Lo-Green Acres: Boundary Waters

Okay...So again I'm behind on posting. I'm going to back track a little and post about Labor Day week (and a few other random things that happened in between;).

On Labor Day we began the trip to MN. We stopped at Jake and Ruth's to spend the night and car pool with Jake and Ruth (Susanna, Addy, and Jared). On Tuesday afternoon we were at Roger and Sue's and the packing started. The boys (Josh, Jake, Jared, Thomas, & Keith) and Sue had been planning this surprise trip to the Boundary waters for Roger for about 3 months. It was a 50th birthday present. There had been many stories and cover-ups so Roger wouldn't find out the plan.

At 4:00 the boys were packed and ready and we were all waiting for Roger to come home...We waited in the driveway for a LONG time. When He finally got home at 6:30 we surprised him. He was pretty shocked!

The boys left the next morning at 3:30am. They drove about 4 hours to the first lake. Then they canoed and portaged about 8 miles back to lake Feebe. They spent the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday there, before coming back (one day early) on Friday morning. They didn't get home until after dark on Friday. We were pretty surprised & excited to get the call that they were on their way home.

The girls and the kids stayed home with Sue while the boys were on their adventure. It was really nice to be together, and we had fun visiting and just doing to normal Mom Thing together. We did some canning (pears and tomatoes), picking and packaging for CSA, and some fun stuff...

Thursday night we went to Kristina's volley ball game. We dropped Johnny, Lu Lu, Addy, and Josiah off at Grandma and Grandpa Hayes' house to play. It was fun to watch her win all three games in the match. I learned a little more about volley ball. It was nice to have Katie there to answer our questions.

Friday we went to the Zoo and had lunch in a park. It was a lot of fun! When we got back from the zoo, the phone rang. Ruth said, "I bet it's the boys calling to tell us they're coming back early." I said, "no way." But Ruth was right!

John and Lu both did really well when Josh was gone. They played good and slept well. When Josh came in the door Friday night and said, "Hi Lu Lu," we found out how much she really missed Daddy. She turned away from him and just started to ball. He picked her up and held her. She wouldn't let him put her down for a long long time. When she finally got off his lap, she sat with Grandpa for a long time too. Josh said that he missed her the most of all the kids too. I think it's the age. It's so hard to be away when they're little like that.

Stacie (the only one to miss the girls only week) came on Friday too. So we were all together for a Friday night and Saturday of Family Fun. We spent the morning and walking around to all the gardens and feeding the goats and playing outside. The afternoon was spent napping and the evening was spent celebrating Cy's birthday (10 years). Sue's family came out for the birthday party. We made a John Deere tractor cake for Cy (Katie and Kristina did all the hard work, but Ruth and I helped them engineer the construction and Sue gave moral support and helped keep it a total surprise for Cy).

Sunday morning after mass we made the long journey home. It was a good trip!

So there's my story and here are the pictures...

Pressing apple Labor Day weekend...Our press works amazing. We get about 1 gallon of juice per bushel of apples.