heritage tour ND-style

One highlight from our time in NC was visiting the places that both of my parents grew up.  So we were eagerly anticipating this day too!  We were missing Julianna (on a youth group trip), but added my niece Kaelynn, and she fits in perfectly!

Jan and Luther grew up on farmsteads just a short drive from one another, and the farmland is still there, and still farmed... but neither of the homes that Luther lived in are still standing.  It was really cool to stand here and listen to the stories and imagine their worlds -

This is in the church graveyard at Perry.  The earliest stones were written in Norwegian, immigrants born in Norway in the 1860s and settling here before North Dakota achieved statehood.

We stopped by a farm near where Luther grew up, and visited briefly with an old friend of his and Jan's who was just starting his wheat harvest.  We watched the combine harvesting, and the grain cart dump a load into this truck.

When full this truck holds almost 10,000 dollars worth of wheat (wheat prices are really high right now)!

We also visited Grandpa's one room school house where he attended elementary school along with 9 other students. And then drove a few miles to Grandma's childhood home church.  Luke Joseph is named for Grandma Claudine Josephine (Jan's mom) who died when Lydia was an infant.

Then we stopped at Golden Lake for dinner :).

A really great day!

lake week pics (special events)

Tuesday morning we went canoeing on the Mississippi River.  As a southerner I grew up with Mark Twain and other stories of the mighty Mississippi and still remember the first time I crossed it, in Memphis Tennessee as a teenager.  

then I met the Minnesota version of the Mississippi :)  

Perfect for a canoe trip!  

A little cornhole tournament got everyone's competitive juices flowing! 

And we had some pretty awesome team-pairings!

Team "little brothers" took second place to team "over-unders" first place victory in the final match! 

All to soon we were packing up and taking last photos and dreaming of our return, one summer soon!

lake week pics (around the resort)

These three granddaughters and their Grandma.... pretty special

Grandma had disposable cameras for each kiddo :)

I can't wait to see how some of their photography turned out!

On the first night we celebrated all three of us turning 40!

Slime making fun!

The pool was so nice!  Many many cannonballs into the deep end!

games! on a screen porch with a gorgeous view too!

Fire mesmerizes! And cooks up some yummy hotdogs,

toasted marshmallows, and S'mores too!

We ate every lunch and dinner outdoors at picnic tables.  It was wonderful!

Sunset with a rainbow over a beautiful lake :)

lake week pics (boat fun)

Too bad nobody ever has any fun on the boat, huh?

We did so many different combinations of Big Mable riding - the girls, the boys, the big kids, the younger kids....

ride after ride after ride.  My favorites were probably Grandpa driving with Andy, Kristi, Matt and me on the Mable.  Sooooo much fun!

almost everyone tried the new ski board too!  The girls got braver everyday and everyone who tried got up on their feet too -

I could ride a boat every day of my life and never get tired of it (at least I'd like to try and see if I got tired of it!)

Every day, all the time, so thankful for these amazing big cousins who loved on my boys.

Many happy hours on this boat, so many happy hours.

On the last night we took the boat to dinner on a different lake (connected to our lake by the mighty-small Mississippi).

We had a gorgeous week with amazing weather for getting out in the water.

lake week pics (fishing)

A summer week at the lake is a family tradition, and one that we don't get to participate in often enough!  Our family hadn't been there for SEVEN years! yikes!  Neither of our little guys had ever been to lake week, and Isaac was only 16 months old on his last trip.  We had a lot of memory-making to do and we did it well!

I have so many great photos (mostly because Kristi is a great photographer) so I think I'll just post in batches.

First up: we did a lot of fishing!  My boys were google-eyed watching the gear unload on Saturday afternoon!

And they were out on the dock fishing before breakfast the next morning!  ha!  John Paul was especially excited to be a part of the fishing club!

And he was out on the boat just a few hours later, reeling them in (mostly thanks to the baiting and coaching and line-untangling talents of his uncle Andy and grandpa and older cousins!)

Everybody was catching fish that morning!

Sometimes the fish catching outpaces those who can take them off the hook - desperate times call for desperate measures.  I only handle small fish, and only when necessary :) ha!

