summer vacation

Wow, it's been a busy past few weeks.

Getting seven people ready for vacation,

going on a week's vacation,

and then returning to get things back to normal after vacation.

All worth it though!

Ever since I was a baby, my family has gone to Canada for our summer getaway.

We've always gone to a resort called Ross' Resort which is about an hour across the border on

a lake called Clearwater Lake. 

Two years ago my parents bought land on that same lake and have been in the process of

building a cabin ever since.

My parents, my brothers and their families, and my family were all there together

this summer to celebrate the completion of it.

It's beautiful.......

We spent the week 

swimming,

fishing, 

jumping off rocks,

laying on the dock,

skiing,

tubing,

kayaking,

paddleboating,

more laying on the dock,

playing yahtzee,

catching crawdads,

and just totally enjoying the cabin, lake, and being with each other.

Here are some of the pictures.....I tried not to repeat too many of the ones I've already put on Facebook:)

Grandpa and Nash got to be pretty good buds

This is the rock that people go to jump off....around 12-13 feet at the highest point.  Mack and Josef both jumped!

Chillin......

Catching crawdads

This was what the dock looked like most days.....full of people soaking up the sun and water

Looks like a nice sized walleye for supper:)

One of the cooler days

Amelia helped me make baked peaches.....very tasty!!

One of the kids' favorite things is seeing the planes land and take off on the water

Eat a minnow?  I did it once!

No more pictures mom!!

Sister will always pose, though!

Fun to see all the eagles......

The kids had movie night and watched Toy Story 3

I also took some of Shay's senior pictures......here are a few.

We probably have about 200 we have to sort through and narrow down:))

And, unfortunately, vacation had to come to an end.

But we are very grateful to my parents that we have this gorgeous place to go visit

and we are looking forward to many years of making memories there:)

Hope you all have a great week, and if you have a chance go jump off a rock into a lake.

Good for the soul.

"there are always things for you to be grateful for, each and every day"

force of nature..........

Being a farmer's daughter, I've seen all the different factors that play into

a successful farming operation.  

The one thing you have no control over is Mother Nature.

I can remember very distinctly growing up the "year of the drought."

And then there was the "year of the flood".  

Invasions of different types of bugs on the plants.

Wind storms.

Some years of bumper crops thanks to the weather and other

years of lower yields strictly due to a force of mother nature.

And as anyone who lives in Iowa knows, straight line winds

greatly affected the crops  in four different counties yesterday.

 If you weren't raised on a farm and haven't seen the blood, sweat and tears that go

into working your land, planting, tending, spraying and harvesting your crop

 (along with so many 

other factors that I don't know about) 

you probably won't be quite as affected by these pictures as I

and many other farmers and their families are.

I was thankful to have my husband squeezing my hand tight as we drove past the first field of my

dad's, then the second, third and so on and realizing the devastation that hit every single one of his corn fields.

This is an image of how straight the corn was standing two days ago.

And the rest are images from my dad's cornfields.

They were trying their hardest to make the corn stand up:((

And Josef was very worried about this sign.

As with every other weather catastrophe, they will move forward.

Today, things look a little better. 

The corn is standing up a little taller and everyone is realizing how fortunate we all

were that no one was seriously injured or killed in this storm.

Lots of love going out to my dad and mom,

 my brothers and their wives, 

and every other farmer 

affected by the storm yesterday.  

"better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles" ~~ Maltbie Babcock