Prayer Request!

Here is an update from Kevin's blog on their baby. Please pray for little Justin and the whole Wegner family! God bless!

Ok. The baby was born @ 29 weeks by emergency c-section two nights ago on August 29. He is 2.6 pounds and 14.5 inches long. There are many complications that can occur when the baby is born so young. One of the main concerns that the doctors have had was that, without amniotic fluid, there was a possibility that the lungs would not develop properly, and they would not be able to complete the respiration process. The first problems they noticed were that his lungs were underdeveloped for his age, and he had a low red blood cell count. He was given oxygen immediately, as well as a blood transfusion. Thankfully, he has been improving since then.

So today when we arrived at the hospital, the doctors had found that he has some bleeding on the brain. This could result in a number of things, including mental and/or physical disabilities. We're hoping and praying that God will intervene and heal him of this problem.

I want to thank everyone who has been praying this whole time, and to ask you to continue praying. Also I want to thank the people who have posted prayer requests on their blog regarding my mom and the baby.

Oh, wait...did I forget to mention his name? Oops :P His name is Justin Nicholas Wegner :D

Fair-Saturday

Saturday was completely fun! I woke up, did chores, ran around looking to learn how to show a few last animals then showered and headed to the arena. We showed goats, sheep, draft horses, pleasure horses, beef steers, dairy starter, beef breeding, dairy, dogs, cavy, chickens, rabbits, miniature horses (in that order). I got a 10 (out of 10) on goats and 10 on dairy. I've never showed dairy but I've always wanted to and this confirmed it. :) My worse score was a 3, that was on miniature horses. Most of my scores were 7s and 8s. My total score was 112 but the winner was like 123. :( Oh well, I didn't really want to win anyways since otherwise I wouldn't ever to show in show of champs again. Abigail got 103, the reserve was 106 and the grand was 109 in her age division. SO close! After that was all over with I grabbed a bite to eat and then went to the general market auction to sell my project. The rest of the day was spent walking around until 5:30 when I went to help put on wristbands for the grandstand event that evening.....DEMO DERBY! I was putting on wristbands until about 8:30 (the show started at 6:30, the grandstand was full, the infield was full and all there was, was standing room only but people kept coming and coming) but I managed to catch the tailend of it. :) At 9:00 there was fireworks, an awesome display! It was a great way to end the fair week.
Showing dairy starters!
Beef steers
Draft Horses
Sheep
Beef breeding
Miniature Horses
Cavy :P
Today we are headed off to a cousin's wedding. Congrats to Josh and Mary! We have a nice long 2 hour ride ahead of us, lots of nice driving time for me! :)

God bless!
~Bethany~
P.S. This is for Mr. and Mrs. Myers :) This ride was hilarious to watch!!! :)

Fair-Friday

Friday was Large Animal Auction day! Starting at 10:30 a.m. I began serving the meal for the bidders. All of the large animal clubs (sheep, beef and swine) provide the food. Usually there is BBQ and regular beef, pork and lamb, baked beans, potato salad, chips, cookies, lemonade and water. I handed out buns. That is my job every year (and I love it!). I served until about 12:30 then went to go see a few of the steers sell. After that I headed off to get my hog ready to sell. The order of sale was sheep, beef, swine but I was like #33 of over 150 pigs to sell. I was pretty happy with the price I got and a huge thank you to my buyers! After supper we went to watch the draft horse obstacle. They let the people watching do an obstacle with one person as the "horse" and one as the "driver". The "horse is blindfolded, so you must rely on your driver. It was pretty fun! I was the "horse" and Rachel was the "driver". She was giggling so much she would tug on both reins (that were around my waist) so I had no idea where to go. I was totally lost! I was hilarious! After that was done we went to go get an elephant ear. It's our annual tradition, we buy one and split it. It was a good night, lots of fun. :)

Me and my hog in the holding pen waiting to sell (well, just my pig was sold that is :))
Selling my hog!
Me and Rachel going through a draft horse obstacle. Notice the blindfold!
Mom (the driver) and Mrs. Myers (the horse) going through the obstacle! So funny!
A few friends making the rounds!

