Monday, June 21, 2010

Here, there, and back again...


Where do I begin? Here's a short timeline of the past couple weeks...
  • May 26-29--We traveled "up north" and found out that we'll be moving up to Roseau, MN area, where Jeff will be a bi-vocational pastor, and working for a local farmer.
  • May 30--Jeff preached for last time at Our Savior's, Albert Lea. Traveled to Iowa for Memorial Day visit with my family.
  • May 31--Traveled back to Albert Lea to start feverishly packing up our belongings. Here are some pictures of the boys from this week.

  • June 6--Farewell brunch for us at Our Savior's, Albert Lea. Packed up a flat-bed trailer and drove up to stay with Jeff's grandma's place.
  • June 7-11--Drove up to Wannaska to start some work with Jeff's new employer. We stayed in a camper. It rained basically the whole week. It was interesting to say the least with dealing with getting my children to sleep. I think I have some gray hairs coming from that whole ordeal. ;-) Found a log cabin to move into temporarily so we can at least get into the area and hopefully find a good deal on a farm area. Will have 10 acres and some outbuildings to use for animals if we so desire. Came back to Jeff's grandma's on Friday night. Right before we left, Andrew started to crawl!
Judah in the flatbed trailer that we took up north with some of our belongings, next to the camper we stayed in for a few days.

  • June 12--Bought some laying hens from a lady near Jeff's grandma's place, and got them transferred to a fenced in area with plenty of grass and bugs to pick at. Once we move up there, we'll move them to a chicken tractor Jeff made. (A chicken tractor is a structure that allows you to pasture your chickens, while keeping them safe inside a structure and allows them a place to roost and lay eggs.) We were able to eat fresh eggs for the past week... awesome! I have no idea what kind of chickens they are, I think some Buff Orpingtons.
Chicken tractor structure, unfinished.
  • June 13-19--Stayed at Jeff's grandma's, it mostly rained. A few nice days. One day, Jeff's dad and brother went up fishing with Jeff and his new employer on Lake of the Woods, brought back some tasty Walleyes!
Practicing crawling, backwards and forwards. He gets around reeeeally well.
Judah and cousin Amber.

Judah could climb up on the tractor all by himself.
  • June 20-24--In Mankato for synod convention. Andrew turned 8 months on the 22nd. More pictures to come.
Phew! And we're not done with all our craziness yet! We will be staying in Iowa next week, attending a family reunion, driving up north and getting settled in our new residence, and then Jeff will be installed July 11.

And while we're doing all this craziness, we're growing water kefir grains! I don't have any pictures, but just google it, and you'll find lots of links. Basically it's a probiotic drink that you can drink instead of replace soda pop. It's not as detoxifying as kombucha, so you can drink more. We're getting better as we practice. Our grains have doubled! Wowza! We just made a really tasty batch recently with lemon... tastes really similar to 7-up! I'll do a post later...

Keep us in your prayers, please, as we transition to life in a new place.