The Weekly Review III

Sunday~

We are still camping. It has been very lovely weather. Quite hot but, there is water we can cool in, shade and a nice breeze. Today we tried out the swimming lake, it didn't take the kids long to acclimate to the temperature of the water. At the evening service the speaker talked about different times the Bible refers to the palm of God's hand and Wade carved a giant hand out of cedar. He also made a nail on a forge telling how we need to be malleable by God just like the iron is made malleable by the heat of the fire. He does some neat art work, but is very faith only and that is sad. Last night we listened to the Alzen Family in concert. They are a very talented family and a lot of fun to listen too.

The kids raced their turtles, none of them won, but it was fun anticipating the big event.

Monday~

They had a nice Memorial service and flag raising. After that most of the kids went swimming in our group, just the older four boys stayed back and played tether ball and carpet ball. Hans and Harrison also got in a quick canoe ride. Then the big job of hauling all of our belongings back to the van and cleaning up the campsite. I was totally exhausted by the end of this day. We all walked several miles each day I am sure and often times I was carrying a light load. You can watch a short video of the weekend here. It isn't up yet but they said it would be soon.

Tuesday~

I woke up with terrible pressure in my sinuses so I ate an orange, a garlic clove and drank three glasses of water right off the bat and felt much improved, although rather smelly. I did three huge loads of laundry today and we did our school work. We all seem a little tired from the busyness of the past several days.

Wednesday~

We did some running around and finally made it to Fleet and found Margaret some nice sandals for her to play in this summer. I made meat pie for lunch because we are studying Australia and that is what they eat the books say. It was yummy, I also made an apple and a pumpkin pie. We aren't having normal classes for the next three weeks at church so tonight just Harrison and Margaret had a gathering in our family. They had a party/ class with their group. It looked like fun. While they were there we took a long drive around the countryside looking for a dairy that would sell us raw milk. Travis had heard of one that might on the other side of Woodbury and so we searched for it and drove in very beautiful country. It turns out there are 2 dairies over there but both farmers are very sure they will not sell to anyone. It is illegal in MN and they don't want to risk their farms for us. Makes my life easier not needing to run somewhere else to get milk, but Travis was very disappointed. For a late supper/ early birthday meal for Travis we went to the Outback. Our food was good, of course. Our waitress messed up our order so we got an extra plate of grilled chicken and ausie fries, and a cup of potato soup.

Thursday~

Travis and Beatrice mowed at the church building. Margaret made Travis' birthday cake. His favorite, angel food with a caramel sauce. We got the sauce just right in flavor and consistency. Harrison grilled hamburgers for supper. I shaped them and they didn't stay together to well, but they tasted pretty good. The kids and I got started packing for heading up to Bemidji on Friday.

Friday~We traveled north. It was a beautiful day for driving, sunny and pretty clouds, but not real hot either. I had hoped to get heading north pretty quickly, but it didn't go as fast as it should have in the morning. We had waffles for breakfast that were really slow in getting cooked. They did turn out very nicely though. Once we got to Mom and Dad's, Keren got to dreaming about tie-dye shirts and getting a kit from walmart to do a little dyeing. So we ran in there to get what we needed for that. We drove through Bemidji on our way home. I had not been through for some time. It has really been changing since I left. We had a yummy supper of Hamburgers grilled by Keren and broccoli and potato wedges.

Saturday~ We took a walk up on the new pipeline north of Mom and Dad's. It was fun to look around. It has really changed the look up there. They used about 8 foot lengths of some heavy rope in their work up there. We had fun pulling it out and hauling some back. They had it in some piles around partly underground. Keren's Graduation Open House was this evening. We played croquet, volleyball, water balloons and much visiting about while eating yummy food.

We ended the evening sitting around the living room at home while Dale played the guitar and Luke played the dobro and we all sang along randomly. It was pretty music.

Here is the lovely graduate preparing the water balloons.

~Anna