From one exciting thing to the next...

Have I mentioned that our life is a whirlwind? We just go from one exciting thing to the next.

On Monday night, Joseph ran the 1600 meter run in the JV District Track Meet. He and his teammates Eddy, Hayden and Braden, decided to run the race fast, and to stay together, which they did. All four stayed in a pack at the front of the race. On the last 200 meters, Joseph kicked it in, and went from 4th place to 1st. When he started to do that, all of a sudden I remembered the camera, and I started fumbling around trying to get the camera ready. This is the result - yes, the one second video.

At this point Joseph is in 1st and Braden in 2nd. In the next ten yards, Braden passed Joseph up and finished just a shoulder width ahead of Joseph (but it's fun to see him ahead in this video!)

FACT: On the race last Friday, Joseph was at least ten seconds behind Braden, Hayden, and Eddy.
FACT: Joseph's PR last Friday was 5:00 minutes flat, and in this race he got 4:53!
FACT: Although Braden beat him, it was so close that it didn't really matter, and what he really cared about was beating Hayden, one of his best friends that he's never beaten before. :)

This was a really exciting race for Joseph! He was exhausted at the end. He really gave it everything he had. He said he started to see black around the edges of his eyes after the race was over. Congratulations on being 2nd in District for JV in the mile!

Peter lost his tooth finally!(He glumly reported to me just now that the tooth fairy hasn't come yet. No comment.)

On Thursday afternoon we sent Joshua off on a Tour with the Madrigals. They went to northern Idaho - to Silverwood, where they sang in a Festival, and then went to an amusement park on Saturday. He said they had a great time!

The Varsity District Track Meet was held on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, Joseph ran the 3200 meter (2 grueling miles). I didn't get to see it, because I was being the responsible Mother and taking Peter and Libby to 4-H and milking the cow (ha ha), but Bruce was able to be there. He said Joseph and Hayden ran the whole race together, and Hayden beat him by just a step or two. Joseph previous PR in this event was 11:35, and in this race he got 10:51! Hayden told him later that he just kept thinking to himself, "I've got to beat Joseph", so he would go faster, and then Joseph would go faster, so they really pushed each other! To say this was a tough race is an understatement of course. I've heard Joseph say about a dozen times since then, "I'm never running the 3200 again!"

That night I had Joseph take a hot bath with Epsom Salts, and a few drops of the essential oils of lavender and lemon. I wanted his muscles to recover, because he was to run the 1600 m the next day.

On Thursday night, Libby called her friend Taylor to see if she was really "going to Washington with her for the weekend." She had told me about it earlier, but I thought it was just something that the girls had cooked up when they were playing - you know how kids do. Well, Taylor's mom called later in the evening and said that they really were going to Washington (state) for the weekend, and although they hadn't planned on it, they saw no reason why Libby couldn't come with them. So I hung up the phone and talked to Libby about all the things she would miss if she went. Without hesitation she replied, "I'm willing to miss all those things. Now where's my packing list?!" She was so excited.

She went up to pack her clothes with Mary's help, and soon she was downstairs again with Mary. Libby said, "Since I'm not going to be here on Sunday for Mother's Day, I want to sing you the songs that we were going to sing." I was amazed that, one, Libby would even remember that she would miss Mother's Day, and two, she would figure out a way to make it better. I'll always remember that thoughtfulness! And my word, I've missed that girl this weekend. She is a little sunshine in my life! I can't wait for her to get home. But she's had a great time in Washington, riding horses, roller skating and having a ball with her friend.

On Friday afternoon, Jesse's piano teacher, Jeff, offered to give Jesse some pointers on accompanying on the piano, as she is trying out for the Middle School Talent Show, accompanying her friends Bailey and Paige singing A Beautiful Disaster. I took all three girls to his house, and spent a wonderful hour listening to them practice this song. Jeff is truly an artist, and he taught them how to improve the musicality in the piece. Bailey and Paige have beautiful voices, and Jesse is doing a wonderful job accompanying them. They decided on the way home that their "band" name would be PB&J (for their first initials). I thought that was fun!

