's our newest.

"yep." tears were getting closer...

"floppy and abby?"

"floppy, but abby is still alive. labby had her in her mouth and natali got her."

luckily i didn't cry. ethan + natali did enough of that for me.

the invisible fence that is supposed to keep the dogs in their paddock failed, the day after we had gotten it fixed.

my mom was mad. and my dad was mad. and when they are mad, i sit in the back seat of my car holding on for dear life as dad is trying his best not to swear while driving dangerously fast around all the construction cones in rexburg.

mom makes a phone call to the fence lady.

i feel bad for her.

she got all of her wrath. but she deserved it. since she messed up on the fence i no longer had ralphie. :( but i sure love it when i'm not on the recieving end of mom's phone calls.

***

earlier that morning, when i was busy saying goodbye to my company in rexburg, five hours away in eagle, natali was going outside to feed the bunnies. my aunt michelle was home with the 3 younger kids. natali went downstairs screaming and crying because all the bunny cages were flipped over the there was a dead bunny on the porch. the rest of the bunnies were missing. the kids all ran to the back yard and called the dogs.

tank and labby came around from the front of the house and labby had abby, ethan's bunny, in her mouth.

great.

they got the bunny out of labby's mouth and wrapped her in a towel and tied up the dogs. they had been out all night and tank smelled like skunk. michelle found the other two bunnies dead on the front lawn she was so brave and disposed of them by herself. quite a feat for her, who is so not an animal person.

***

but wait, there's more. i received a voicemail in the car saying that some of my friends were throwing a surprise birthday party for my good friend jocelynn. it was scheduled at 7pm. i was hoping to get home in time to take a nap and shower before her party.

at 6 o'clock-ish, i'm outside throwing hay to the horses. i hear ryan calling my name in a panic. the first thing that entered my head was that the dogs had gotten out again and were wreaking more havoc.

but when our horses started galloping around the pasture in a panic, i knew it wasn't the dogs, but i had no idea what it could be.

i walked around the barn and saw four horses eating our lawn.

wait what??

why are there horses eating our lawn???

we recognized the as our neighbor ron's horses. we didn't know if they were friendly or not so we called him up only to find he was in pocatello riding in a rodeo.

great.

so we called our trusty friends the didericksens, (remember them?) and they told us that they knew those horses and they were safe to approach and halter to take back to their pen. unfortunately, they were in nampa so they couldn't come help us round 'em back up.

by this time, the horses were across the street in our non-horsey neighbors yard. their dog was chasing them around and of course, that doesn't help at all when you're trying to catch them.

i was finally able to put a halter on ron's racehorse, miss sally, and the rest of the horses followed.

i looked at my phone.

7pm.

great.

i was sweaty and smelled like horses from chasing those darned things around for the last hour.

as you know, its kind of vital that you are on time to a surprise birthday party. i ran home in my cowboy boots, (not an easy feat) and got into my car. i sped to jocelynn's house (without breaking the speed limit) not even 30 seconds before she walked in the door.

phew.

i got home at 10pm ish and realized that i had forgotten to turn the water off on the horses trough. i ran down and turned off the flooding water trough.

then finally i walked inside, made myself some crystal light, and went to bed, only to wake up 10 minutes before stake conference was starting. haha,

what a crazy weekend.