Brent and Kristen's Wedding

This last week here was SO beautiful... a real "spring break" for those of us who can't hop into a plane and fly somewhere tropical. Every day hit the 60 degree mark. For Wisconsin in March, that's extremely nice weather.

Of course there's a chance we'll become a deep freeze again: "March is the snowiest month." But when it's nice for this long (a whole week!), that turn of events becomes hard to imagine. I mean, wearing sandals and capris, the long underwear tucked WAAAY back in the closet, I am firmly committed to optimism.

It was cooler over the weekend, but still decent, with plenty of sunshine. We raked the front yard and swept the decks off. I moved the wicker chairs outside and carried houseplants to the green house.

It was actually fun raking mulch off the strawberry bed at the front of the house. Underneath the mulch were small green strawberry plants, just waiting for sun. It may take a few months, but blossoms and berries will come next.

I couldn't wait for Jon to come home this weekend-- last time he was here there was about two feet of snow on the ground. I knew he'd enjoy walking around the bare yard and seeing which flowers were sending up shoots as much as I. I wanted him to see how the chickens were everywhere again (they add a lot of life-- and poop-- to our yard).

Jon had hoped to get home early on Friday, but since he was coming for an extended weekend (he had Monday off, too) there was a long list of things he had to finish at work before he could leave for home. So it was well after dark before he pulled into our driveway.


But he made it home in plenty of time for the main event of the weekend-- Brent and Kristen's wedding on Saturday.

The wedding was held at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Cornell... the little family church just a block away from Jon's parents' house, where all kinds of Hurlburt family baptisms, weddings, and so on have been held over the years.

The wedding itself was a small gathering, with just immediate family present.

I thought there was a relaxed, comfortable feeling to this wedding. There didn't seem to be any of the excessive formality or tension that you see at so many weddings.

I'll venture the opinion that the relaxed tone of their wedding has a lot to do with how Brent and Kristen are as a couple. They found each other later in life. They know who they are and what they want. They are not in a power struggle. They keep it simple, enjoy one another, and laugh when a ridiculous situation presents itself. They keep busy, share common interests, and have a healthy outward focus.

Kristen the Bride was quietly confident, warm and gracious. Brent the Groom was maybe a little nervous but mostly really, really happy.

We wish them the best.


One interesting thing about the wedding was that it was conducted by the church's brand-new pastor (and was, I think, the pastor's first wedding ever).

Above right: Mark, Phil, Bud, Jane, Kristen, Ann, Brent, Sally, Eric, and Jon.

(I have a somewhat wobbly video of the Hurlburts posing for this photo at the end of my blog, if you want to check that out).


Because the Hurlburt family is so large and the church so small, the kids stayed with a babysitter during the wedding. They had a good time with her and their cousin Sam, who helped take them outdoors to play.

Since Emma was all dressed up and willing to pose for the camera, I took a few "glamor shots" of her, which I'll post here. Guess that's as good a way to end this blog as any!











Hurlburt Family at Brent's Wedding

Rhinelander, Note From Susan, Leila Video

Just a short blog this week (I promise!).

Saturday we went to Rhinelander to visit Mom. Dad was still on his trip to Florida.

Our days in Rhinelander were warm and sunny. It got up to 60 degrees while we were there, and Rhinelander seemed to have even less snow than we do here in Colfax. Despite the lack of snow, the lake ice was still thick enough for the town to host a big international ice fishing competition.

Leila has really been putting her little rubber boots to use. She LOVES the puddles, and just like Emma goes out of her way to walk through them (see the video I attached at the end of this blog).

At right, Mom and Emma cut out paper dolls.

While in Rhinelander, Mom and I did some clothes-shopping for the kids. They're all growing so rapidly they're in different sizes from what they wore six months ago.

Jon worked through the weekend. He'll be coming home this Friday, though, to attend Brent and Kristen's wedding in Cornell.

At right, the Bragg family home, in Rhinelander.

At left, the pine trees along Dad's wooded trail.

We came back to a lot less snow than when we left. The yard has mostly melted clear, though there are still remnants of the big snow piles that Susan and the kids made over Christmas, when they were building forts and had a snowball fight.

