Camping and Fencing

This post is going to have a massive amount of pictures.  This is our family journal after all and I don't want to miss out on any pictures or details.

As many of you already know, we have land up in Idaho.  Brian's Grandpa had a lot (I think like 100 acres) of land a long time ago.  Before he passed away he slowly sold most of it off.  He had the foresight though to keep about 20 acres for the family.  He wanted it to be a place for everyone to get together.  He wanted us to have family reunions up there.  The man was a genius!  I am very sad that I didn't get to meet him.  He passed away in 2008 before Brian went on his mission.

One of our farm neighbors approached the family and asked if they could crop share 10 acres of the land.  We really only use a portion of it to camp on.  The 10 acres that we crop shared to him was on the back and on a hill.  The agreement is that he will give us a portion of the profit if we let him farm it.  With this we had to move the fence line.  Being a city girl from California I wasn't sure how this was done but I was up to help out in any way that I could.  Believe it or not I had the best week up there and learned so much.  Brian took a week off of work and we headed out there.  Lauren LOVES camping so she was okay with being away from home for a week.

The scenery out there is BEAUTIFUL!!  Really just breath taking.  Pictures DO NOT do it justice.

Dad and William working in the far corner. 

 We had to pull out all the old fence posts and then replace all of them and run the wire.  Below is Brian and his dad removing a fence post.  Thank goodness for the 4-wheeler.  This thing hasn't been used in years and it really is more of a farm vehicle than anything.  We would not have been able to do the project without this thing!!

 Philip (Brian's cousin) and his family drove all the way out to Idaho from one of the Carolina's.  Such a long drive but that's how much this place means to the family.  His kids were SO, SO, SO amazing.  They were out there every step of the way helping.  They are young but they were doing what ever they could to help.  I love how Philip and his Dad (favorite uncle Paul) took time out to teach and play with the kids.  There were so many times when they could have done things faster or better but they took the time to teach.  This taught Brian and I a huge lesson.  I am grateful for that and for them.  I LOVE and ADORE Brian's family!

 Look how beautiful this is!

 I love this picture.  All of us working down the fence line.  It really was something to see all these "city kids" building fence.  I learned a lot!

 Brian and Philip are REAL men.  They didn't wait for the 4-wheeler at times.  Sometimes they just strapped the chain around the post and pulled it out themselves.  Totally HOT!  Brian really enjoyed being with Philip. The two of them are VERY hard workers.  Brian is one of the hardest workers that i know.  This week really showed me where he got it from.  His grandfather was a very hard worker and he passed  that down to his kids.  Their kids passed it down to their kids.  So blessed to have this boy in my life.

 Lauren really was in Heaven the whole time!  She loves getting dirty, playing with bugs (while dancing around and singing I might add), and playing with cousins (there were so many kids there).

 The first few nights were a little miserable.  It got down to 30 degrees in the night.  For some reason my hormones were way off and I could not get warm.  When I am not warm I worry about Lauren not being warm.  When I worry about her not being warm I don't sleep- at all!  Uncle Paul so willingly (under Connie's strict direction) asked us if we wanted to sleep in their tent trailer that happen to have heat.  I was so thankful that I literally cried.  Crazy I know, but I did.

On Sunday everyone went their different ways so we went to church about 15 minutes away and came back to hang out and play games in the trailer- with heat!  Again, we were so grateful!!

 We also went on a nice Sunday stroll.

 And of course since Lauren was there we got flowers. :-)

 This is how you pull fence.  Yep, by hand.  All the way.

 Lauren picked LOTS of flowers. 

 Katelin and her hubbs David.

 The kiddo's.  They wanted to be there every step of the way.

 Philip pulling the third wire.

 Pure Beauty!

 This was my favorite picture of the week!  Brian's grandma asked us to take pictures along the way so she could see the progress since she couldn't be up there.  I told David, Philip, and Katelin that I was going to take a picture of them and they had to pose.  It's awesome!

 The week ended with us NOT wanting to leave.  Even though we had only had 2 showers, ate camp food, and were very cold at night there were many tears when we had to leave- from all of us.