July babies

Joel was born 3 years and 364 days after Elijah.  This means the mid July week is a bit hectic with birthday activities.  And to add, this year Elijah turned double digits.  Goodness gracious!  It's hard to swallow, that our oldest has been breathing air for a full decade!

We took Monday through Wednesday and retreated to a Lake on the border of Canada.  We rented a bare bones cabin for two nights and enjoyed some time in the "mountains" of North Dakota.  What a beautiful area!  We left morning mid morning and drove to the International Peace Garden that is no-mans land on the border of ND and Manitoba, Canada.  It was fun to see the Canadian border again, as it's been 14 years since I left CBC and I haven't been back up that far North since.  We forgot our passports at home, so there was no driving across the border just to say we did, which really bummed me out.  But the peace garden is half in Canadian territory, so I'm counting it!  

a black succulent!

We spent a few hours milling around at the garden and driving around the trails on the Canadian side of it.  From there we drove the 25 minutes up to Turtle Mountain Park and made our way to our cabin.  It was a bit overwhelming, initially, as we've never "camped" with the boys.  Josh and I both grew up camping - TRUE camping, not in a cabin, so we know better than to call cabin sleeping camping, but it was a good way to ease into it while trying to manage the craziness that is our brood.  And we were so entirely thankful for our cabin late that first night when we were getting pounded by one of the loudest thunder storms we've experienced.  Between the thunder and torrential downpour of rain, there wasn't much sleep to be had.  
Tuesday we ate a quick breakfast and made for the trails.  Aspens, paper birch (goodness I love those trees!), oaks, cottonwoods and various other deciduous trees provide endless green surrounding the lakes in the area.  We were covered head in toe with deet to avoid bites, but were delighted to have not found one single tick, on anyone!  I was expecting many!  We all crashed for naps after a quick lunch upon returning to the cabin, and that afternoon we drove over to the little beach on the main lake, "Metagoshe".  A chicken salad, s'mores and a hilarious game of frisbee keep away from the boys finished out the evening.  

nothing says camping luxury like juice in a wine glass

poor dumb dog

the boys were using their sling shots to fling rocks into the trees.  Cherry was going out of her mind!  She was certain she was going to make a major score with whatever was rustling around in those leaves.  

Not the smartest tool in the shed, that dog.

Look! It's Canada!

Chilly water on a cloudy, windy day

what could possibly go wrong here?!

Wednesday was Joel's 6th birthday, and we greeted it with a pancake, egg, bacon and fresh blueberries and peaches breakfast.  Packing commenced and we were headed home by 9:30.  Josh spent much of the drive home on the phone back and forth with different folks, as we'd received word the night before, via email, that we wouldn't be closing on our house Friday as we were supposed to because though we were told he didn't need a pay stub the underwriters for the loan required one - he had this week off to go do a couple shifts for that very reason, but we planned this last minute trip with the boys after being told we wouldn't need to provide that pay stub.  So stress was heavy as he scrambled to figure out when to get to Iowa to work a shift, if the sellers were going to get cold feet and back out, and how on earth to work any of this into the JAM PACKED next few weeks we have in Minot.   The details behind that are an entirely separate post.
 Joel's birthday dinner Wednesday night was "crusty chicken", artichokes and a dirt and worm cake for dessert.  Gifts followed and Elijah decided to open his with Joel.  The evening consisted of playing with birthday gifts, running off the sugar rush from the dessert and Josh and Elijah putting together Elijah's new birthday bike.

Thursday we woke up to a 10 year old!  Crazy!  He enjoyed his donut breakfast and building his k'nex gun that he'd opened the night before.  We made our way to the indoor splash pad later in the morning and finished the day at our dear friend's farm, the Bonnesses, our pastor and his family.  How we treasure these people, their heart for the Gospel and their love for their flock!  Elijah asked for home made pizza because regular pizza was "too easy" for a birthday dinner.  hahahaha!  So pizza it was, along with a salad and an Andes Mint starwars cake.  The starwars theme was a surprise - thank you, Amazon, for providing fun candy moulds!  We ate, loaded pigs into a trailer to head to the butchers the next day, played with precious kittens, had a water balloon fight and thoroughly enjoyed the time with the Bonnesses.  They and the church are the very reason that leave Minot is going to be so entirely painful.

quieting an angry egg laying chicken

right before getting pelted in the back of the head by a whopping water balloon

a good, cold soaking for the double digit boy

our boys love them, and they love our boys

we sure adore this family.  Such a short season with them - but it has not prevented us from loving hard - we will treasure these last few weeks we have with them.

I think we'll be getting a kitten once we've moved

We didn't leave the farm until well after 9:00, and the boys weren't asleep until 10:00, but it was worth every minute!  We sure cherish the minutes we get with this precious boys and are thankful for each passing year we get to celebrate their lives.
The birthday madness is over and it's back to the scramble of packing, organizing, purging and trying to work the details of pack-out dates, a new closing date for the house, when to get Josh to Iowa to work a measly 12 hour shift all for the sake of one paystub (good gracious) to prove his job is real.  Onward and forward.