After this I dropped of the girls at a friends' party and Bruce and I went straight over to the second day of the Varsity Track Meet. It was fun to visit with Cori, Scott & Gaigh, Clark and Mary Jean, and Dan and Iris. When it came time for Joseph's race, he was slated in the slower heat. When we went down by the starting line, he came over to me by the fence and said, "I need a hug before I race." So I gave him a big hug and told him to say a prayer.

He was running in this heat with his friend Adrian, also a teammate, whom he has beaten throughout the year. He and Adrian took it out fast, with a 1:06 on their first lap and leading the pack. By the 3rd lap, Joseph started to worry about not going faster than Adrian, because he had beaten him all year long, so he tried to pass him on the last curve of the third lap. When he did that, he said he got really tired, and then Adrian passed him again. They ran the last 100 about one yard apart, and at the finish line they came across the line in the same second, with a time of 4:51! This was Adrian's PR by a long shot, and he and Joseph are such good friends, that I think Joseph was happy for him and didn't mind being beat by him either! So in all Joseph's races, he came in 2nd, (well in the 2 mile it was 2nd to Hayden, who he was running with), but in each race, he got a PR.

Here are Joseph's times in the mile throughout the year:
5:25, 5:07, 5:00, 4:53, and 4:51. He got better each time he ran the race! This is pretty exciting considering he's only a freshman. He ended up getting around 13th or 14th in the Varsity District!

So on with the whirlwind...

On Saturday morning, we went and picked out Mary and Peter's 4H lambs for the Fair.



Here is Slobberface, growing and doing well.
On the way home from getting the lambs, we stopped at the local farm & feed store to buy some feed for the lambs. I made the mistake of sending Bruce inside the store, with Mary and Peter, unsupervised. The result?Of course, you guessed it. Two little bunnies. When Bruce got in the car, I said, "What do you have to say for yourself?" Ha ha. It's a joke between us. I was the one, after all, who went in the same store and came out with 4 chicks. Seriously, though, Bruce said earlier in the week that one of his best memories of a child is the little bunnies that he had.

But my word, if these bunnies aren't the cutest things ever. On the left is Peter's bunny Thumper, and on the right is Mary's bunny named Carmel.Here they are with Peter on the trampoline,And with Mary.And here they are being admired by all the Primary kids at the Ward Mother's Day Breakfast.Thank you to these fine bretheren - Ralf, Lane, Todd and Jesse, who cooked our breakfast! We love these guys and their families so much. They are the salt of the earth.And Joseph and Jesse eating it!
Saturday afternoon we had the local Soccer Club End-of-the-Year Celebration, and enjoyed visiting with our soccer friends. We live in a GREAT community. I love it.

We're not through with the whirlwind yet!

Saturday night, Jesse had her Dance Recital. One of these days, I'll get better at digital photography.I had at least a dozen people come up to me and/or Jesse after the performance and comment on how Jesse literally "lit up" the stage, and how well she engaged the audience with her smile. She really did perform wonderfully - she's so fun to watch when she clogs!

Joseph performed also in a "couples dance" with Paige, and Jesse danced with Dane (center stage).They did a great job, and had fun doing it. Afterward, Dane gave Jesse these flowers, which was a very gentlemanly thing to do.
I've had a wonderful Mother's Day! It started at about 4:30 this morning with a call from Josh that he was ready to be picked up from the high school after returning from the bus tour. I said to Bruce, "Rock, paper scissors (to see who goes to get him)." He was kind enough to say, "No, I'll go get him. You tend to fall asleep on things like this." After Bruce picked him up, Josh came in to our bedroom, laid down on the bed and started telling us about the Tour.

When we told him about the Dance Recital, Josh asked if Dane was nice to Jesse, and we said, "Yes, he even gave her some flowers after the dance." There was a pause, and then Josh said, "That's too nice." ha ha

I've had a wonderful Mother's Day! Bruce and the kids made me a delicious breakfast. The tradition is that they get everything ready, and then one of the boys comes up to escort me down. This year it was Peter. They also turn on an arrangement "Love One Another", by Kurt Bestor, which is the song that was on when Jesse, Mary, Peter and Libby were born, so I love it. It makes me cry every time I hear it. I enjoyed so much reading the sweet notes from the children and opening their fun presents. Thanks guys!

Quick update on the garden. It didn't grow very much in the first couple of weeks, but has started to take off with warmer weather.We also had about 13 pea plants come up. Not many, compared to how many seeds we planted, but hey - at least we have something - which is better than we had last year!