Later in the week we had a cooler day and drove over to Lake 13 to see what we could catch.  Isaac was in Uncle Andy's boat and they were especially fish-full.  But we all had a blast and caught plenty for dinner.

The other two girls chose to stay home but Julianna opted for fishing ;)

In the end it was a delicious feast and we all enjoyed it - YUM!

one week in

Yesterday marked one week here in ND.  Whoa.  It takes only a day or two to get the luggage unpacked and everything physically "settled"... but hearts and minds, they take a bit longer.  We are most definitely still in transition, but I'm encouraged that we are mostly moving in the right direction most of the time.

Parenting in these seasons seems to take extraordinary amounts of time and energy, and (of course) their needs spike when I'm already feeling pushed to my limits.  Lots of time with my people seems to be the best remedy.

I also moved printing photos and "personalizing" our home up to the top of my to-do list.

When the world around us is swirling it's good to re-affirm who we are, where we come from, and the people who journey with us.

It's also good to sit in the backyard and eat peaches :)

And the yard, well it is just about perfect.

The garden is producing insane amounts of cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes too.  We culled out the gourd vines and found a few pumpkin surprises under all that leaf!

Lydia stood at the sink and washed cucumbers as fast as we could bring them in.

There will be plenty for refrigerator pickles, and all of my kids eat raw cucumbers like crazy.  Look at that big one Isaac is chomping into!

We even hosted our first guests!  College friends of Matt's, passing through town... it's fun to have a home with extra bedrooms :)

After dinner last night I dropped Julianna off at a friend's house for a sleepover and this morning she and 30 other youth left on a three day youth trip to Minneapolis.

Seems a bit crazy to me that she's old enough for this!  She was super super excited!

We've got a family birthday this week, Lydia hits double digits on Tuesday!  We usually start homeschool the week of her birthday, and it's definitely feeling different to not be getting out the books and making plans.  I will be missing the schooling, but I'm also encouraged that this will be a great fall for all of them.  Me too :).

north, then west, then north, then west

It's a long drive from NC to ND, and that's that.  But we took it slow (550-600 mile days) and it was totally do-able.  Also, it helped that summertime daylight means early starts don't feel so early :).

These maps were way more entertaining than I initially hoped.  We colored states when we spotted their license plates.  This was my best, easiest, and most effective homeschool class yet :)  by the last day of the drive we were missing fewer than 10, and as we headed into northern Wisconsin I figured we wouldn't be adding any new states.  But we found Wyoming and Washington (state) in northern Minnesota.  You just never know :)

Even the little guys got into this activity, and Luke kept a steady eye out for India and Antartica.  Sweet boy can name a lot of places but their relative distance is still a mystery :).

On day three we only had a 6 hour drive, and chose the southern tip of Lake Superior as a rest stop along the way.

Gorgeous.

Then it was an incredible week at the lake with Matt's family (pictures to come!) and on August 5 we moved into our temporary home!  Hallelujah (!!!) because I was done with suitcase living!

The next day we celebrated John Paul's 5th Gotcha Day!!  That afternoon (after a massive grocery run!) we roasted hotdogs over the fire.  5 years since we brought this boy home and joy to party in the backyard with Grandma and Grandpa and another round of S'mores too.

And so we keep settling in and it must be feeling good because this is the same face Julianna makes when she's on clean up duty in Asia. Ha!

After about 12 hours in the house the kids were ready to turn this backyard tree into a real climb-er.  Extra 2x4s in the garage and a quick run to Ace Hardware, and we were in business.  See Isaac up there in the branches?!?  Also, Hello Blue Sky! Oh how we Love you!

We even got a piece of real (personal!) mail

and this week all 5 kids are enrolled at VBS at a church down the street.  So I walk them there at 9 and pick them up at noon and the walking feels just like Asia-home and we are so thankful for the walk and the church and the friends there.

I'm back on wifi after almost two weeks off so I'm planning to get some lake week photos and stories up real soon.  Luke is begging for another bike ride around the block so I'm off to speed walk behind him on yet another lap until it's time to cook dinner :).