On Christmas Day we started our drive to Minnesota, my home state, to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday.We decided to just pack up and leave a day early so that we could break up the twelve hour drive and stop at a hotel with the kids.
Cormac : I like hotels, Mom. Not because of the pool. Because of the cool furniture and beds!
We all enjoyed our night swimming in a ridiculously warm pool, with apparently "cool" furniture and beds and then arrived the next afternoon at my parents' farm.
This is the same farm where I grew up from age eight to eighteen - amidst woods, "pet" sheep, misbehaving cows, and farm cats. It is always nice to be able to go back to that space and regain a sense of myself that gets lost sometimes in my far-away adult world : the kid, the dreamer, the romanticist.
The farm is beautiful and private, and I think my parents appreciate the property now more than ever. The grandkids can visit and roam and we can can all remember what it was like to be so free.
A few years ago my dad built a playhouse out of the wood from our huge red barn that had blown over in a fierce storm. The barn has actually been reincarnated in all our homes - as a fireplace mantle, a coffee table, beams in the kitchen, and art. But the playhouse always is a central focus for the grandkids when they visit the farm. Grandpa heating water on the wood stove for hot chocolate, making snow cones flavored with Kool-Aid, the play kitchen, the loft, the pulley, all their measurements and handprints on the wall...things they will remember as they get older.
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| the playhouse |
For his birthday celebration Dad didn't want a big party, but just all of us together at the farm. My brothers both still live close-by, but my sister and her family traveled from Montana, and we, of course, drove from Kentucky. We all see each other maybe once or twice a year, if we are lucky...so this was special time.
Our little fam stayed at a hotel in town, but drove out each morning after breakfast to spend the rest of the day and evening at the farm. Our kids basically got to stay up until 10pm every night during the trip, running around like crazy with their cousins and stealing sweets (or, in Finola's case, "flat cheese") pretty much all day long. It should have been a complete nightmare, with the kids being somewhat sleep-deprived and sugar-loaded, but somehow it worked out okay and we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.
We celebrated Dad by all going to a little restaurant nestled by a frozen lake. Oh, yes -- there was plenty of snow on our visit! A treat for us "southerners!"
The dinner out was loud and warm and tasty, ending with us singing Happy Birthday while Grandpa was served an ice cream sundae. He shared it with all the kids, and then we headed back to the farm for another dessert and present opening. Dad received books and a whole lot of beer - two of his favorite things!
We treasured our time there, arriving home New Years Eve with tired kids and the same Christmas mess we had left. Totally worth it.
Here are some of photos I got from our trip...
