TRINITY ACRES: When Kindred Bloggers Meet II

Ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart: and the good counsels of a friend are sweet to the soul. Proverbs 27:9-10

Our dear friends from Doodle Acres on Long Island visited us once again! My friend Heather and her 4 lovely children stayed with us October 7-12. During this time we had 13 children 2 mothers and 1 father who tried to make himself scarce! This 13 children consisted of 1 beautiful young lady of 16 (I tried to keep her on for the next 10 years), 2 - 12 year old boys, 5 girls ages 5-11, an 8 year old boy and 4 little boys ages 4 and under. The first day or two was spent just enjoying each other, by day 2-1/2 the children had accepted each other as brothers and sisters! If the truth be known during these days I didn't know which child was truly mine, except I knew the brown-eyed beauties weren't truly mine to keep.

We truly were united as a family. My favorite times of the day were when Heather and I were able to spend time in conversation. There is no greater friend one can have than one who you can have a deep heart-to-heart talk with and a true friend who you know you can confide in and discuss the deeper parts of life, especially family life.

Arts and Crafts with the girls within about 15 minutes.

Wednesday was spaghetti night. In the course of conversation one can easily overlook the 2 year old as he relishes in his dinner. Suddenly Pippin hollers out "I need a na-kin" (Oh, really, now, you don't say!)

CORN MAZE
We had such a great time at the corn maze last year that we opted to take the children there again this year.

Here are our children! I really wanted to take all 13 of them out to a store by myself, if for no other reason than to thoroughly enjoy the looks of people in the store! If you have more than 2 children with you will never cease to amaze shoppers. It's rather humorous. But to take 13 would have been something that may have made the front page of the paper! (not that I have any desire to be on the front page of the paper)

My skinny ol' bean pole 12 year old Sam lugging a wagon full of children. The more muscle it takes the bigger the thrill I believe?

Playing in the pit of corn and on the culvert slide.

Eleanor climbing on top of the culvert.

What beats playing in corn and filling up your shoes and clothing with corn?

Merry having a merry time.

Lenny

Baby Chicks at the corn maze farm

Piggies

In the child-directed maze. The children actually did a great job getting us through.

Chuggin' along.

When you begin the maze you start with 1/8th of a map and you work your way from mailbox to mailbox. If and when you reach the mailbox you will receive another 1/8th of the map directing you to the next mailbox.

Playing on the tire pit.

The trick in this maze is to try to keep hold of your color of rope with your eyes closed. It guess it's harder than it looks.

Merry going through the children's corn maze. This year it was a Frog Princeling.

If there is an old tractor or part of a tractor you can be sure that Sam will be checking it out.

And you can bet if there is a chicken to be captured Frodo will have it.

Here's our family!

Between the 2 pictures you can probably see everyone's face at least once.

More time on the slide.

The bigger the train of children the better, I believe is the idea as it makes a bigger heap at the bottom.

The little guys.

After the corn maze we had to fill up the big old gas guzzling van, I was tickled to death to see the price had gone from $3.99/gallon down to $3.29/gallon in about 2 days. It had gone from $100+ to fill up this beast of a van to $75! Of course this is highly out-dated as it is now down to $2.47. Woo-hoo!

Lenny and Galadriel

Sewing with the little ladies.

Eowyn converts and old shirt into a dress.

Hope is a lovely seamstress at 16 years! I put her to work altering a dress for Galadriel for the up-coming wedding! She did a lovely job. THANK YOU!

Little Peter helping Eowyn with the laundry.

On Friday a good local friend of mine came over with her children.

Only one picture is necessary to summarize the girls'. The sat nicely the whole while chatting in lady-like fashion.

Then we had the boys....

The energy level was incredible. Boys make me laugh.

Merry: "I got my glubs on."

Pippin: "I want some mittens.... peeeeeeese?"

Glubs and Mittens

The 3 little boys helped me to clear out some of the St. Michael Garden which had gotten a bit overgrown with anything but pretties.

FAMILY CONFERENCE AT DURWARD'S GLEN

We attended a lovely Family Conference at beautiful Durward's Glen.

My favorite speaker of the day, Fr. John! He gave a wonderful talk on Sacrificial Love.

Rosary march.

Durward's Glen is just beautiful.

We ended our day at the conference with the Haywagon ride.

Our last meal together as a family was Sunday morning Brunch. We made this a more formal meal, even if some were still in their PJ's!

These 3 little boys were so funny. One would push one and the other would wail "He puuuuuuushed me" and then proceed to push the next one and round and round they went properly trying to offend each other with perfect brotherly love! They were a hoot!

Our day ended with the lovely High Mass reported in an earlier post on my blog. The good-byes in the parking lot were a combination of joy from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and deep sorrow that we are parting from true friends for a time. Hopefully, we will see each other again next year!