And remember the birds in the nest in the barbeque?Their eyes are open now, and the bones for their wings are starting to grow. One of these days I'll get a picture of the mama bird, who always seems to have a worm in her beak. The blue cloth is from some pajamas that Jesse made. Peter put a scrap of that cloth around the nest, and the mother bird arranged it so it would go under the birds.

I want to leave with one last thought, and that is that motherhood is something that for us as women is an essential part of our very nature. In every stage of our lives, children or no children of our own, we need to be developing the qualities that truly make us a "mother". I hope sincerely to do that!

I love both my own dear mother, and also my sweet mother-in-law, both of whom have given me absolutely sterling examples of what mothers should be. I owe so much to my sisters, who are great mothers, and also my fabulous friends, whom I have learned SO MUCH from. I love you, and thank you!!

Activities and Musings

For the record...

This is Mary running in the Middle School Track meet on Monday. She ran the 100 M dash and the 100 M hurdles. (Please excuse my obnoxious mom-too-loud-in-the-video voice).


This is a pre-op picture before Bruce worked on Peter's loose tooth.Dad tried the Leatherman to begin with, but it was too small to get a hold of, so the next step (ugh - I can't even stand the thought of it), was dental floss. Hello?! I would not have done that when I was eight! No siree. It didn't work - and the tooth is still in. But the picture was cute enough that I had to post it.

These pictures require no words.
Except for that she's a loony, and getting to be really cute.

And, Mary and I had our last soccer game this evening. We lost, as we have every other game of this Spring season, but we learned a lot and are better for it, I believe. In the Fall season we won every game so they bumped us up a league. Sure wish there was an in-between, but there wasn't.What a great group of girls! It's been great coaching them this year.

Thoughts on the swine flu. I have been actively preparing to stay in our home for 2 - 12 weeks, which is what the Church and the Red Cross recommend as one of the actions that may be necessary. Check out theses links. There's really good info on them.

Also, what are your thoughts on activities before eight years old - like soccer, piano, dance, etc.? Are they really worth it? I have some thoughts on this, but wondered if you had any comments first. Like all bloggers, I think, I love Comments!

From Calf Wrangling to Cousins Graduating

Last weekend, Jesse and I got to go down,

and be here,for this,to honor these great people!What could be more fun than that??

Congratulations Jarom and Darcy!

After seeing a piano performance at Darcy's Convocation, Jesse reached over to the program and said, "In a few years, this will say Jesse Lorena". So, in addition to being at the graduation, I have done my job of fully filling Jesse with the "Spirit of the Y"!

What fun to see Ashley again (I met her at Josh and Clarissa's wedding), and get to know her better!
And I was very happy to stand in the picture of those present from the family that had graduated from BYU.Missing from the picture: S. Bruce, Cedric, Rodney, Monique, Christopher, Elena, and Jaclyn. Someday we'll have to get that picture of us all together.

After that, Jesse and I went to Twin Falls for the Canyon Rim Classic Soccer Tournament. Jesse's team played 2 games on Saturday. Jesse and I also officiated for three other games, and then drove home that night. It was a whirlwind weekend, but fun!

(NOTE: Switch the Music Player song to "I'm From the Country" for full effect. Somehow Pomp and Circumstance just doesn't fit anymore. Ha Ha)

Bruce spent the day on Saturday helping his friend Lane tag, castrate, brand and vaccinate over 50 cows and calves. It took them from 7 am until 3 pm, with five men helping.
Visit our Picasa Web site to see more great pictures of the cowboys wrangling calves on the ranch!

My friend Wendy also wrote up a fun blog post about the event (and thanks for the pictures!!)

Here is Mary running the 100 meter dash. She also ran the 100 meter hurdles for the Middle School track team. Good job Mary!

