Before heading out to Blacktail for our last night in ND, we went up to an old barn that is just north of the farm. We’ve always called it “Ackemyers” which was the family who used to live up here back in the early 1900s. I think my dad said that people lived there until the 30s. All that’s left is their old barn, and an old windmill. I love it up there. I think it’s so cool! We went up there to take family pictures a couple years ago when we were home. I wanted to give it another try because as much as I like those pictures, it was back when I was just starting to take pictures and reeeallly over-processed my images. I was going for a certain look with those, but they just look silly to me now. Originally, Dave and I were just going up there together, but by the time we made it up there, mom, dad and the kids drove up there in the pick up. I’m glad they did too because I got a bunch of pictures of the kids up there.
It was amazing how tall the grass was up here. They’ve had such a wet spring that it’s green as far as the eye can see. It’s beautiful. Combine that with the perfect blue skies and the puffy white clouds and you have a picture perfect vision of my home.
Here are the kids climbing up the old windmill. Tyler got pretty high up there, but we didn’t let Ava go quite as far. I wonder how old this thing is? It’s still in pretty sturdy condition and even has writing on it that says “Williston, ND” and “Breuggar Merc Co.”
I wish Ava would have smiled in this picture! Look at that tall grass….
The kids with Grandpa Jon….he did so much to get the farm looking nice for us while were were there. It was great to be able to spend some long days and nights out there while we were home. The kids really love it, and I enjoy watching them experience farm life, even if only for a little while. I know they are making great memories of visiting Grandpa’s farm, and they’ll remember these times always.
I love this old barn….love how the sun was shining through the broken and missing boards.
Tyler was getting ready to sneeze in this whole series of photos, but it was too good of everyone else for me to delete.
Finally one with everyone looking and smiling…kind of….
It was time to get on the road up to Blacktail, so we needed to wrap up the photo session and the exploring. My parents took off with the kids in the pick up and drove over towards one of the dams. I got a text from my mom a couple minutes later that said “stuck in the mud by the big dam. Help.” I mentioned that its been a really wet year, and the fields are still pretty wet. Obviously. They were stuck good! We gave my parents the 4 wheeler to head back to the farm and get another vehicle and Dave, the kids and I started walking back. Mom would come up with another car shortly, but we just needed to get to the dry road.
Ava must have gotten pretty shook up from getting stuck in the mud and she started crying and said “I want to go home to Arizona right now!” Dave picked her up and gave her a ride on his shoulders, but she was still pretty upset. She said “I don’t even know whey we came here!” Mom arrived soon after that and we drove back to the farm yard. Dave and my dad got a big tow rope and jumped in the Explorer to try to get the truck out. The next text I got from Dave said “stuck again.” Mom went back up there to get them…again…and they came back to the yard to get the tractor. It was the last resort, and luckily it worked. It’s always an adventure at the farm!
We headed up to Blacktail and had a really nice evening with Jason and Janae. The kids swam off of the dock a little bit and we had a great dinner. It was the perfect ND evening, and a lovely way to end our vacation. We tried to get back to town at a decent time so we could get started on our packing, but after a visit to my cousin Miriah’s cabin, we didn’t get home until after 10 pm. In the morning, we headed out to Minot around 8 am and were back in blistering hot Arizona by about 2 pm that day.
We had a great trip with perfect weather and loads of stuff to keep us busy. I always feel like I don’t have enough time to see everyone, and this trip was no exception. Thanks to everyone who helped show us a great time!
Let’s go swimming in the creek! Yay!
Saturday, Tyler’s 7th birthday, was a great day at the farm. The sun was shining and it was warm—making a perfect opportunity to go for a swim in the creek! The water had receded a bunch since our first trip to the farm when it was full from the rain. Earlier in the week, it was moving a bit too fast to be swimming in there, but by the end of the week, it wasn’t much deeper than their knees.
Earlier in the week, we would have had great conditions for kayaking in the creek too, but it might have been flowing too rapidly for us inexperienced kayakers. Tyler got out there on Saturday though, and he had a great time.
Since he was just learning how, we didn’t have him go too far. When he got to the end, Dave picked him up on the 4-wheeler and drove him back to the starting point.
