this & that...

The tears flowed freely as we said good-bye today to the first of our pigs to leave us...
Rose and Bonkers.


We love our Rose.


Maybe it was because she was the very first pig that we bought,
maybe it was because from that first day she was so friendly and loved us immediately,
maybe it was because she had such a cool name,
maybe it was because she had such a cool personality,
maybe it was all of the above...
but no matter what the reason...
we all sure did love our Bonk-Bonk pig.


Good-bye Bonk Bonk.

And the big winner today is...
Ashley!! She won 1st place in her weight class!!
I described in the post just below this one how the judge would initially pen his favorites, then bring them back out to decide the winner... well, Grey didn't even have to walk Ashley around the ring. The judge "penned" her coming out of the shoot... so Grey just took her to the pen and waited. Then as he was bringing his favorites back out one at a time, Ashley was the last one that he let out to look at. He watched her for maybe 1/4 of the way around the ring and then announced that she was the winner. Quite a short walk for such a nice win!


A picture of the short walk.


Here's Bonkers on her last walk with Ely.

I'm trying to put some different-looking pictures on here from the other day... just for a little variety. This is Ely with Shorty. There were so many more pigs at this show that the judge would "pen" his favorites off to the side of the ring. Then they would remove all the other pigs out of the ring and bring the favorites back out and the judge would look at them all again and pick his winners. Ely got "penned" just minutes after walking out with Shorty. She ended up finishing 4th in her weight group.


This is another picture of Ely and Shorty. I actually had a lot of good pictures of Ely with this pig (although this isn't one of them HA). But I did think it was an interesting picture because if you double-click on it (or any picture) it will enlarge on your screen and you can see how big the other kids are that are out there competing with Ely. He really did an exceptional job of showing this pig out there with all those older kids. I think the judge liked him too, because he kept smiling at him all day every time he would show a pig.


Grey showing Big Mama.

Thought this was a cool picture because you can see the judge "checking out" Petunia/Scardy Cat.


Look what a fabulous job Grey is doing showing Petunia/Scardy Cat. This was in the 10-11 year old showmanship category. Out of 30-40 kids, Grey placed in the top 6. Petunia didn't place in the Duroc category today.


Here is Rose in her last walk with Ely. Ely showed her 3 times altogether. She was a hard pig to show because she was so lightweight and frisky that she liked to run around all over the ring a lot. Ely did a good job with her, though, and never got frustrated.

And the winner is.....


Petunia/Scardy Cat!!! Weighing in at 285, this lovely lady caught the judge's eye and won Overall Champion Duroc. Pretty cool, huh?


Ely showing Rose.

Grey showing Bonkers.


Ely showing Ashley.

Ely showing Shorty.


Grey showing Big Mama.

For Grey's project this year, he popped 4 brands of popcorn to see which brand had the best popping rate. His conclusion was that Orville Redenbacher pops the most (and the biggest) per bag.

Isn't Grey looking handsome in his new coat and tie! This was made before his Cotillion Club last Friday.



Ely's SECOND new pair of glasses!!! (Since his others had less than a week and a half life-span after getting run over in the driveway. oops!)

WHAT CUTE BOYS!!!

Don't both of the boys look cute in their glasses! Ely just got his today. We went to a new eye doctor for him yesterday in Memphis. We really like her a lot and will switch to her for the boys' future visits. The doctor works in the University of Tennessee's Medical Clinic there in Memphis. They took a lot of time with him and did a very thorough exam.

He has a couple of things going on with his eyes... he has astigmatism in both eyes;
his right eye is drifting outward at different degrees depending on whether he is looking at a distance, looking at something close-up, or looking at something out of the top of his eyes (imagine looking down at book then looking upward toward a chalkboard with your face still tilted slightly downward);
his eyes are also having trouble converging (example: looking at something away from you then bringing your eyes in to look at something close to you like a book ..... school example again: looking at chalkboard then looking down at a paper on your desk ... his eyes are having trouble doing this).
The first step in our treatment is the glasses. Get things back in focus and see how that helps. We will go back in 6-8 weeks for a re-evaluation with his glasses on to see if the outward turning and convergence issues have improved. We discussed some vision therapy (eye exercises) and surgery as possible future courses of action.

Just wanted to show you the updated picture. We've told John that he needs to go get his eye's checked and get glasses now that he's the only one in the family without them. :)