Schools starting againhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

A few of you want up dates on the life...It has been quite a while and I would encourage you to visit our flickr site to see what's up with us over the past few months. Of course most of you know that we had an awesome time in Wales and the UK. In fact right now I'm wearing the Manchester United jersey I got while I was over there! I'd love to see your comments on the photos! Also You can see what's up on stephs myspace account.
So steph started school again today, After hearing the woes that 4/5 boarding schools in Mid-America had decreased enrollement it was a little scary. We actually were a few students over budget with the good adventist number of 144 students! So we'll see how that all pans out but it's good news for MCA!
I'm staying busy, I had the pleasure of doing my first wedding for a student who used to be in youth group on Sunday! I had fun with that and now I'm spending this week with the students at the school and also getting ready for a sermon this Sabbath. School starts for me in a couple of weeks, I'm a little worried for this quarter because I'm really busy with work, but we'll see how that goes.
Also a fun new thing for me is coaching "varsity" volleyball. Our team is brand new and it's fun seeing dramatic improvement in the girls. We got schooled by the Deaf Academy here but I think that by Union Tournament we should be able to hold our own. Anyways thats an update on the Fergusons, if you have skype you can find me there often I'd love to video chat with all of you non-minnesotans and show off Dylan!

Benji
p.s. join my fantasy pickem league! get info how on my youth website/blog

Rock Climbing and some Vintage Dylan

Last week was the annual Rock Climbing Trip... Steph and Mindy were busy with taking caring of the babies while Rob and I, along with some Youth Group alumni did the rock climbing duties. We had a great time with everything, I made my second trip up to the top of spire 4 and all but one of the students made it up to the top of the easy, yet very exposed climb. Anyways Steph and Mindy were very busy during the week too, this is a photo of Dylan taken in Hill City, SD... The other photo is a characture taken at our city festival last week...Wales is only a few weeks away!

Benji

This is a video from campmeeting 07!

Ok so here is a video from campmeeting this year

My kid's a mule!

Well it's been a month since I last worked on this blog...I've been busy. Being a work at home dad isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'll do my best to fill you in. The most fun thing I did was to go over to Wales and help Ed do a weekend retreat for the Welsh/Scottish/Irish Missions. There was about 100 kids there and it was a blast! It's all about international speaking engagements. I'm looking forward to taking kids over there this summer it should be awesome.

Next two weeks I'm in intensives, we'll be out in Cali next weekend for Steph's 10 year at MBA, I get to be a trophy husband for a weekend! Should be fun.

I got guitar hero for my 360 the day it came out...it is very addicting and one of the best things about it is that stephanie likes to play too :) If you are ever interested in playing give me a call and come on over...If you have no idea what guitar hero is...well just come over :)

Tonight we went to Taco Bell for dinner. When I went up to get my order stephanie told me to get lots of hot sauce, our supply at home was getting low. So I grabbed a handful of the good stuff and we proceeded to eat our dinner with Dylan happily sitting on the table in his carseat watching us eat. When we were finished I got up to throw away our trash and turn back to the table just in time to see Stephanie putting all of the sauce packets in Dylan's carseat and covering it with his blanket, like we needed to smuggle out the sauce. I had to explain to stephanie that it wasn't good to make our kid into a "mule" at 3.5 months espeically if there's no money in it for us :)

Anyways that's our fun life. Last time we weighed Dylan about 2 weeks ago he was 14lbs. 2 oz! and he's about 23'' long! The Pic is of Dylan holding his passport, we just got it today so he can go to Wales with us this summer! (Notice the drool on the passport already)

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

Tourney fever

well I've never really gotten into college basketball, but I decided to try my hand at making picks this year. here's the link to my brackets :) http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/men/723472/bracketoverview

I went way overboard with picking upsets.

I wrote a few weeks ago about dumb advertising...Has anybody seen the new McDonald's add? It makes McD's look very bad. There is this guy full of energy who gets into a car full of tired and slovenly people who can't function until they get their coffee and breakfast from McD's? The happy guy doesn't get any breakfast and in fact when they get to work he takes the stairs and everybody else looks at him like he's crazy! OK. so isn't advertising supposed to make you want to buy a product? I'd much rather be the happy healthy guy than the zombied out tired people...doesn't make sense...

I'm almost done with my classes for the quarter. Next quarter I take a Gospel's class and also another leadership class.

Dylan is doing great, next week is the big week where mommy goes back to teaching and daddy lugs Dylan around with him for the next 9 weeks...should be interesting, very interesting :)

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

getting hectic again

Well I just got back from a fun weekend in California. We missed the biggest snow storm of the year and got to enjoy 70 weather all weekend. Dylan got to meet a ton of grandpas and also Grand Jan for the first time! He met some great grandparents and a greatgreatAunt. Good times. The flight home was the red eye and i had to take the school kids to Waterpark of America the next day. wow I was tired. Dylan must have been tired too, because he slept almost all night last night and all day today. We'll see how that goes for us tonight.

Another quarter of Seminary is closing out and I'm franticaly working on the papers I've procrastinated on. One is a history of the youth ministry at our church here for my history class and the other I have to start thinking about but it's not due till next week:)

MCA has spring break next week and for once I'll be around? kinda strange... Other than that just check the flickr account for some photos from this weekend. Oh a highlight of the weekend was that Dylan got to see the ocean and even put his feet in the water, the picture of that is very cute...