A dove decides to hang out on the front porch! The kids fed it some of Cutie-Pie's seeds and took a video of it. (Cutie-Pie is our Quaker Parrot.)
The black bird layed these eggs in the nest in the barbecue! Still out there last time I checked, and the mama bird is taking care of them.
This was our one-year old colt Shadowfax. I say "was" because he is no longer with us. He had a freak accident. When Bruce was training him in the round pen, he reared back and got off balance and fell back on his right shoulder. He immediately started convulsing, with his eyes rolled back in his head, shaking, etc. To make the story short, he never recovered. He couldn't move his head above the position in the picture above, and his head was cranked to one side. He showed signs of paralysis on his right side also. We felt that he would not be able to recover, even with extensive veterinary care. After agonizing for five days over what to do, Bruce finally put him down. He was Joseph's horse, and Joseph used to go out and sit in the pasture with him when he was a young colt. But now he is on to happier pastures, galloping about at full speed. We'll see you again, but good-bye for now, Shadowfax!

Oh, and we can't forget to post this picture of Libby with her black eye. She got a serious shiner last week when she did a back flip on our trampoline and her knee came up and smacked her in the face! You can also see that Peter's influence is spreading - his neighborhood friend broke his wrist, and got a pink cast just like Peter had!

And one more tender moment. Mary and her friend Bailey, our next door neighbor, made up a dance for Bailey's brother Brady, who just returned from a mission last week in Singapore. At the end of their performance, this was the hug that Elder C. got from Bailey. I also want to remember the hug that I gave Becky, the missionary Mom, and felt her joy that her missionary son had come home!

My cousins BJ posted this on his blog. We loved it, of course, and I'm betting Jesse and Joseph are going to be practicing some of those moves!

The Soccer Project from Rebekah Fergusson on Vimeo.

My heart is going out today to mi patria México. Drug wars, depressed economy, swine flu and an earthquake on top of that! But they've also had a temple rededicated this year, and had 11 temples built there in the last 9 years. Estoy orando por mis paisanos allí. ¡Que Dios les bendiga!

And sometimes the answer is "No"

Between Monday evening and Thursday night of last week, we lost all three calves. I don't know if I posted this before, but Bruce bought two more calves besides Buttercup's calf, and the plan was to have these two calves nurse alongside the other one to keep up Buttercup's milk supply. The first calf never really was well from the beginning. He never did seem very energetic. He died Monday afternoon. Bruce felt bad about it, but it kind of took us by surprise.

The other two calves were doing just fine until Tuesday night, when we noticed that the spotted one was lethargic. We tried to bottle feed it, and warm it up, but to no avail. By Wed morning, it was dead also. That was hard because he was SO CUTE. I was trying not to get attached to that calf because I try to keep the end in mind (sold at the auction), but man, he was cute.

Thursday afternoon when Bruce went out to milk Natalie (I'll explain about that in a minute), he could tell that Buttercup's calf was not doing well. What?! We thought the other two were mostly due to Buttercup not nurturing them very well, but she had been taking care of her own calf just fine. He seemed really cold, so Bruce actually brought him in the house and got in a warm shower with him! He laid him out on a warm towel in the bathroom with a heat lamp and and a heater right by him. We took turns sitting by him, trying to bottle feed him, trying to get him warmed up and get some energy going. Bruce finally fell asleep, and I was sitting with the calf at about 11:30 pm. He was breathing really fast, and then he lifted his head up, mooed two or three times (the first time he'd done that), and then his breathing stopped, and he died.

I have never had something like that happen to me before. I've never seen a person or an animal die like that. Now, you have to understand that I'm not a huge animal person, so I don't attach to animals by nature, and second, we'd only had this calf for a week, so we didn't have a long history. But still, I was involved in anticipating it's birth (praying, even, for Buttercup that she'd get that calf out); I was within 20 feet of Buttercup through the whole birthing process, and rejoiced in the birth of a living thing. So to have it die while I was sitting up with it an rubbing it's fur and trying to feed it was sobering. Bruce was there too, because he was just sleeping outside the bathroom, and he woke up when he mooed. I thought it was so interesting that he mooed like that just before he died. I've been reflecting on that.

Bruce and I were at a loss. We sat in the kitchen and stared at each other. In addition to just feeling like bad stewards of living things, we were faced also with the loss of income potential. Each of those calves could have sold at the auction for $500-$800 in 18 months.

That's when Google came in handy (I love you guys at Google!). It only took about half an hour of looking things up and reading before we felt like we had some answers. We worked all day Friday starting to remedy the situation, and it will still take some time, and a lot of money that we don't have, but it has to be done.

