Last Sunday

 

Last Sunday afternoon we loaded up the crew and all the necessities for a week of family fishing. We left laptops and portable dvd players at home and headed out.

Here we are still in the driveway waiting for Dad to make sure things on the homefront were secure before driving away.

Benjamin ready to travel

The backseat crew.

And we are off…

 

Benjamin’s wolf drove for a while, Dad was thankful for the relief driver. Gotta keep the crew laughing as much as possible.

We stopped at the salmon viewing area to view the salmon that are nearing the end of their journey. They are red by this point in their life.

And here is our set up for this trip, the slide in camper, we are cramped but we are warm, dry, have a stove and fridge and we are not sleeping on the ground.

We have a 16 foot boat that we took along with us.

More to come…

The End

The six and four foot tables are empty and gone. The books are boxed to leave, trash has been taken out and everything that is staying has been put away. I am trying a new set up for this year so we will see how it works out once we start school. So far I like things this way. I need a to purchase a new white board as ours fell apart. I’d also like some sort of cork board but I do not know if I will find what I want.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will try to post a picture of the finished family room.
Today we cooked for camping and that is way more fun that cleaning.
What did we cook?  Two kinds of granola bars, breakfast burritos, cheeseburger buns, freezer mashed potatoes, and Elisabeth made oatmeal cream pies (she might give Little Debbie a run for her money). I am worn out.
Tomorrow we pack the camper, doing a little more cooking and clean some in the house.

Yesterday's Progress

<p>One table came down last night and this morning I got the boxes stowed until I can return them. All that is left on the table are some books I am going to attempt to sell and a scrabble game and extra tiles for a craft project. Now onto the remainder of the room!

One Table Cleared and Taken Down

Tonight I finished clearing off both tables and the piles underneath the tables. Now just to put the tables away and clean and figure out where to place the furniture for the fall/winter season.
Still much to do but it feels great to clear out three boxes of books. And two bags of stuff to throw away. I got a call from Pa pa today while standing in the book section at Sam's today. She said, "From the pictures on your blog you don't need anymore books." Haha!  (Pa pa, I did not purchase any books for me but Benjamin did get a sticker book)
But I had a revelation tonight. I thought that the household issues that I have been having were since before Benjamin was born. Not true at.all!! You see, when Judith was building all of her hideaways in history with Mrs. L she had notebook pages to complete. Tonight I sat down at the computer to order prints of her builds to complete that notebook for the memory factor(this was a super special time not only for Judith but all of us). Well, I was sucked into those months of study but not the history but my home. Things were a bit more orderly and my children looked so precious and happy. So, Momma has a lot of work to do on the inside and on the homefront.

Progress

I still have a long way to go but I am making progress.

A little more fair

Benjamin enjoying cotton candy, yuck!

Preparation and Do You Think I have a Book Problem?

I am working on preparing things for the school year. The school closet has been emptied and the book shelves are in the process of being emptied. I have not made this thorough of a clean out in a couple of years. I hope to have all of the shelves cleaned off by the end of the day.

I really do enjoy the end result of a big sort out like this and the clean that comes from moving this much stuff.



I forgot to take a picture of the three boxes of chapter books/novels I have pushed over to the side, books, yeah, I like them alot.

 

Time for the Fair

I am not sure I am ready for the fair. While the remainder of the country has been sweltering our summer has been rainy, windy and cool. There have been a few warm and even a couple of hot days but I have worn jeans more than capris this summer than in past summers.

Fair time marks the beginning of the end of summer, I see a few yellow leaves making their appearance and I am just not ready for yellow leaves. I am ready for a bit more sunshine.

But back to the fair, we went. Here are the pictures for proof.

The first pictures are actually at home before leaving for the fair, everyone had on their hoodie for it was a cloudy and cool day.

Benjamin wearing Daddy’s boots.

Judith Rae wearing her Kentucky hoodie

Elisabeth wearing her Creation Museum hoodie

Levi in his birthday hoodie

I even broke out my one and only hoodie but no one took my picture.

Here is my crew eating at the fair, I just don’t love most fair food. Call me a food snob, next year we will eat food at home and each one get his/her favorite treat.

After eating we were off to the animal barns, we first visited the rabbits, goats and sheep barn to see the rabbit of a friend.

Benjamin looking at a goat.

Look at these fancy duds. Every year the fair has a different theme with something to do with vegetables or animals. This year the theme was…”Age of Asparagus”

Our little guy in his miner “hard” hat.

Benjamin wanted to see horses but not many were in their stalls yet, we found this one to visit.

A nice lady at the poultry barn let Benjamin pet her chicken. Have I mentioned that I would like to have chickens?

We didn’t get to see pigs, cows and our friend’s market turkey because they were all being weighed so that barn was closed to the public.

Scenes from the Road

Last week the Blessings and I took a road trip to visit friends that recently moved back to Alaska, only about 90 miles from where we live. On the way home we stopped at a lake for a break from the drive.

I took the opportunity to take a few photos of the Crew.

It is rare that Levi lets me get a good picture, but today he was agreeable.

The girls

Lily pads in the lake

Benjamin slept through the entire pit stop, well, pretty much the entire ride home.

He had too much fun playing all day.