Keep Calm and Happy Birthday!

The next birthday in August was Kyla's.
For her birthday, Maya and I decided to follow an English theme partly because we've learned that the kids have an English Heritage,
and partly because we've enjoyed learning about English food and culture lately.
And Kyla LOVES tea...

So for dinner we had Piccalilli, Chuck Roast with Yorkshire Pudding with Gravy and a Fruit Salad...

We found some cute little crowns for everyone to wear in their hair...

And I made this Chocolate Peanut Butter Stack.  From what I found on the internet, this is an English Recipe.  And then we had tea from, you guessed it... England!

Opening presents...

Maya painted the English Flag in the background and printed out other English paraphernalia for the party...

Grandma looks good in a crown...

Thank you Grandpa and Grandma and Auntie Mary for joining us.  And thanks for sharing your pictures with me too as all of mine got erased somehow.

Are you as confused about the whole English/Ireland/Great Britain/United Kingdom thing as I am?  Here is a video that can clear it all up, or not...

Birthday Dinner

Now it's time to post about our August Birthdays.  My birthday was first...

For my birthday this year, Kyla fixed me a wonderful meal... Fruit Slushie, Bacon-bite Appetizers, Spinach-strawberry Salad, Green Beans and Baked Tilapia, and Homemade Chocolate-Mocha Cheesecake with Vanilla Ice-cream.  It was wonderful!  Thanks Kyla!  Turning another year older isn't so bad when you have these nice moments to look forward too...

School Begins Again, and Again, and Again!

Here we were today,

attending parent/teacher conferences,

and dealing with report cards,

and we'll do it tomorrow too.

And I haven't even posted,

First Day of School Pictures!

So here they are

Already a quarter of a school year old.

We have a high-schooler,

a home-schooler,

a grade-schooler,

and a pre-schooler!

And the school year is off to a GREAT start!

Out Family Trip 2015 - Home For Harvest!

The Harvest Crew 2015!

After our windy drive across North Dakota, we reached Grandpa Larry's Farm on Wednesday, July 29th, the 13th day of our trip.  All along, our hope had been to be at the farm for harvest, but earlier it had looked like we would be too early to get in on it.  When we got there however, plans soon changed and harvest was in full swing.  That's the way it is with these things and we were so happy to be able to experience harvest again, after several years of missing it!

We found another resting place for our trailer in Grandpa's yard...

This was Melita's first time to experience harvest as we hadn't been back since she was born.  She loved every minute of it!

Getting a ride on the dune buggy that Daddy built years ago...

And a ride in Grandpas combine...

And another ride in one of the grain trucks!

Soon the big combines got to work on the fields and we enjoyed riding and watching...

Harvest Days...

Beautiful fields of wheat...

My girls and I kept busy in the kitchen when we weren't out in the fields.  Strawberry shortcake by Kyla...

And Chocolate Chip cookies by Maya...

Supper out of the back of the pickup every evening...

Another meal and Melita looks tired!

Enjoying the last days of our trip together...

Colter was mostly out in the combines and trucks with the guys this year.  I'm so glad that he gets to experience this every now and then... 

The girls and I also found time to go on several four wheeler rides around the country.  It was an awesome and beautiful time together with Melita and myself on one and Kyla and Maya on the other.

Every time we go back to harvest, I search for this old farming equipment, abandoned out in the field long, long ago...

If only they could talk...

The stories they could tell!

Besides all our fun on the farm, the girls and I also headed into town and went school shopping.  Who would have thought we would find such great shopping in WP?  Well, we did!  We found lots of quality, name brand items at great prices in a couple stores we visited.

More fun on the quad with Maya!  This was her first time to drive one. :)

The guys worked late into the night.  The evening before we had to leave, the wheat was all in the bins and harvest 2015 was complete.  It's always special to see harvest finished!  It was simply a wonderful time.

On Sunday Morning, August 2nd, day 17 of our trip, we headed down the road going west.  About and hour down the road we stopped for a Sunday Morning Fellowship Meeting with some of our dear friends.  It was so good to see them a long the way.  Then we got in the pickup and headed home.  It was a long trip that day and we were so glad to get back to our side of the mountain.  Here we stopped for a little break after going over Marias Pass...

We enjoyed our trip so, so much but I think we were all ready to be home at last.  I think this last picture of Melita sums up how we all felt as we faced the last few miles of our trip leading home.  Happy but a little crazy...

And that sums it up.  The kids just enjoyed looking through all these trip posts tonight and I was reminded of why I spend time and do this blog thing.  They LOVED it!

And as I wrap this whole thing up, I was reminded of some thoughts that I wrote down after we went on our last family trip.  They perfectly sum up how I felt about this trip too. Here they are...

I've been away for a while.

We've all been away for a while.

In fact, this is the longest outing we've ever taken since we've been a family.

It's been wonderful. It's been rich. It's been epic.

It's been all of the above.

Tonight I find myself struggling with the fact that tomorrow we will return to r.e.a.l. life.

I'm going to miss every minute and every mile, every special place, and every special face we've left behind us,

I'm going to miss the adventures each new day brought,

I'm going to miss the map in one hand because the GPS didn't always know the way; and I'm going to miss the camera in my other hand.

But most of all I'm going to miss the 24/7 time spent with my family, all 5/6th's of them.

Thanks for following along!  Hope you enjoyed the trip.

Alison

Our Family Trip 2015 - Overnight in The Bakken!

Day 12 of our trip found us traveling west on Highway 2, through the upper half of North Dakota.  As I mentioned before, our goal was to make it Grandpa Larry's farm in Montana before night, but as we battled stronger and stronger winds that day, we soon realized we could go no further.  As we saw gusts over 70 miles per hour, and heard of trucks and trailers being flipped on there sides, we finally decided to stop in Minot for the night.  After an exhausting and worrisome day of travel, fighting the wind and only able to go around 40 miles and hour all day, we had to find a place to pull the trailer into for the night.  Lets just say that's a difficult thing to do in Minot, North Dakota!  Anyway, after lots of calling and asking around, we were able to find a place to park for the night at the Minot State Fairgrounds. The fairground officials where very kind and good to us!

After we got our trailer unhitched, we found a Perkins to eat at for supper.  Can you sense our relief in the picture above?  Then we walked around at the mall a while, and ran into Randy's cousin Lyle who farms in the area.  It was another unexpected but welcomed highlight to talk to him!  Then we went back to our trailer and spent the rest of the night snuggled up as the wind ripped and tore at the world outside our little home on wheels...

Randy is probably talking to Grandpa Larry as the wind rocked the trailer back and forth...

And here we are the next morning, getting ready to go again!  As we left the camping area, we saw many blown over trees and branches.  We even had to weave our way through some of them.  But We survived!!!  It was still pretty windy but much less than the day before...

Minot is well inside the borders of the Bakken Oil Patch, likely the reason it was so difficult to find a place to stay the night there.  As we got on the road again, and moved further and further west, we saw more and more oil activity.  Even though things have slowed down there, in the last year, there was still a LOT going on when we came through that day...

Our first look at man camps...

We tried to count oil wells but soon lost count.  We saw hundreds and hundreds just from the highway...

We'd heard a lot over the last ten years about "The Bakken" and the Oil Boom in North Dakota.  But like I mentioned before, it had been at least 10 years since our last North Dakota trip, so we hadn't seen anything of it for ourselves.  It really was quite something and although I didn't take many pictures of it, I still felt like it was something I had to share in a post.  It was kind of sad to see the difference from what I remember North Dakota to be, especially the Williston area.  Anyway, we were very thankful to get through it all safely and on to our next destination... 

Grandpa Larry's Farm! :)