Today was a little different. We did more cleaning and made a trip into town for groceries and school supplies. It's been raining around here a bunch so we can't do much outside work. :(

In Christ,
~Bethany~

Fair-Thursday

Thursday is usually Show of Champions, but this year, it was changed to Saturday. Therefore, we had little to do on Thursday so we went home for the morning to get stuff cleaned up around the house. It was rainy anyway so we didn't really want to hang out in the camper or barns all day. :) Once we got back we just walked around and found out how to show different animals for the Show of Champs (Abigail and I were both in it this year). The girls had obstacle course later in the afternoon so that kept them busy. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures all day so I'm just posting a few of us at random times during the week. Later that evening a few of us worked the lemonade stand then we all went to the COMBINE DERBY! Wooohooo! I've been waiting for years to be able to see that (it's always been on Show of Champions night). Because of having to work the 4H lemonade stand I didn't get to see the whole thing but the part I saw of it was awesome!!!! What fun!

Exercising Zeb!
Havin' supper at the camper.
Free milk donated to the 4Hers by the Farm Breau is a hit at the fair.
Friends!!!! :)

Today we didn't do any canning.....we cleaned instead. We are prepping for two new family members to join us on Monday so we had to get a bedroom cleaned out and get the school room cleaned up. That time of the year again!
Here is a picture if our new pony "Daisy" and I. Isn't she adorable? So far, I (the non horse lover of the family) loves her the most. ;)

'Till next time!
~Bethany~

Fair-Wednesday

Wednesday was another big day. Steers and Swine both begin showing at 9:00 a.m. Abigail was one of the three pulled out in her "heat" and won 2nd overall! I didn't begin showing until after noon since Pens (2 hogs shown by one exhibitor) showed first. My individual got 2nd place so I had to hang around for the Grand to be picked. The one who placed above mine actually won Grand so I had to scoot 'im on out there again. Unfortunately, he didn't win. :/ It was still fun though. 6:00 brought the Small Animal Auction and we had to hang around until we sold around 9:30 at night. I was very thankful to still have a buyer, with the late timing and the poor economy. Thank you, Thank you to my awesome buyers.
Abigail in showmanship
After being pulled out to head out to the next heat!
The runway for the pigs from the swine barn to the show arena.
Abigail selling her market wether!

Today we got an early start to our canning and got 35 quarts of peaches canned before noon. Then we were off to a homeschool lunch-in but Abigail and I only stayed long enough to eat. Then we walked back (it's just about 2 1/2 miles) and cleaned out all of our tack boxes from fair. Ahhhh, good job to have done!

In Christ,
~Bethany~

Fair-Tuesday

Tuesday morning we all slept in, that is, except for Mom, Rachel and Elizabeth. They had come home the evening before to spend the night so that they could get up and get the dogs to the fairgrounds nice and early. It was a delightfully sunny day and I just mainly walked around stopping in to check on the girls showing, watching other shows and hanging with friends or watching other little kids. :) I did work a little bit with my pig as well. The girls did quite well with their dogs. They participated in Rally, Obedience and Showmanship. Rally is when you have to follow signs and do certain procedures. Obedience is similar except that the judge will tell you what to do. Showmanship is judging the handler instead of the dog. In the evening I had swine showmanship which was interesting. I didn't even go on to the second heat. Oh well, I kinda figured that would happen since there are so many really really really good swine showmen in Senior. Guess I've got lots to work on for next year. :) When showmanship was done and I had seen the final drive I rounded up our "bunch" (5 or 6 other kids) and we went to go watch the tail end of the truck pulls. We got in free so that was really cool. Didn't get to bed 'till late but it was such a fun evening.


