Hello again!

Since the last time you heard from me we were all sick, and so many of you have been asking when I was going to get back into blogging, that I figured I need to get on here and get some updates done. We are in full swing with softball. Both girls are playing this year, Shelby in Coach Pitch and Abbie in Midget Girls (kid pitch). They have both been doing really good and I am so proud of both of them. The season is just getting started, but we have been practicing since before Spring Break. Abbie is also in Honor Choir at her school. She absolutely LOVES it. They practice once a week and will have a concert at the end of the school year.
Shelby will be making her 1st Communion this May. She has been preparing for this since the beginning of the school year, and has been working very hard. She is very excited.
Only 7 Mondays left until school is out...the girls are MORE than ready. We are not taking a huge family vacation this year...just going to hang out and maybe do some simple day trips. What are you doing for summer vacation???

We've been bitten....

By the H1N1 flu virus. Abigail is the first of us to come down with it. I am pretty sure Shelby will get it. I don't think that Steve or I will get it, but I am knocking wood every time I say that. One of her friends that she goes to school with and plays ball with has tested positive. Abbie has all of the same symptoms. The highest her fever has been is 103.0 this morning, and with Tylenol and Motrin on board, it goes down to 99.8 - 100.2. The only other symptom she has is a cough. She is achy sometimes, but really only complains about the cough making her throat sore. This is day #3 of fever, so maybe only a day or two left. She is a little disappointed though, she was named Star Student of the Week this week at school and she is missing out on all of her "duties". I just pray that this is the worst of it and she doesn't develop any other problems. Pray for her speedy recovery!!
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I am hopefully going to post more often now that ball is winding down and the summer activities are over. The pigs are doing great. If you are in our area stop by and see them. But you might want to wait til it dries out a little bit. Sixteen inches of rain in the last few weeks makes everything soggy. Glad the sun is out today!

New digs for Lou Lou

As some of you know, we will be having baby pigs very soon (like in 9-12 days). One of our show pigs from last year, Lou Lou, aka "the racehorse", has been growing, and growing, and growing. We have borrowed a farrowing (?) crate from Michael Jahns (thanks Michael), and have poured concrete in her shed. Here are some pictures of the boys working hard, getting it all evened out.

We have set up the crate inside the shed and have hooked up a mister to keep her cool and also put a fan out there for her. She is so uncomfortable. She sometimes doesn't even want to get up to eat. Make sure you come by to see the baby pigs in just a few weeks. Baby pigs are so cute. Then they get bigger and turn into eating and pooping machines. Hopefully there will be some good pigs in there that Abbie will be able to show at the stock shows next year in February and March. So I guess now we are officially pig farmers. Yay for us?

Crazy life.....

Ok, so I am falling down on keeping up with my blog. We have been so busy I ususally just check my facebook to see what is going on around here. I'll probably have to do several posts to get everyone caught up.

First of all, I am an aunt! My brother Brian is a new dad. For those of you who don't know, no, he is not married, this is just a happy surprise. His name is Colt Dawson Jones and he was born on May 26. We have gotten to see him just one time so far, but pretty soon Brian is going to be getting him every other weekend, so we will have a baby in the house again. I couldn't be more excited. Here is a pic of him on his first visit to meet his Aunt Cathy, Uncle Steve and his cousins, Abbie and Shelby.

Welcome to the world Colt!

We are finished playing ball, for now. Both of the girls want to play in the fall league in Temple, so they are both on teams. It will keep us busy through the end of October. I can't believe I am even writing this down, but school will start in just over 3 weeks. Boy the summer sure did go by fast.

Summer is here.....

Summer is officially here at the Bruggman's house. We have been swimming, playing softball, and working in the garden. I have been watching the girls cousin's again this summer. They all love being together every day and they are old enough that I really don't have to hover over them all the time. I usually make them go outside in the mornings while it is still cool. We have lunch and then head outside to the pool to play for a little while before their mom comes to pick them up at 3:00pm.
Abbie's softball team is doing ok this year. We moved her up to play Midget Girls (where the kids pitch). Her team is actually good enough to make the playoffs this year. We were not expecting that. These are 3rd graders (about to be 4th graders) that are playing against 5th graders (about to be 6th graders) and they did great! I should have some pictures to post next time.
I have applied for a job with Rogers ISD. Until I know about school for sure, I need to have a job that gives the family health benefits. Working with the school lets me still be at school with the kids and I have the same hours that they do. That is a huge plus. We will see what happens after that.

Camping....sort of

I don't like to camp. I am a girl who likes her nice soft bed, nice smells, no sand, dirt, mud. I like showers. I don't like to "squat". So imagine my husbands surprise when our friends asked us to go camping and I agreed. We made our plans and we joined them on Saturday afternoon out at the Brazos river near Calvert. Things were going great. The boys had gone to set their "lines" and some boys and all the girls stayed behind to start cooking dinner. Cole started making a campfire so we could roast weenies and marshmallows.
The boys returned and we finished with supper. We roasted marshmallows and made some very yummy smores. It was starting to get dark and all of the adults were sitting around the campfire talking. The kids had locked themselves out of the camper so Derek had walked over to the camper to open it up. Abbie says that he was taking too long so she started to walk back over to me. And that is when it happened. She let out a piercing scream and RAN over to where we were sitting. She crawled up in my chair and there they were, 2 small puncture marks. That's right folks, you guessed it, a SNAKE BITE!!!!! Abbie was starting to panic a little so I was trying to calm her down. In the mean time, Shelby was starting to panic because of what happened to Abbie. AHHHHHH! We decided to just leave all of our camping stuff there and got in the truck and began the 1 hour and 10 minute drive to Temple. We got to the ER around 10:45 pm and luckily we knew 2 of the nurses working so they got us back to a room really quickly. We saw a doctor really quickly and were quite the star of the show for a while. We had 3 doctors in our room taking pictures with their iphones and such.

We got moved up to the Pediatric icu at about 3:30 am and they gave her the first dose of anti-venom at 4:30 am. She finally slept at 4:00 am and didn't wake up til 8 am. She is feeling pretty good right now, and will probably get out of the hospital tomorrow some time. She has had alot of visitors today and mom is exhausted. Dad went home to sleep because he has to work tomorrow. Unfortunately for us, we do not have health insurance right now and this anti-venom medication is going to run about $20,000. Luckily this is a charity hospital and they will work with us on paying for it. Thanks to all of you who knew about this and said prayers for Abbie.

Sad Day

Today when the mail came I had my letter from TC in it. If you have read my other posts, it was an Unfortunately letter. I'm not sure what I will be doing now. I may apply to MCC for their Spring 2010 nursing class. Right now I am very unsure of what I will be doing and even if I want to go thru this again for the 3rd time. Maybe that will be the charm.....