Life as a 7 year old is pretty good! Kick back, relax, and have a great year!
Throughout the first part of our ND trip, we were going back and forth about what to do for a birthday party for Tyler. He kept asking if we could go to the bowling alley (you’ll remember he’s recently interested in bowling), so we finally decided to do a small bowling party for him. We did it on Friday (rather than Saturday, his actual birthday). It was a pretty small group who were able to come, but Tyler had a great time bowling with his ND cousins and a new friend. Penny (my cousin’s wife) was there with her two boys, Vanessa (another cousin’s wife) was there with Danica and Adam, and Jane brought her friend’s boy, Dakota, who is also 7. Vanessa was babysitting her niece and nephew that day, so she had them there too. Grandma and Grandpa, Aunty Mary, and Great Grandma Winden were also there. They kids bowled one round, with the boys in one lane and the little girls in the other. Ava and Megan (Danica’s cousin) were more interested in bowling than Danica, and they even started tossing the ball themselves rather than using the little ramp.
Little Adam sure has grown since last time we saw him! He loves his Grandma Mary!
Tyler got some nice gifts from his friends at the party. Here he is with his new buddy, Dakota.
We had bought Tyler a new scooter several months ago when we saw it on sale. It is one of those Razor scooters that has wheels that light up and sparks when you press the brake. I printed a picture of it and wrapped it in a present. When he asked what it was, I said, “I think it’s a new bike…no, maybe a scooter.” He thought that was pretty funny because obviously a bike or a scooter wouldn’t fit in that little box. Here is his reaction when he realized it really was a scooter!
We got a nice baseball cake from the local grocery store at the last minute….perfect!
Happy early birthday Tyler! We hope you had a fun bowling party!
The days are starting to run together for me as I’m trying to recap our vacation. These pictures were taken on Thursday when we went back out to spend the evening at the farm. We were very lucky to have such great weather while we were there. It was sunny and warm almost every day, but the wind was blowing pretty hard most days—but, that’s ND for ya!
So, this is one of the highlights of the week for the kids. I wrote about how Tyler was using this dirt pile as a “volcano,” and he has asked Grandma to bring some smoke bombs out for him to use to make it real. She stopped by the firework stand on her way out to the farm that day, but it was 8 days before the 4th of July, and ND law doesn’t allow them to sell fireworks more than a week ahead. Mom knows the guy who owns the firework store, and when she mentioned to him that her grandson really wanted some smoke bombs, he filled up a huge box full of miscellaneous fireworks and a bunch of smoke bombs. It was mostly stuff he had cleaned off the shelf because of damaged wrappers and missing pieces. Tyler used the smoke bombs to make his volcano “erupt” and it was quite exciting! He had a great idea, and it was really fun to watch.
Jason and Janae came out too, and we had another nice dinner together. Ava got to help grandma shuck the corn.
These pictures of Ava playing with Uncle Jason are so fun!
Tyler and Jason went for a ride on the 4-wheeler (Ty really wanted to go up and see the oil well), and Ava and I played a little baseball by the creek.
These pictures of me on the propane tank are pretty funny if you know how much time I spent on this thing when I was a kid. We had a propane tank behind the house when I was growing up out there, and in my obsession to have a horse of my own, I spent hours “riding’ my propane tank horse. I put a saddle on it, draped a bridle over the front, and had all kinds of adventures on my “horse.”
Just before the sun went down, Dave and I took the 4-wheeler up by the dam. It was so calm and peaceful up there. I just love the summer evenings out on the farm. No matter how windy the day is, it always seems like the night are nice.
Here is where the night got exciting. It was almost time to head back to town, but there were still a bunch of fireworks left over. My dad had the idea to dump a bucket full of fireworks into Tyler’s volcano and light them all at the same time. My mom and I thought it might be a little crazy, but we just stood back and waited to see what would happen. The results were pretty awesome! I have a video that is almost 2 minutes long of these fireworks going off non-stop. And, he put 3 separate buckets full in there, so it went on for a long time! Everyone who sees the video chuckles at the fact that we were doing all of this right next to the propane tank. It would have made for quite the fireworks if that would have lit up! I probably wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.
Here is a video of the fun too…