Elizabeth and Sophie after Rally
Rachel and Buster working
Elizabeth and Sophie working!!!
Me walking my hog, practicing for showmanship.
Me in showmanship. Sorry the picture quality isn't good. It was late at night (probably 9ish) and I was not manning the camera. ;)

Truck Pulls!!!!

Today, we canned 2 bushels of tomatoes and 3/4 bushel of beans. Oh, and for a little bit of news around here, we got a new horse around here!!! Well actually she's technically a pony (POA, Pony Of America) but anyway. She is Elizabeth's pony and she just LOVES her as you can well imagine. I'll try to get some pictures of them around sometime.

God Bless!
~Bethany~

Fair - Monday

Home sweet home! We're back from the fair and what a week it's been. I'm going to go through this week and update one day at a time with pictures and everything we did. I'm going to start out with Monday (since today is Monday).

We woke up early Monday morning to get showmanship animals ready, get cleaned up, eat breakfast and get to the show ring. I won my showmanship class in Senior and Abigail won hers in Intermediate. Funny side note: The judge said that Abigail had answered question better than I had (which I totally remember the question I got wrong and was kicking myself for it) so I grabbed up my ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association) handbook and started furiously reading. When we got to overall the judge started firing questions at us like crazy (we know the judge so she knew we understand showing). We kept both giving good answers so she finally asked us to give all the breakdowns of the udder. Thankfully I had gone over the scorecard and got them all right! WOOOHOOO! Abigail missed just one so that's how I pulled out the Overall Winner. Anyway, we showed all day long and won Grand Senior Doe and Grand Junior Doe as well as pretty much all the other classes we were in. We had 27 goats so it kept us busy all day. Once we were done, everyone was pretty much bushed for the day and we just relaxed. The major problem of the day.....it was rainy. Hauling goats from barn to arena through the rain is not what I consider fun, but we made it through. I'll tell ya, I was EXHAUSTED! I did give an interview though which I'll be posting the link to sometime this week.

Elizabeth and Ben in PeeWee showmanship!
Me in Senior Showmanship (far right).
Intermediate Showmanship! (Abigail, Rachel and Rebekah are all in this class)
We "helped" give the finish shave to friend's lambs.....
.....and just goofed around while relaxing. :) (btw, these are some friends)

Today I had an orthodontist appointment. They said they'll probably start the process of getting them off at the next appointment!!!! We also froze corn all day. We did half of our corn and got about 72 quarts. A good job to have done. Tomorrow.....tomatoes. We picked 2 bushels this morning. Lots to be done in the next week! :)


Till tomorrow!
~Bethany~

Late night prep

Just thought I'd post real quick on what going on here. We are getting our last little fair projects together and it's almost 11:30. I'm about ready to hit the sack. We baled hay today and got around 450 bales, an excellent 3rd cutting! It was a long day but got lots done. Tomorrow we head off the fair early in the morning to get all of our projects judged, then come back home and I have to go to a different fairgrounds for livestock judging and the rest of the family gets last minute fair supplies around. We camp at the fair so we need to take all kinds of stuff. Abigail and Dad will bring all of our tack and that kinda of stuff to the fairgrounds and get all of our pens set up. So....lots to do in the next few days! Busy busy busy!

Here are just a few pictures taken recently:
My fair barrow. He's getting SO big!!!
My gilt......I'm planning to breed her in a few months.
photography pics for fair!!!
more pics for fair

God bless!
~Bethany~

Summer Fun

I meant to post this yesterday but just didn't get around to it. :) We had the "R" family over for the day on Sunday and were so glad to have them over since it had been about 13 months. It was 91* and with the humidity it had a realfeel of 101* !!! Therefore....water was the main agenda for the day.
The "R" family had a slip 'n slide that they brought along. We started with it ending in the corn patch until there was a big enough mud hole that the corn wasn't looking so happy anymore.

