Our Big Announcement

Well the time has finally come to share with the world that we are expecting another baby!! Seevers kid number 5 is scheduled to join us on April 6th 2010!! Yes, you read that right. I am 3 months pregnant.

I know many of our friends and family will wonder alot of things so I'm going to answer some of your questions before you ask them.

YES....this was a surprise (we're calling it the "bonus baby").
YES....of course we were using contraception......let that be a lesson to you! :>)
YES....we were in complete shock and I nearly slipped into a depression for the first several weeks. My usual severe nausea and vomiting did not help the situation.
YES....I will turn 43 one month after the baby is born.
YES....I gave away every last shred of my maternity clothes so if you know someone who has them, please ask them to send them back my way!
YES....this is our 11th pregnancy, another reason why 1st trimesters are no fun for us.
YES...I am getting my tubes tied after this delivery! And for the record I would like to state that it is Jim Juergensen's doctor's fault that Scott never went in for the vascectomy!! His surgey and the nightmare of complications which followed were enough to scare any man into self-preservation.

I know this is going to take a little while to settle in on some of you but we've had 3 months to get used to the idea and after seeing the baby stretching out its little arms and legs yesterday on the ultrasound, I can honestly say the panic and fear is over for me and pure excitement has set in. I vomited as recently as yesterday morning but somehow just knowing the baby has made it through that critical 1st trimester has eased my discomfort.

The girls are thrilled and hoping it will be a girl. Luke looked at Marshall and said in a perplexed tone, "But Mommy, we already have a baby". And he's so right. Marshall still seems like such a baby but he'll actually be 2 months older than Gracie was when Gemma was born! One of Scott's early comments was, "How can we not be excited about a baby?"......that was after a long period of silence! :>)

To all my high school friends on Facebook, I just want to say that the only way I'm coming out for our 25th next summer is if they have a door prize for the "youngest child!" Think anyone will have a baby younger than 4 months?

Games Rally Review

What an exciting weekend!! (To see ALL the photos from the weekend, click HERE) Gracie's best friend Jessie Juergensen and her mother Stephanie joined us on the trip. Even though Jessie is not yet a member of US Pony Club, she is a fellow horse nut and a very supportive friend. She and her mother volunteered with the games rally all weekend in addition to being a huge help to me! I am so grateful they came along!

The girls both did an awesome job and gained a ton of experience. After finding themselves in 4th place the team pulled together and before long long their 4-man team had advanced to third place. About halfway through the rally, after several exciting wins they had solidly settled into second place. I almost couldn't believe it because our team was very young with 3 out of the 4 being D-1 rated riders and first year games participants. Not to mention that 2 riders were only 7 years old! With a team like that you just hope they can remember all the rules, complete the games and stay on their horses!
Well not only did they accomplish all those things, as they entered the final of this 12 game competition, Gracie and Gemma's team was tied for first place!! The final game was called "Stepping Stone" where they have to jump off their horse, walk across the top of 6 paint cans without letting go of their horse, re-mount and race to the finish line. The race was really tight and all was going well but the girls were tired and fatigued. Re-mounting was getting harder and harder. Gracie was third-to-last to go. On her final re-mount she got one leg in the stirrup and just froze. She was so fatigued she couldn't lift herself up and just hung there straining. I was opposite her mounting side and could only see her head and arms pulling on the horse's mane and saddle. As my eyes were welling up with tears, her team started screaming wildly to encourage her and all-of-sudden, after what seemed like an eternity, Gracie emerged atop that horse and cantered across the line where she handed the race off to her 7th grade team captain. Elisabeth broke out into a canter with her big tall Thoroughbred, "Ariat" and led the team to a FIRST PLACE FINISH putting our young rookies into first place overall at the Midwest Regional Games Rally!!

But first place was not meant to be for our young riders. As we were all jumping around, screaming in celebration.......the judge took the megaphone and announced that our team had been disqualified from the race! What???? Why????? How?????

As it turns out, my little Gemma had stepped down off the cans and let one foot hit the ground. She knew if she fell off the cans she had to go back and start over, but she didn't know the same applied even if one foot touched the ground. Unfortunately no one else on the team knew this either so it went unnoticed, but not by the judge. The disqualification dropped the team to third place in the race and second place overall.