Last week the chickens resumed a practice we hadn't seen all winter: they started walking all around the yard--even as far as our driveway-- foraging for insects. And once again they're congregating on the deck leading up to our front door, to sun themselves and peek in at us through the screen door.

I take that as a definite sign of spring, since all winter they stayed pretty close to their coop. I had to coax them outside by moving their food and water out of the coop... even then, they would just take what they needed and jump back up to their nesting boxes.

At left, the sun sets over our empty garden. Once the leaves and greenery return, we won't be able to see much in the way of sunrises or sunsets... too many trees!

Susan started blogging (yea!). It's called "Institutionalized", and I think the concept of the blog is that she will talk about some of the things she encounters on the job, during her work at a variety of hospitals. Should be interesting (plus we get to hear from Susan more!!).

The link to her blog is http://institutionalized.blogspot.com/.

Here's that promised video of Leila and the puddles. Enjoy.

Susan's Birthday and Kristen's Shower

Before I start blogging, how 'bout a shout-out for Susan, who's 22 now. Happy Birthday to a FABULOUS up-and-coming young woman!!

Susan is just weeks away from her college graduation. In May she'll have her master's degree from Mountain State University in West Virginia.

Two weeks later, Susan's younger brother (my stepson, David) will graduate from high school.

In May, our family will travel down to West Virginia, for a visit with Susan and David. It'll be our first big trip with Leila, as well as a fun chance for Michael and Emma (and me!) to expand our travel horizons. We're looking forward to it.

And who knows? We may even get to meet Jay's parents while there (hint hint, Susan and Jay).

Someone else who knows all about kids graduating is my future sister-in-law Kristen. She has two sons, and both graduate this spring (one from highschool; the other from college).

Kristen is two weeks away from marrying Jon's oldest brother, Brent. To celebrate, Jon's sister Sally threw a wedding shower for Kristen this weekend, at Sally's (amazingly beautiful) home in Holcombe.

Pictured above: Kristen's mother; my mother-in-law, Jane; Emma; and the bride-to-be.

The shower was also a Pampered Chef party, so we got to try out fun kitchen gadgets while a salesperson prepared fruit pizza for us.

We were all impressed with the chocolate chip grater... especially when it dusted our fruit pizza with delicate shavings... yum.

Emma enjoyed being one of the Ladies at the party, looking on and sampling goodies with us. She was also very helpful with Leila, who has turned into an active little busy-body.


Here's Leila, at right. She LOVED Sally's piano.

This tiny set of wicker furniture was perched atop Sally's piano. It's made of THREAD and is intricately hand-crafted. Sally acquired it years ago from the maker-- a woman in her 90's who was almost blind. Each piece is only a few inches tall and absolutely amazing in its detail.

It's been warm and sunny lately (though cloudy today). The snow is melting and puddles abound. Even the insects are waking up.

Emma made good use of the warm weather at Sally's. She peeled her coat off and jumped with abandon on the outdoor trampoline.

Leila joined her briefly, but seemed intimidated by the large, alien jumping surface. She's more comfortable jumping up and down inside her crib-- a daily occurrence when she wakes up each morning. At Sally's she scrambled off the edge of the trampoline pretty quickly, once I was there to help.

While we were at the shower, Jon and Michael were in Plover, Wisconsin for Part 2 of Michael's knowledge contest.

This time he didn't bring home any tangible rewards. But father and son spent quality time together. The competition was a good experience, even if Michael learned he isn't the biggest math whiz of the LaCrosse diocese (the contest was put on by Knights of Columbus).

Meanwhile, other breaking news: my eighty year-old father is DRIVING himself to Florida. Yes, that's right. He's driving himself to Florida. He's already made it as far as Georgia, and will be gone for another two weeks.

Dad has a brother in Georgia and a sister in Florida (both older), and will visit with them and other relatives along the way.

This big solo road trip isn't Dad's only adventure these days. Two days ago, while on the computer checking my Facebook account, I saw a friend request waiting for me... from Dad!