Then we moved to the compost pile. It made excellent mud and I mean....it was just all organic material!!!
Just makes a bunch of happy (crazy,dirty, muddy,) farm kids. :)
Then we washed up and sat inside the air conditioned house. Aren't Elizabeth and Laura so cute?

Here are a few pictures I've taken the last few days. I'm working on a photography exhibit for fair and these are either used or have been considered.
Wild grapes
Dad mowing hay
My piggly wiggly. I called him Swiney the other day. Whatever, I needed some ID for the poor guy.
The alfalfa hay before it was cut.

We are all busy getting ready for fair! I'm going to begin the shaving process tomorrow. Lots to do yet!

God Bless!
~Bethany~

Caleb Update!

Update on Caleb from Josh's blog:

Caleb is home! He was actually able to leave the hospital last night, so he got to sleep in his own bed. The surgery went well and he has a very immpressive post-surgery cast! He seems to be doing well, however, he is sitting in a chair looking our into the early morning vs. going to wake up the little girls to start their day of playing! (Not his usual self, poor thing)
Sometimes I get caught up in the everyday peskiness of an eight year old boy, and I forget to appreciate the budding qualities in them. But, I missed Caleb alot yesterday and was so excited to see him this morning!

Thanks for praying,
Josh

Prayer Request for Caleb!

Please pray for Caleb! Josh posted this on his blog and Jenna posted something similar:

Quick prayer request: Caleb, Grace, and Abigail went with some friends to play soccer at a park today and we just got a call from the mom saying Caleb fell on the playground and she thinks he has a serious injury in his wrist. So, within three minutes, the baby was up, everything was packed, the car was waiting and ready to go and mom, Laura, and Jenna where gone! I think we made our record for getting out of the house!

Mom is bringing Caleb to the doctor now, and I would really appreciate prayer for Caleb as his wrist is probably broken and he is in much pain. Let us lift Caleb up before the Great Physician who has the power to heal!

Meanwhile, I am here holding down the fort with Anna and Natalie and they are begging me to dress up in Civil War era hoop skirts! Shall I consent?...

UPDATE...I just got a call from Jenna, and she says: he's screaming, it's REALLY severe, start praying, and they're headed to emergency. I don't know what that means but it doesn't sound good. My dad is going to meet them.

Update #1.

After going to the emergency room this morning, the doctors determined that Caleb has broken both bones in his left forearm. At first, they were going to reset the arm and send him home this afternoon. But, half an hour ago, mom called and said that the doctors now need to do surgery to reset the arm, and he will be spending the night at the hospital, and Dad will be with him.

Poor Caleb! Jenna said that he was being such a trooper when she was there.

The family that was with Caleb when he got hurt, have been such a huge help to us. They are bringing dinner over for us and then taking Grace and Abigail to a softball game, which will be good for the girls to get their minds off Caleb for a little while. Thanks "O's"



Thank you to everyone who is praying and please continue to do so.



God Bless,

Josh

Fair Preparations

Fair time is coming up in just a few weeks so the whole family has been busy either working on fair projects or just other random stuff. Mom, Rachel, Rebekah and Ben were at doctor's appointments the last 2 days (they stayed the night at my grandparents house since they live closer to the hospitals) so the rest of us were holding up the fort here. I got all of my buyer letters sent out, got some canning done, worked a bunch with my pig, started management records and started work on a short story and poetry. I still have a bunch more to do and I'm hoping to get to my goat educational exhibit and swine breeding poster today. I'm waiting on a phone call with my information on my gilt before I can get to the breeding poster though. Here are just a few pictures I took last night.

The girls(Rachel, Elizabeth and a friend) working with their 4-H project....dogs!
Abigail washing her steer "Zeb".
Our sweet corn is going to be ready to eat soon!
Black Eyed Susans
Over the tree tops!

How is everyone's summer going? I have been busy but I'm enjoying life.

God bless!
~Bethany~