The games competition is only part of the total rally score. All the teams are also scored individually and as a team on "Horse Management". This includes a series of rigorous inspections that occur throughout the weekend of things like their horse's stall, horse grooming, tack and equipment cleanliness, tack room organization, safety checklists and even personal grooming and dress code. When all the horse management points were tallied, the team's second place finish slipped through their fingers by 4 one-hundredths of a point! Yes.....that's .04!!
It all happened so fast, the girls hardly understood what had happened. As much as my competitive heart ached for them, when it was all said and done, nothing could have taken away from all the fun and excitement of the weekend. The girls are better athletes, better competitors, better horse managers and best of all......better friends! I couldn't be more proud of them.

Off to a good start-almost

The five hour drive went totally smoothly. We actually made great time considering we left so late. But after arriving in Grandview (still not sure if that's KS or MO)
we encountered a comical series of mishaps. To keep this short and sweet I'll just list them off.....in order of occurrence:
1.We missed the exit and had to turn around. This is not always a simple thing when hauling a horse trailer.
2.We missed the entrance to the horse park because it was so dark. (and possibly because I forgot my glasses)
3.While unloading horses and unpacking I realized we forgot our bridle rack.
3.While filling water buckets for the horses, poor Gemma smashed her middle finger in the hydrant!
4.While parking the trailer I realized we forgot the wheel blocks and the hitch blocks (luckily we found some scrap wood and large rocks to make due with).
5. While Stephanie was navigating us to our hotel we were pulled over by the police! Apparently hitting the breaks at each street sign and swerving a little closer to read them better (did I mention I forgot my glasses?) bears a strong resemblence to drunk driving. Very sweet officer, no ticket.

However, except for this one hour of mishaps, we still managed to have a lot of fun and plenty of giggles!

Found My Cell Phone!

I have finally reconnected with my cell phone! I apologize to those of you who have been trying to call or text me! If I ever go MIA like that again, please assume I've lost my mobile phone and try calling me on my land line!! Remember those? We still have one for the time being and based on how often I lose my phone, will probably have one for a long time to come! Betsy!! I was soooooo sad to miss your call! Please try again when you have some time to chat!

Catching Up

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. This Friday I hope to talk about why but for now I'll just try to catch up a little.

The girls and I are gearing up for a big weekend in Kansas City, MO. It's the US Pony Club Regional Games Rally. Our club is sending two teams. The girls are on a team with 2-3 other girls and will compete in over 12 different types of "games" on their horses. They both do really well at games but they are so small they have a hard time getting on and off their horses without assistance and no assistance is allowed during games. So we're going to lengthen one of their stirrups and this week they will practice the games using one or no stirrups. Times like this you wish you had a smaller horse!

Saturday was the first Concordia Bulldog home football game but Marshall and I spent the second half at home after he began vomitting at the game. I was so worried it was the flu but after 3 vomiting episodes throughout the evening, he fell asleep and woke up the next morning perfectly fine. So, it must have been something he ate!

Gracie, Gemma and Luke start back to piano lessons tomorrow and I think Luke is clearly the most excited. Gracie's 4th grade teacher doesn't believe in homework so she'll have plenty of time to practice piano this year!

Oh and remember our new Golden Retriever, Daisy? We bought her for the farm but were going to keep her here at our house just until after the 4th of July company left? Well, after much discussion and consideration, Daisy is going to be residing permanently here on Wildwood. We had the invisible fence from "De-Fence Your Pet" installed last week and she was trained on it in one day. It's awesome because now I can leave her outside when I run to get the kids or have to be gone for long stretches. I have said many times that I would NEVER have picked this breed of dog had I known she would be staying here (mostly because of the shedding hair) but she turned out to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime amazing dogs and the remarkable thing is that she doesn't seem to bother our allergies (Gracie and me) much at all. My theory is that we have become desensitized from being around the horses and the farm.

OK, so then there's Lilly, Gemma's kitten we rescued from the fairgrounds. (I think I posted about that on Facebook) We thought we had lost her when she disappeared for 5 days but then we found her out at the farm! She had hopped a ride out there with us in the van one night when we went to feed horses and didn't make it back home. We discovered her five days later in John and Arlene's garage. She lives in our garage but hopefully will soon become more of an outside cat. Gemma feeds her twice a day every day and even does a decent job of keeping her litter box clean! She has no choice because Gracie and I cannot even touch the cat! I'll get some photos of the critters posted soon.

Oh and I've lost my cell AGAIN, something that seems to happen every other week lately, so if you're wondering why I never answer your calls or texts......that's why.

......More this Friday.