"Though the fig tree should not blossom,
This past weekend we were able to travel up North to Williams,MN and the Jackpine Campground. The project for the weekend was to put a new roof on some poles whose roof had fallen off. Jeff and Becky Chudek had organized it all and several of us were able to go. There ended up being 5 young families, a couple of couples and 2 singles there. The picture above shows what we were starting out with.
Now the steel! And unfortunately this is the last picture I have of this project. I ended up not getting the finished product but I can tell you it looked very nice! The guys (and Anna did some screwing too.) did a great job.
While the guys were busy with that we ladies thought we should keep busy too. This little shelter has been at camp for as long as I can remember and it was getting quite old and leaking. There was also some old tin available so we decided that we should do some re roofing. Here Anna and a bunch of kids are taking some of the rotten boards off.
Here are Anna and I working at putting the tin on.
Emily and Anna are putting the top piece on. This project was certainly not one of perfectionism, but it was fun and should lengthen the life of that old kid's shelter.
While we were there Mara cut her foot a little and here is the medical team that I found caring for her when I got to her.
We all worked together to make the food and then ate together. Each of us ladies were in charge of one or two meals and then everybody chipped in and helped. Afterwards we all washed dishes together. It was a lot of fun because we were able to do a lot of visiting while we worked!
The weekend was a little tiring for all of us but Aaron was the only one who fell to sleep during supper.
Some daddies and their tired baby girls.
We had a great time even though we had some cold weather and lots of ticks to contend with. On Sunday morning we had church around the campfire which was fun. What are your favorite camping memories?
Some of the beautiful violets we saw when down in Woodbury.
Something I have learned to do in the last few years is to add ground flax seed to my baking. Flax is very good for you and throwing it into your baking is not hard. I grind most of my own flour and so when I do that I will just mix a little flax in with my wheat (or rye or whatever) when it is going through the grinder and then there is flax in my flour. If you don't have a grain grinder and aren't grinding flour then it is pretty easy just to grind your flax in a blender or some other sort of food processor. It is best to grind the seeds so you can get the full nutritional value.
Other ways flax can help your health are:
For more detail on the benefits of flax I found these sites helpful: WHFoods and Golden Valley Flax.
All said, Flax definitely works for me!!
Do you use flax? What do you like about it or how do you like to use it?
I also have been enjoying growing flax flowers. I think they are so beautiful and they come back year after year. I haven't figured out if this is the right type to eat though and so I haven't tried harvesting to eat them.If you would like to see more tips on various things, visit Tipster Tuesday at BeCentsAble.
It is Graduation time again! I enjoy this time of year and think it is fun to celebrate with the graduates. However if you know very many graduates this can be a rather expensive time of year as you get cards and possible gifts for each of them. As I was getting stuff ready for the graduates that I knew, I was thinking about this and I am going to share some of my thoughts with you.
Those are some of my ideas, I would love to hear yours!
This morning I was excited to see our Lilies of the Vally poking up through the leaves. You might wonder why I would get excited over leaves rolled up so tightly that they just look like little shoots. The reason is because I know their potential. I know before to long there will be beautiful dark green leaves along the north side of our house and then pretty and dainty white flowers as well. I am looking forward to smelling them, taking pictures of them and picking them to use in arrangements.
I also get excited thinking about my box of seeds. The seeds in themselves are nothing special but I know the potential that they contain! I am looking forward to many meals of juicy and sweet corn on the cob, crisp cucumbers, beautiful flowers, ripe tomatoes and much more.But What is seeds had choice like we do? I can imagine a seed saying "But I don't want to die! It is dark, cold and wet down in the earth. I would much rather stay in my warm and dry seed packet with the pretty picture on front. I am comfortable here, don't make me move! " And we think "how absurd!" That is ridiculous, seeds are for planting, not for staying warm and dry in their seed packet. If they do that after a few years they won't even have any potential left and will only be fit for being thrown away.
The deal is, we know what is best for a seed, how they can reach their full potential. But how about us? That verse above isn't really preaching to the seeds or even telling the farmer what do do with his grains of wheat. It was talking about Jesus and how He had to die for us and it is also talking to us about a choice that we need to make in our life. We are asked to die so that we can reach our full potential. We are asked this not by somebody who doesn't know anything but rather by God, the one who created us and knows what our full potential is!
