Small Farm

Nate and Grandpa left for Utah and Marshall had to work.
So sad they all had to leave us.

We loaded up all 9 kids, two adults and 9 kids that's a lot. Glad at least my 3 were older. Anyway, we went to Small Farm. If you're looking for a low key fun day this is a great place to go.

They have a big field of wild flowers and for $6 you can pick as many flowers as you can fit in your bucket.

The best thing about it is they're kid friendly! They love it when little kids come.

 


 

 

Do you know how hard it is to get 9 kids smiling and looking at the camera all at the same time?

This was the common pose

Until I told them that Ben has stinky underwear.
Then we got an almost perfect picture. :)

It wouldn't be right if we didn't make one more stop at Kimballs for ice cream before every body goes home.

Ben loves ice cream (who doesn't love ice cream?) he finished his cone and then ate half of mine. "More i ceam" over and over again

Lobstah rolls

When Nate and Britt were in town last year we experimented with making our own lobster rolls. They were so DELICIOUS we both wanted to make them again, sheesh maybe it will have to be come a tradition. Now that we've made the lobster rolls once we have a better idea of what to do and what not to do. 

What not to do #1 - Don't deshell all of the lobsters yourselves! We did that the first time and it took us almost 2 hours to deshell all of the lobsters, not to mention cuts on our hands from the tough shells.

This time we got smart and asked the boys to help us deshell the lobsters. In about 20 minutes all lobsters were deshelled and all we did was document the event. Man we're smart.

 The lobster rolls were umm umm good.

Brittanie has the mayo to lobster touch. She puts in just the right amount to make them taste like heaven.

 Ellen and her niece Adrie joined us for dinner. Fun night. I'm ready to do it again.

Beach day

It was so good to have Marshall and Melissa and family join us and to finally have all of us together! We started the day with pancakes, I loved having Kate and Olivia there to help.
Luke came for a visit as the pillow monster and freaked them out. I think that ended the help in the kitchen. How cute is Luke though? My kids are going to be good dads.

After the pillow monster visit, Luke made the bacon while I cooked the pancakes.

 

While we were inside Josh showed Nate and Grandpa his jumping skills. While they were visiting he was able to reach a new height and jump 3ft 8inches.

Luke and Josh made a map of a treasure hunt for the the kids to go on complete with a treasure of big suckers for each kid. They LOVED it.

After breakfast, jumping and treasure hunting we were off to the beach

The Ben's.

Little Ben couldn't grasp the concept that there were two Ben's so he renamed big Ben to Ken. We followed suit. ;)

 

 

After the beach we stopped for apple cider donuts at Russell farm. They were fresh and delicious. It almost made me get excited for apple picking season but that would mean that summer would be over and school would be starting and none of us are ready for that yet.

After dinner we enjoyed fried clams and all sorts of other delicious seafood at Woodmans in Ipswich.

 

Woodmans has a grassy area in the back with picnic tables, which is where we ate. It was a great set up for us. We spent the next hour or two eating, playing and relaxing.

Last stop on our huge day was to Kimballs for ice cream. It wouldn't be a family event if we didn't stop at Kimballs.

We look tired. We were tired, but it was still a great day.