A Quarterly Update

 Our blog has been neglected the last couple of months so I'll try to give an overview of the last "quarter".  The term quarter is especially applicable in the educational setting as that as how we lay out the school year.  We recently had a laugh in one of our staff meetings when a coworker asked innocently if there were 3 quarters in the school year.  I won't name names but this is one of those comments that we can laugh at her expense from time to time!

 The girls are growing up, cute as ever, and enjoying life.  Daraby continues to do well in preschool.  She is learning her letters and brings back lots of stories about her school experience.  She will miss her school friends in Miller next years as she will probably be starting kindergarten at SBA in the fall.  Dakota is content playing with her sister or playing alone while Daraby is at school.  She is a driver and goes after what she wants.  This keeps things exciting (in good and bad ways) around the house.  Dakota is now potty trained and we are enjoying not having to buy diapers for the time being! 

 Puppies...We have another batch of puppies.  However, as you can probably tell, they did not come out of Abby.  We bred Abby (our oldest springer spaniel dog) before Christmas and were looking forward to pups the first of February.  She went into labor on a Saturday and on Sunday still did not have the pups.  Darcy took her to the vet and they ended up doing an emergency c-section and discovered that the pups had died inside of her.  Abby was in rough condition and had to stay the night at the vet.  We brought her back home on Monday but she was an emotional wreck-actually crying.  Darcy got tired of this and decided to see if anyone had some orphan pups or kittens for Abby to raise.
Through facebook, Darcy found a rancher who had an "unplanned" batch of puppies out of a border collie mom and a lab dad.  The rancher gave us 3 female pups and Abby took to them right away and started nursing them. 
The pups were growing but Abby soon took a turn for the worse.  Her hair started falling off and she got huge infections on her back.  We took her back and forth to the vet and they had to do multiple surgeries to remove the infections.  They put her on antibiotics and tried putting bandages on her back.  The bandages wouldn't stay on and Abby wouldn't hold down the antibiotics.  The vet took a sample of the infection and sent it in to a lab, who said it was a staff infection, which can be very contagious.  Thankfully, none of us or the puppies have gotten the infection so far.
Needless to say, we are on a first name basis with everybody in the vet office!  Abby is now doing better although she will have sores on her back for a while.  The pups are set to go to their new homes this weekend! 

This experience has been hard as a family but has also sparked some really good conversations with Daraby about birth, death and adoption.  As Abby "adopted" pups that weren't her's biologically, so we hope to adopt a child into our family who isn't our's biologically. 
Daraby and Dakota have been a great help in raising the puppies.  They both have a heart for animals and it is amazing as a parent to sit back and watch them nurture and care for these pups  Daraby is gentle and kind whereas Dakota is more rough but not afraid to get down to business with them if they bite at her!
Onto other news.  We are on the tail end of our spring break.  Praise the Lord for a week of down time and family activities!  We have done a couple of day trips but have mostly been hanging out together at home. The next two weeks will be extremely busy at school as we host a retreat for youth groups next weekend.  Pray that students would come to know Christ and grow in their relationships with him!
I (Andrew) will be teaching an agriculture class next year at school and am working on the details of that this spring.  I have also been helping with junior high sunday school at church.  Darcy continues to lead the 3 yr old "Cubbies" group at Awana on Wednesday nights.  If you are ever in the Pierre area on a Wednesday night with some time on your hands, come on down to Community Bible Church to help with this group.  They are a lot of fun and a lot of work!  Darcy was able to go to a women's retreat in Rapid City last month which she really enjoyed. 
The highlight of January was spending the weekend at the stock show in Rapid City.  There were great rodeos and horse events to watch.  A student from our school won the saddle bronc riding competition in the high school rodeo!  We feel like the stock show keeps us connected with our ranching way of life we enjoyed down in Nebraska.
I think that sums up the highlights of the last couple months.  We will try to stay updated a little more frequently as we move into the spring and summer months.  Darcy does a lot of updates that you probably read through facebook.  My facebook is lucky to be opened twice a month-I guess I just stuff it all in and then write a couple months worth at one time in a blog!  Anyway, thanks for tuning in!