The following verses also give us something to think about John 12: 25 & 26 say: "He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me ; and where I am there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him." We aren't to be so in love with our earthly life and fleshly desires (like a seed wanting to stay in the packet) that we will be willing to give up the hope of eternal life!
Well then how can we die? How can we have this new life of bearing much fruit? Romans 6:4&5 says: "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. " It really isn't very complicated, it requires a burial too, just like the seed (and like Jesus) but this one is in water. And then we can say like Paul in Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me." !
We just got back from a quick trip to the cities and back (We went down last night and back this afternoon) and so I have traveling on my mind. We take this trip (a 4 1/2 hour drive) fairly often with our four children as well as other jaunts that vary in length. For the most part we do enjoy traveling with them and I thought I would share some of the things that work for us.
What do you do to travel frugally while having fun? For more Works for me Ideas visit Rocks in my Dryer.
Here are Megan and Lars enjoying some watermelon.
A couple of the many beautiful Mayflowers (Hepatica) that we saw.
Patrick, one of our Malaysian friends attempting to use a camp can opener to open the beans.
Becky and Suhalia working on the cake. It looks a little windy in the picture because it was. The weather was rather crazy going from calm, sunny and warm to extremely windy and with some rain. Then it would be warm and calm again and then rainy. The cycle repeated itself several times. One time limbs started falling down from overhead.
Martha grilling the brats and hotdogs. 
Mara and Megan enjoying the hammock they had up.
We also went to the place in the park where the headwaters of the Mississippi River is. Mara is walking across the rocks and getting her shoes and socks wet. At sometimes during the year you can walk across with shoes on and not get them wet but right now the water is fairly high.
Some of the kids and Martha walking across the log/bridge that is just a tiny ways down the river. At this point the Mississippi is very shallow and narrow. One year when we canoed from the headwaters to just above Bemidji we just had to drag our canoes through the beginning part.
Most of the kids on a log.
Yesterday was graduation day at Bemidji State University. Over 700 students graduated. Since we are involved with an organization that reaches out to the international students we usually know somebody that is graduating every year. I don't usually go to the graduation as it is in the afternoon and during kids nap times and it is pretty long and not something that I feel like taking kids too. This year however we figured out a way to see the graduates and wish them well without having to sit through the ceremony. We went afterwards when they were filing out. (Which if we hadn't told them, they would have thought we were there the whole time.)
On Thursday evenings we have our family night. That is one evening a week when we make sure to do fun things as a family (or occasionally as a couple). For the most part we do very simple, frugal activities but we have a lot of fun! This week we went on a bike ride. There was a trail that we had seen from the road but had never been on not far from our house (around a mile away) and so we decided to check it out. It was an old trail but paved, and it was quiet, we didn't have to worry about the kids riding out in front of a car. It was easy riding until we got to the train tracks!
There was no way to ride across the tracks so we had to drag our bikes over. With just a bike that wasn't hard but the bike and trailer together was a little bit of a trick. Ken and I had to work together.
There goes Mara down the trail!
This week I have been having fun trying out a couple of new ways to save money and live more environmentally friendly. One of the things I did was make my own laundry detergent. I had read about this quite some time ago on the Simple Dollar but just hadn't gotten around to trying it yet. With his recipe you can make over 3 gallons of liquid laundry soap for less than $1 (at least for me it was).
I hardly ever used to buy cereal but I have to admit since I started doing a lot of couponing, I have been able to get it so cheaply that we have it a lot more than we used too(Though we only eat it around once a week). This week I found a couple of great deals on cereal and I thought I would share them.
Walgreens has Smart Start Cereal on sale (as well as Raisin Bran and some other Kellogg cereals) for 4/$10. That is not a very good deal in my book but you do also get a $2 Register Reward. And then I went here and found coupons for Smart Start Cereal and I was able to print of 2 coupons for $3 off 2 boxes of Smart Start. So after coupons I only had to pay $4 for 4 boxes and then I also got a RR. (And I payed the $4 with RR from last week.)
Jackson just figured out how to make the floor pedal work on the old Singer Sewing Machine (which was my Mom's!)..kept him busy for a very long time!
He yelled and screamed at the cars as they went by...he was beside himself when a big delivery truck came into the driveway of our condo complex!!!
Enjoying the view of the gardens of our complex. This garden is on the roof of the British Fish&Chips!! 29 businesses below our 105 condos...
