Labor Day weekend.....it was a good weekend, but a long one! Friday was beautiful! Gary and Emma went up there and worked and played up there all day. After the other kids got home from school, we all headed up there. Friday afternoon, this is about all we accomplished!
It was so nice and relaxing! I had already made dinner and just brought it up with us because I knew it would just be easier. It was such a beautiful day!
Saturday morning we decided that we should actually get something done....so we put a couple of beams up on the big shelter. That was about it......oh, I guess Gary did move some dirt around too to kinda even up some of the ground in certain areas around the camp.
Later that afternoon when Kristi, Rob and their kids had come up we went over to the shooting hill. Here Gary is helping Megan shoot the .22 I ran back to the campground on the 4-wheeler to grab some of Gary's earplugs for the kids to use while we were shooting the guns, well, my mom had(finally!)shown up to camp in the 5-10 minutes that we had been over there. So I convinced her to just get on the 4-wheeler with me and head over there to watch and hang out with all of us, especially since there was no one in camp! She did, but was not too impressed! Heehehehehe.....it was pretty funny listening to her swearing a little....it's like she didn't trust me. I should have been offended, but I wasn't because it was just too funny to me! Needless to say we survived the trip over there just fine!
3 silly little girls! M & M & Em!
Here's Kristi helping Megan with one of the other .22's
This was one of the best things! My mom actually drove the 4-wheeler all by herself!! She's been so great this year! She's really pushed out of her comfort zone and tried all sorts of new things! I'm so proud of her! What we couldn't hear, but we could imagine, were all of the swear words she was saying to herself! Especially when she had to go down a good hill, but she did it all by herself and was pretty excited about it! It was so great to see! There's a little bit of video of it below, so check it out!
So mom had headed back to her house so she could pick up Amanda and Noah and bring them up. While she was gone we had some visitor's come into camp. They were an older couple who, when he was a teenager, about 15, had come up here to work for Orville Jeppesen, my relative, who had homesteaded the land many, many years ago. Anyway, this older gentleman told us that he had drove up here a few weeks before looking for this house. He hadn't been here for 60 years and had just celebrated his 80th birthday and he really wanted to find the house that his old boss had lived in.....he just wanted to see the old farm again. Well, we had permission to go on the neighbor's land, where all of the buildings are now, so we lead him over there. Most of us had never been over there before, so it was so neat to see. Most of the kids went with us. This house was so cool! I'd love to be able to go in it and look around. It's still in great condition. Isn't it just beautiful?! It has 3 stories to it and it's almost from a picture book. I love it!
There were some really big, neat barns. I love old barns!
They used to run a lot of horses up here....we were told that they used to run about 60 head most of the time.
Loading back up to go back to camp. When we got back mom was there....she started pouting/joking that every time she left, we all decided to go do something fun!
So the next day, Sunday, was a crappy weather day! The wind was relentless! It blew ALL day, and it blew hard! Because we'd moved dirt around, the dirt blew everywhere and into everything! We tried to cover up the shelter as best we could with the tarps that we had. It was terrible! Dirt was in your drink if you didn't keep it covered, it was in the food.....it was just kind of a long, miserable day when it came to the weather! But we had some good company. Grandma J. came up to visit us for awhile. It's always so much fun when she can come visit with us. I love her so much! She cracks me up!
She loves all of these Great-grandbabies so much!
And they love her too!
Our weekend theme was "Fiesta", so mom filled up a pinata for the kids to destroy. She had all sorts of goodies in there for them, candy and little toys and jewelry. She went crazy at the dollar store.
Jess came for awhile too. The kids love to see Aunt Jess....she's so much fun!
Noah, being the youngest, got to whack the pinata first......with a little help.
Emma is the next youngest....I love her little leg lift hop as she smacked it!
Grace went full force!
Sierra, being last and biggest, knocked it down and then it was a free-for-all. Everyone of them had a gallon baggie practically full of stuff! We still have some floating around the house!
Aunt Jess was helping Noah ride her dog Roxy.
The day ended nice....the wind finally stopped and it turned into a beautiful night.
Monday we hung out and cleaned up. Ate leftovers for lunch and tried to put away things for the rest of the season. The end of summer is always bittersweet.....camping is pretty much done for the year, but we have so many wonderful memories to cherish for a lifetime. You can't really ask for too much more than that.
The barn has a roof! Putting on the shingles for the roof....still using butter cream.
The barn is done! Whew! But it sure did turn out cute. I used the Wilton Giant Cupcake Pan to make the barn.
Here is where the labor of love really came into play. So I mentioned before that we were playing with the fondant. We had to make the heads, ears, tails and wings and a beak. It was fun.....in it's own way. We were really just sort of winging it. But they turned out so cute. My absolute favorite was the cow! I did this one, except for the tail. I just think he's so adorable!
The biggest problem was that the heads were so heavy on all of them, that I ended up just having to leave them all leaning against the edge of the pan for support! But the turned out amazing!
The little piggy!
The duck.....
And finally a little puppy dog.
Here is Noah's farm! It was a lot of work, but fun to try new things.
So on to Grace's cake. We made her a round checkerboard cake. She wanted blue and brown. I know, in the picture it looks more green.....but when you see it in the next post after we cut into it, it does look blue! So I took these cakes and stacked them on top of each other and started frosting them with the butter cream.
We had some extra fondant, so we made some brown, blue and electric green flowers, and 9's and G's for her cake. It turned out really cute!
Grace loved it, and that is all that matters! Plus I had it ALL done the night before the party! Yeah! I'm usually scrambling last minute trying to put the finishing touches on the cakes. It really was a lot of fun!
