Shelburne Farm

While in Vermont we went to Shelburne Farm. It is a 1400 acre working farm and National Historic Landmark. This is a picture of the Farm Barn. It is amazing and enormous! There are many other huge structures on the property including the Coach Barn, the Inn and others. Liz and I would have loved to see those too but we stuck to the Farm Barn for the kids sake.

This is the shuttle that we took from the Welcome center out to the road.
Everybody is in!
The Kelley Family stopped to take a drive.
So of course the Everitts had to as well!!
Molly wanted to drive all by her self!
OK the next few clips are of the kids with chickens. This first picture is of the coop. A large room that the children can go into. I was relieved to see that there was a door for the chickens to be able to escape. (I will point out the door in another photo.) The chickens were the hit of the barn. All the kids wanted to do was chase them and pick them up. I have LOTS of pictures of children with chickens.... here are just a few!
Emmy... (they now have this kind of chicken at there house too!)
Sammy... (notice the little door under the window, that is the "escape" from the chicken coop... so much for and "escape"- they were just going outside to the arms of another child!)
Ethan going for a drive with his chicken!
The next few pictures are of the kids with other animals around the farm. There is one of every child with every animal, but for sanity's sake I am just going to post one of each animal (there is a picture of every child in the post thought.)

James with the horse that pulls the milk from the milking barn to the cheese barn.
Nelson on the John Deere tractor.... he really loved this thing!
Carrie just milked the goat
Just looking at the piggies!
Wally enjoying the clover... and when I say "enjoying" I really mean he was eating it!
Sammy milking the cow.
Carding wool to make yarn.
Jessica really enjoyed it!

Sarah spinning her yarn after carding the wool. They made bracelets with it.There was also cheese making that we saw but somehow didn't get any pictures of it. We had such a wonderful time at the farm. I can't wait to go back again. There was still so much we didn't see.

Our Vacation while on Vacation (to Vermont)

While in NH we spent a lot of time with our friends the Kelley's. We even went on a trip to Vermont. Two adults and 10 kids... it was an adventure. The drive itself was an adventure!!

We arrived at a campground the first evening and started setting up. While we were putting up the tents a ranger stopped by and informed us that a major thunderstorm was projected to hit later that night. They were predicting high winds and hail. If we needed to we should seek shelter in the bathroom. I know that Liz and I went to bed a bit apprehensive. Amazingly the storm never hit us.... we were so grateful!



While setting up I realized that the tent we were borrowing had holes all through the rain fly. I was glad that we brought an extra tarp. This was our finished campsite. I have to say that I am proud of the job that we did!

Tents




Picnic area

The kids ready for breakfast the first morning.

Here are all of the kids working together to get some rope and a clip out of a tree (that had been left by someone else). They worked at it for quite a while until Jessica became a step stool.

We did a lot more in Vermont but I am going to post it in sections.... next up will be Shelburne Farm!

Before and After

While in NH my sister cut all of our hair. Jess, had been waiting a long time and growing her hair so that she could donate it to locks of love. Here are all of the before and after pictures of the girls. They aren't their cutest pictures but they really show how much we cut off!!



Nelson and Wally and I had our hair cut too! Wally also had his picture taken because this was the first time we cut his hair. He did really well.

Doggie Door

While traveling across country we stopped a our friends house in Salt Lake City, UT. While there we made an important discover... Nelson loves doggie doors!!

Who could that be?

Why, it is Nelson of course!
Once was not enough. After he came in he turned around and went right back out the door!


Bye!

We are still here!

I know that I promised pictures of our trip from CA to NH but lack of Internet access really has hindered my blogging. We have had a fun, adventurous, exciting, busy summer that also included a trip back from NH to CA. Now that I am home the task of blogging everything is overwhelming. I, of course, really would like to do it all in order. Reality is however, that I should just do what I can do. So my first post is one from during our NH trip. More to come, but in a completely random order :)

This first picture is of the view from my grandparents house. We spent one afternoon just hanging out with him on the lawn. It was such a wonderful day. This is the spot where I spent a lot of time growing up. I was married here and our first house is just out of range and to the left. I love this view!


While we were there I felt inspired to take pictures at our "picture tree" (we took pics there a lot when we lived in NH.)

Sarah

Sam
Jess
Wally
Carrie
Nelson
Ta Da! This is just after everyone had their hair cut.
With Great Grandpa.
This one was just for fun. I used to play on this rock all the time as a child. It is so fun to watch my own children enjoying the same things!!
More soon...