Keeping Jesus #1
Pastor Benji

Random Monkey thought

It's time that I add to the randomness of this blog. Those of you in the midwest are aware of the Taco Bell rival Taco Johns. Today as I was eating my breakfast their commercial came on and I was amazed at how ludicris it was....As we get close to Super Bowl adn commercials are the highlight of our lives I would like to pause and analyize this commercial. First of all, some of you will recognize Taco Johns from the news a few months back after quite a few costomers got sick from eating there....Fast forward a few months later and the company is using a burrito delivering monkey that rides on a dogs back to deliver food to costomers stuck in traffic...Does that make you want to eat a burrito? As for me I want my burritos as far away from dogs and monkeys as possible. Especially monkeys! These same monkeys who supposedly are the cause of AIDS and Ebola...Please if you see monkeys anywhere around my burritos let me know, as for Taco Johns you get my vote for the poorest choice of a mascot for your company, perhaps in the histoy of mascots.....

http://www.tacojohns.com/Media%20Files/whiplashrun4.asx


As usual Keeping Jesus #1
Pastor Benji

Ok, Ok I'll Post Something

Well after that first week I've been a bad blogger. But things definitely haven't slowed down at all. I have no idea how big Dylan is now but he's growing and putting on some weight or at least he better be he eats every two hours. We have a slew of visitors. First Jeni (she wants to be called "old lady") came to visit for a while. That was during week one and she ended up staying a couple of extra days. She was a great help and I don't think we'll need to iron or do laundry for the next couple of months!!! I'm not looking forward to that January water bill :)

Then Dave (he wants to be called Papa) came for MLKJr. weekend and we had a great time together just hanging out and doing some shopping. He got us a very cute toy chest for Dylan that I need to get a picture posted of. Oh by the way be sure to check the flickr account as there are new pictures up. Not as many, but there are some quality ones:)

Mindy is our current resident guest, and she brought along Brody as well. (They want to be called Mindy and Brody) She has been a great companion for Steph and the sisters are having fun together, but basically the just sit around the house and try to get some rest between feedings.

I have been pretty busy with stuff here at home and work. I am learning the trade of dad by assembling all of the baby gear, it's definitely a job I can handle. My school work is going well. I'm taking two classes this quarter a Christian History class and a Missions class. I really like the reading in the History class we have just finished reading up to the 6th century. I have a paper due this week comparing some historical accounts of one of the fathers of the monk lifestyle named Anthony... It is also student week of prayer at the school and I'm pretty excited about what's going on there, and last weekend we had 3 students preach for our main services which was pretty awesome as well. My big worries for the next couple of weeks are basically school and getting our mission trip (looks like we're going to Wales) all settled. But as Jesus says, I shouldn't worry to much He's got everything under control. I just need to focus on following the direction He's leading!

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

This isn't so bad...

Well after many of you have wished us well after those first two night, I have to say I'm getting a little worried. Things are going way too well. We went for a little trip on the town the other day and I found out something wonderful about Dylan! He sleeps on car rides. If he's crying before the car moves, once the car is on the move he quiets down and goes to sleep! Then last night he only woke up twice to eat and poop! Amazing... Anyways things are going so well, I know we must have some tough days and nights in our future, it can't all be this good. By the way at his checkup yesterday Dylan was up to 6 pounds 9.5 oz. The day before he was 6"8oz! the nurse weighed him twice and this was after he had just gone #2! so when we left the hospital on Sat. he was 6 even and on Wed he was 6'9.5 unbelievable.

Belle and Dylan are getting along great. When visitors come over Belle will take them over to Dylan and then stand between them and Dylan until she notices how we react to the people. It's pretty cute.

I start school again on monday with a Christian History class and an Evangelism class. The reading load is going to be impressive but I've gotten a little head start. I guess that's all for now.

People have been asking for more pictures, and they're on the way, but it will probably be the weekend before I get them on the web. I think I'm going to have to change accounts because the free flickr account only allows 200 pics and we have much more than that. So I'm switching over to Yahoo, but it'll take a little work. BOOO Flickr

Keeping Jesus #1
Pastor Benji

Day 5

Well it's a new year, and there's plenty of other new things in the Ferguson house! We brought Dylan home late Sabbath to plenty of rain showers. We walked into the house and Steph started crying. It was a pretty overwhelming experience. Saturday night was rough too, Dylan had a very hard time sleeping and because of that so did we. He was so good in the hospital and he came home and cried all night. Finally we gave him some drops of some stuff that helps with gas (did he get that from daddy?) and he was able to have a little stool in his diaper which seemed to help things out immensely, but he still had to sleep on mom's chest for the rest of the night which was only minimally restful for mom.

Sunday morning, Marie came over and gave Steph a break and watched Dylan so Steph could sleep. While Stephanie was sleeping Marie worked her magic on our house. She got the guest room rearranged and cleaned up so "the old lady" would have a place to sleep. She did a lot of other stuff too and helped me move my desk so that I would have a place to study while we have this influx of visitors over the next few months.

Steph got her wish Sunday and the rain outside turned to snow! We got a few inches and should have some pictures of that up on flickr really soon. That made the ride to the airport to pick up Jeni a long one and Steph and Dylan stayed home since the roads were so messy. But Dylan loves hanging out with Jeni. New Years eve was a better night for Dylan and Dad and mom are a little more rested.

I wish all of you a great new year. May you find a closer relationship with Jesus and the people God puts in your path in the coming year.

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji