5 things about me meme

Looks like I’ve been tagged by Julie Lindsay to give you 5, maybe unknown, facts about me. So here it goes.

1. I am originally from Greenacres, Washington. Yep, there really is a place named Greenacres just like the old TV show. Overseas I usually tell people I’m from Seattle as it’s a large city that most people know thanks to Boeing and Microsoft. But actually Greenacres is clear across the state and less than 5 miles from the Idaho boarder outside of Spokane, Washington. I tell people I’m from Spokane who know where that is, but my address to this day in the States is Greenacres.

2. I grew up on a farm. Raised cows, pigs, and sheep through Middle School (a 4H member) before giving up the animals and going completely to row crop farming. (Vegetable farming: corn, cucumbers, peppers, zucchinis, tomatoes, etc) very labor intensive farm work, which is why my mom and dad had 3 boys. Just how big was our farm? About 70 acres when I was in high school and it was a typical day to pick 1,000 dozen of corn, 3600 cucumbers, and 1000 pounds of zucchinis. We sold fresh produce daily to the local stores namely Tidyman’s, Yokes, and later on to Safeway. At one point we were shipping corn from Seattle to Montana. In September we would pick close to 1 million pounds of pumpkins for Halloween. The farm was a full time hobby as my mother is an administrator and my father a now retired high school science teacher.

Today with all three of use grown up (Youngest a music teacher in Puyallup, WA, The Middle one slowly taking over the farm, and me, the oldest in Shanghai) the farm has gone away from row crops to large crop harvest. The farm is now closing in on 1000 acres (all rented) growing wheat, barley, green beans, and alfalfa. The farm now owns two combines, a semi-truck, and the equipment continues to pile in the yard. Utecht Farms sports their own logo, jackets, and hats. Sorry not for sale…employees only. 🙂

3. I have visited more countries than I have States in America. My wife and I sat down while in Vietnam and came up with 22 countries we have now visited in the past 5 years of living overseas. My personal favorites: South Africa, Italy, and France.

4. We have two American citizen cats that have a visa document for Saudi Arabia with Collin Powell’s signature on it.

5. My favorite words are “Brutal, Mega, Cheers, and No Worries” a very international collections of sayings. I actually speak 6 different languages, that’s what I tell me students any why, most of who speak at least two. I can speak, American, Canadian, Australian, British, New Zealand, and South African English. 😉

Tagged are: Jerram Froese, Christopher Harris

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