The other challenging thing is that now we are milking two Jersey cows! (It's my turn in half an hour, so I have to make this short.) Bruce brought Natalie, L. and T.'s Jersey cow, over to start milking her because they don't have time right now to do it, but were willing to let us milk her. We were working on getting used to that when all of a sudden Buttercup has no calves to nurse, so we are now milking both of them. That has been a task! Bruce did it for one time and went and bought a milking machine. I know L. is going to give us a bad time about that, but it's worth the ribbing! We are excited to get that machine. But it won't come for another week, so it's going to take about an hour morning and night to take care of these two cows. With the surger (sp?), as it's called, we can get five gallons of milk in 3 minutes. That's what they say! Right now five gallons takes more than an hour.

Saturday was the Piano Festival. The children (except Peter who broke his arm) have all been working on memorizing two songs to play for a Judge for the last 10 weeks. They worked hard!

Just for the record, and for Aunt Michelle (on my side of the family), who might be interested, here's what they played:
Josh - Mackinac Bridge Overture by Mazilynn Ham and Danza de la Rosa by Enrique Granados
Joseph - El Conquistador by Eugenie Rocherolle and Waltz in Ab Major Op. 39 No. 15 by Johannes Brahms
Jesse - Evening Tide by Jennifer Linn and Scherzo in G Major by Ludwig van Beethoven
Mary - Jumping the Hurdles by Timothy Brown and Clouds by George Peter Tingley
Libby - The Silly Sandpiper by Elizabeth Greenleaf and Soccer on Saturday by Lori Bastien.

Josh, Jesse, and Mary all got fives on their score, and Joseph and Libby got fours. Joseph had a rough time of it. He played his songs a million times (and I don't think I'm exaggerating), and just the night before I sat and listened to him play and he had them 99% perfect. They were beautiful, besides being difficult. When it came time for his performance, though, he stumbled on both songs and had some memory lapses. It made him so nervous that his hands were shaking. He was so disappointed.

What I realized is that performance is a skill that has to be developed, a technique that needs to be worked on, just like tempo, phrasing, voicing, etc. And I have not taught our children very much about that, probably because I don't know much about it myself, and really, I'm a poor performer, when it comes right down to it. So, I talked with Joseph about that, and we determined to get some books to read (I have two good recommendations), and work on this skill. The judge gave him some nice recommendations too, and was very instructive in her comments.

I loved Sacrament Meeting today. In one of the hymns, the phrase "cleanse our hearts" touched me deeply, and I felt that desire deeply. Libby bore her testimony - she was the first one up after the Bishop finished. Her eyes lit up when she saw "Testimonies" on the program.

I'm back after milking the cows. Natalie is pretty fast - we get about a gallon from her at each milking, but Buttercup takes forever! Her teats are all weird so that you can only do one at a time on each side. It's a good thing we're getting that milking machine!!!

Our community (I think spearheaded by our stake) is doing a thing where each family is encouraged to "unplug" electronic devices and focus on family activities for the whole month of March. We have committed to doing this. I'm still going to read my email, but I'm going to try to only do that when the kids are at school. I'm going to be off of Facebook, reading the news and reading blogs. These are my "electronic" things. This is going to be hard for me! Since this blog is family history, and it's all about our family, I'm still going to blog. One "rule" that we can follow is that if you can watch a movie, or a ball game, etc. if the whole family does it together.

On Monday, I planned the heading of this blog as follows: Spring Soccer Begins! Interesting how other things became more important over the course of the week. Peter and Libby haven't started yet, so we're not in full swing, but the four older kids have. Josh is playing U-18 with the big boys (he's a big boy - that is so weird), Bruce is coaching Joseph's U-16 team, Jesse is playing on a competitive U-13 team, and I am coaching Mary's U-12 team. Our first game is on Saturday, and all of us play really hard teams. I really enjoy coaching Mary's team. They are awesome! And Bruce has coached most of the boys on Joseph's team for years, so they have fun together.

Here is installment #2 on Joseph's track. It's gotten very elaborate!


And last, but not least, Happy, Happy Birthady to this wonderful Grandma that we love so much!! She isn't getting any older, because years ago, when Bruce was teenager (aka Stanley), she started giving him her birthdays. We love you Grandma. Thank you for all you do for us and how much you love us.