Heaven

Kami and Caden have been at mom and dad's for the last week picking raspberries.  My parents have five acres (actually more than that right now) planted in raspberries.  Every summer the kids go pick for a week or two and get all the money from the flats that they pick.  During the day they hang out with lots of their cousins, grandparents and uncle Eli, and have a magical time!

Doesn't that look like heaven?  I grew up in the best place!

This year, when picking was finished each morning, dad took them to Elertson's (sp?) meadow for a whole day, they caught 24 crawdads at crawdad pond, went swimming a few times at the gravel pit, spent time at Willow Creek, and built a gypsy wagon and became gypsies.

Shawn and I left on Saturday and went and picked them up and got to experience some of the fun that they had and the peaceful, magic of my parent's place.  I love falling asleep to the sounds of cows lowing all around, and sprinklers pulsing, and watching the kids enjoying all of their relatives, hearing children's excited voices EVERYWHERE, and even with all the noise there is such a calm, peaceful feeling in the air.  I love watching and hearing the cowboys moving their cattle in the valley down below during the day, and being able to hear the train clear up at my parents, as it goes through Haines, down below.

I love it when all of my family, that is around, comes up and we get to enjoy each other's company. (We missed you, Nathan and Leslie, and Aaron and Tia!) This time we were sitting outside under the spread of the big Walnut tree.

Sis-in-law Ori, brother Adam, sister Heidi

brother Matt, sis-in-law Kelley and sister Katie

dad, Kami, mom and bro-in-law Kevin

Ila, the cousin Kami's age, and Eli

brother Danny and his wife Sarah

Anyways, we sat and talked and laughed, and were entertained.  My family used to have a blue grass band and when they all get together they "jam".  They're really good and it's really fun.  This time Danny played us some fun songs that we hadn't heard before: "I'm my own grandpa" was really funny, and also one song that we HAD heard before but wouldn't have recognized.  My grandpa Kerns used to always sing one phrase of a song "Why, oh why, did I ever leave Wyoming?"  Danny found the song, which was also pretty humorous, and sang it for us and the entire tune was different!  My parents said that they weren't surprised.  Dad said that grandpa used to say, "that's the trouble with music.  It just goes up and down, up and down."

Mom on the Uke

Mom and dad started out singing "I've got a never-ending love for you" which is a song that they used to sing together whenever mom got out her ukelele.  It used to embarrass me to death because they'd look deep into each other's eyes all while they sung it, but I must admit that at the same time I loved it.

Then we were almost favored with a real gypsy number that Aunt Ivy helped Kami come up with:

but all of the gypsies that were supposed to dance to it got embarrassed and it all fell apart.:(

Maddie and Gracie

So we headed over to get our fortunes told by this gypsy man:

Cade trying to get all serious.  Personally I like the wig that Kami stuffed in his shirt to make a hairy chest.

fortune-telling in progress

It's a little disconcerting when you go to get your fortune told, and the fortune-teller takes one look at your palm and screams! Caden was a hoot.

A picture of some of the little boys:

And Abram and dad: 

And a cute little Isabelle granny.( There's LOTS of dress-ups at grandmas!)

Before we left, I got starts of my parent's peonies, that were planted in their yard by my grandma Kerns. I'm excited to grow my "heritage peonies"  in my yard!  I also got starts of some of my mom's perennials, and surprised the kids when we drove up to the house with trees that Shawn and I planted while they were gone.