That's pretty progressive for someone born during the Depression era! I really have to give Dad credit for changing and taking on new challenges during his elder years. I hope I'm flexible and up for changes when I'm 80!

We spent as much time as possible outside yesterday-- the weather was great. Lots of mud, though. Emma and Leila wore their rubber boots and visited every pile of mud and muck they could find.

We walked up to the neighbor's farm with an apple and bucket of oats for Macy. Emma found each of us a stick along the way, so we had walking sticks in three sizes.

Leila's puddle-splashing frightened the nearby calves, who mini-stampeded their way into a nearby shed (we were on the other side of a fence from them).

Macy was glad to see us. She's so gentle we go right in the pen by her, though I keep a firm hold on Leila's hand, to make sure she doesn't get underfoot.

Emma has turned into a true animal-lover, just like big sister Susan.

Leila

Well, March is here... and since it's been warm and sunny these past few days, I guess we have to admit that it arrived "like a lamb".

The kids and I had a quiet weekend home, without Jon. He's working seven days a week now, till the line they're working on is finished.

He did ask to get this coming Saturday off, so he can bring Michael to the next phase of his Knowledge Contest, in Plover. I was planning on bringing Michael myself, but Jon thinks the long drive and early registration hour (we have to register at 9 am, and it's several hours away from here) would make for too hard a day for the other kids.

He'd come home for a very short visit last Monday...


The kids had been home from school for about half an hour. We had neighbor kids over, as well. Leila was riding around the house on her little yellow car from Susan.

She "drove" into the office, where Michael and Daken were playing a game on the computer. Without a sound, she slipped off the yellow car and fell to the floor.

Michael thought she was playing and didn't take much note of what happened. But Emma came in the room and immediately saw something was wrong. She picked Leila up and yelled for me.

Leila was having a seizure again.

This had happened once before, about six months ago. But since that had been diagnosed as a febrile seizure (fever-related), I thought it was going to be a one-time event.

I held Leila in my arms, and the seizure went on another 45 seconds (or so) longer. Then she came out of it, but was still not herself. She was dazed and her head kept drooping over. Her eyes were out of focus and, most alarmingly, her lips were tinged with blue.

The other time Leila'd had a seizure, Jon was home too. This time it was just me (and the older kids).

I called the neighbor lady I walk with, and she came over right away. While she helped me find Leila's coat and things (my brain was going numb and I was starting to cry), she sent Daken and Michael up the hill to fetch her sister Johnne. Candy then drove us in to the hopsital, while Johnne stayed home with the older kids.

On the way over, I had a hard time keeping Leila awake. She kept wanting to nod off to sleep, and I wasn't sure if I should let her do that. So I sat by her and patted her face, and talked to her.

On the drive over I called Jon and let him know what was going on.

We were lucky to arrive at ER during a slow time, so were seen right away. They took Leila's temperature and confirmed that she had a low fever... 102 degrees. But that appeared to be her only symptom of illness (other than the seizure). They checked her blood and urine for infection, but there was none.

They concluded that she'd been fighting off some kind of virus, which sometimes results in fever. They believe her fever caused the seizure. Some children are more susceptible to that than others.

She may never have another one... or it might happen again.

Apparently 1 in 25 young children has febrile seizures. If a child has a seizure, there's a 30% chance she may have another. The thing to do is lay her on her side, keep things out of her mouth, and make sure she doesn't fall or hurt herself. Then give her fever reducer and get her temp back to normal.

Jon couldn't stay away. He came home within an hour of our arriving back from the hospital. He wanted to see for himself that Leila was alright. And by the time he came home, she was-- maybe a little sleepy-eyed and fragile-looking in her footed pajamas-- but much more like her normal, smiley self.

We checked on her through the night, but her fever stayed down and she slept peacefully. At 10 am, after lots of kisses and hugs from Leila, Jon headed back to Iowa.

And once again I find myself grateful for those simple, basic things that make life happy... like having your child be healthy. And knowing that concerned friends and family are there to help out when you really need them. That's what it's really all about. Anything extra is a bonus.