anniversary of a lifetime

So it's our 15 wedding anniversary this year and, being the hopeless romantic Joel is, he offered to take me back east to the wonderful capitol city of New York, Albany. And not only would he fly me there round trip, staying in a 3rd class motel and eating dinner at chain restaurants every night- he would also throw in an all expenses paid 3 day Dairy Sheep Association of North America Symposium!!! That's right folks, I know they say your 15th anniversary is supposed to be the crystal anniversary but Joel tells me it is actually cheese.
We actually had a great time, it is something we are both interested in and feel as though we need. Information is what we were lacking when it came to building a cheese business from the ground up. This was a wonderful event and offered such valuable information for people just like us. We came home completely drained every night as we learned everything from how to design a well organized milking parlor to nutrition for prepubertal ewe lambs and genetic markers for milk production. A funny little happenstance occurred on the second night we were there. We got to our room and were trying to figure out where to go for dinner, since we had to walk everywhere we wanted something close. There was a funny Chinese restaurant next door and, being as tired as we were, this was exactly what we needed. I got a warm bowl of noodle soup and Joel got a rice dish. We finished our meal and got our bill and fortune cookies. I opened mine right away and on one side it had my fortune and on the other it had the Chinese word to learn- gooseberry. Joel then opened his and as he cracked open the cookie half of the fortune was showing and there was only one word... "sheep". That's right, the Chinese word to learn was sheep! I take these things as a sign, Joel takes them as an interesting coincidence. Either way you see it, these little "coincidences" are adding up. We saw it with every step in our home buying process, the people we have met who are lined up ready to help us in areas we didn't know needed help. Something is pulling us in this direction and no matter what it is, it's still nice to have a path laid out for us... all we have to do is follow it.