Parents, you know how hard it is to leave your baby. Even if you know your baby is in capable hands making that break is so hard. It is especially hard for parents who have waited a long time for children or struggled to conceive. Well I am realizing this farm is our baby. It was a struggle to get here and to keep it going and we love love love it. But sometimes breaks are nice. That said Proeun still had to encourage me and remind me, “it will be fine, it won’t fall apart, and you will love it even more when you get back.” I have such a wise husband.
Back in the beginning of the year when my sister and my new brother-in-law announced their engagement and started talking about venues I had another realization–family traditions are real and multigenerational. I always loved the family trips to the North Shore of Lake Superior growing up. We went other places to, but I have many many really fond memories of Duluth and points north. I just didn’t realize how much my sister loved it to. So when she said she was planning a fall wedding at a resort on the North Shore I couldn’t wait.
So this last weekend we headed north to celebrate with my sister and a host of combined family and just have some good old fun.
Proeun and the older children prepare for a bike trip to Gooseberry Falls using the resort’s bikes.
Later we all went to the falls for some preliminary pictures. We clean up pretty good. I was hoping to get some really amazing pictures at the falls but it was raining so we took the children back to wait for the ceremony.
Even though we had to work around the rain we had a beautiful and intensely personal ceremony on the shores of the lake. When the new bride and groom kissed for the first time as husband and wife the sun broke through and shone on them. The girls were the flower girls, Proeun and Two ushers and I did a reading. What a blessing to be able to be part of the day for my baby sister!
The next day was beautiful and perfect for exploring.
And playing.
We stopped in Duluth and saw a ship leaving harbor. That never gets old. I love when they blow their horns to the lift bridge and it answers back! We took a bike ride that all of us fit in but unfortunately the pictures all turned out blurry. The memory I will have of that is Pray and Effie sitting in the front basket and as we started up turning and looking at each other and getting big old grins on their faces. Love how they love each other and communicate.
Once we actually got away we found vacation can be kind of addicting. All of us would have loved a couple more days, but duty calls. And today when I delivered boxes to the city and got to drive back home to our farm, where we live, I realized how amazing our everyday life actually is.