What do you do up there in the middle of nowhere?

This is a question that people have asked us. It's also a question that I know a lot of people who live in the city have been thinking, even if they haven't actually asked it out loud. If you live in the city, or even near the city, or even in a small town, then you all think we live in the middle of nowhere. The boonies. The sticks. No man's land. Whatever you call it, be honest, you don't think it's possible to have fun in a place that has more wild animals per mile than people.  But you're wrong. Just so you know how much fun country living can be I thought I'd give you a little looky-loo into an average weekend for the Beabers. I wasn't able to capture a photo for all the activities that we did this weekend, but I think I got enough to give you a good mental picture.
Our weekend started on Saturday morning with farm fresh eggs from our chickens, and toast. Mmmmmm good.
After breakfast, the boys and Troy and Alexa played a game at the dining room table while listening to the kids radio programs on 102.7.
Meanwhile I snuck upstairs to post my picture for this weeks theme in my f/b group 52 a year - love.

Nobody loves this dog like Wyat does. And she loves him too.
Afterwards I began the 'BIG project' - oragnizing and cleaning out the boys clothing bins. This was not a project for the faint of heart. It required time and commitment.
That was a lot of work. But . . . I got it all done. I weeded through some things, tossed some things, passed on some things, and got everything into a bin and labeled. Yay! All with enough time left in the day for some fun!
Although for me, that was kinda fun.
After lunch Troy took Wyat ice fishing. While I finished up the clothes project, Tate and Seth worked on the school they missed on Friday.
Then, I took the two boys to camp where we took advantage of the beautiful weather and snow and went cross country skiing. These boys are big enough now that they have no problem keeping up with me. I'm pretty sure next year they'll be passing me up. After a grueling ski (we went up Widow maker trail, which should have been closed from lack of snow, but since Seth wanted to be first, I didn't figure this out till too late) we came back to camp and enjoyed a hot meal without haveing to cook it or clean it up. Thanks cooking staff at SBR!

Troy and Wyat came in from ice fishing in time to eat a bite and then Troy took the boys home so I could stay at camp and play animal ball with my girl, Justine and all the other students. If you don't know what animal ball is, that's too bad. It is so much fun! You need ice and enough people to form two teams. It's a vigorous, wild, sometimes violent(although not intentionally) and fun game. This was only the second time I have played and we had a long game, about 1 1/2 hours. It's a great workout with all the running and sliding on your knees and getting up after you fall, and wrestling the ball away from your opponent. You always get sweaty and hot and have a jolly good time. My team didn't win, but that's ok., whp's really counting.  By the time animal ball was over and after Alexa and I went to the kitchen with Brook for a yummy cranberry muffin, it was time for bed.
On Sunday morning I woke up and had to remind myself that I really did have a lot of fun the night before because the muscles in my legs were so sore I thought I might fall getting out of bed. Oh the pain of playing.
We had pancakes, went to church, ran our errands, and came home in time for lunch before our Community Group (a.k.a Bible study). The sun was shining brilliantly, it was a lovely drive home. Sometimes I feel sad for people who never have an opportunity to drive through the countryside.  Or even people who only have a 5 minute drive to everywhere they want to go. Sometimes driving is so enjoyable. Admittedly, sometimes it's not.  After our Bible study, it was time to go get wood to fill the wood room. We heat our house with wood, for those of you who didn't know that.

Here are the two oldest boys slaving away helping to fill the trailer. We all try and pitch in and help around here. Even Alexa helps when she's here to visit. Since we were down at the barn (some of you will be surprised to learn this piece of information since you can't see it from the house) Troy decided to get a couple of the 'toys' running to keep them in good working condition.

Here's a picture of the barn. It's not really a barn, since we have no animals. It's really a large storage shed. It came with the property when we bought the house and it does come in handy. Especially for keeping the wood nice and dry under the lean-to on the other side.

We've kinda been storing this little 4-wheeler for camp. Since we have it, we might as well keep it in good running order. Wyat rides it like a pro especially for being only 5 years old.

Oh look, here's Troy and I. Aren't we cute?

Alexa thought it would be fun to take the mini bike for a spin.

Look at the good job the boys did filling that trailer! We helped them of course. We wouldn't make them do all that by themselves .  . . yet.

And Annie did what dogs love to do. Run around and chew on sticks.

And get snow baths from one of her favorite boys.

The best part of the afternoon is that the fun didn't end here. After enjoying some time outside on what really was a beautiful day, we ate dinner and then had some more company come over! Justine and Ben (who are NBI students) and Ben's brother B.J. and their friend Dalton, all came over to play games. We sipped on tea (tried at least 4 different flavors), played Spot It, Jenga (by the way, boys cheat!), wii golf, and Bananagrams. We teased each other, we laughed, and we had a fun night. By the time they all left, I was exhausted.  Wouldn't it just figure that Alexa thought it was a good time to wrestle? What a girl. Instead I fell into bed for a good nights sleep, ready to get back to the work of home managment and schooling my kiddo's in the morning. 

There you have it, basically a typical weekend in the Northwoods. Doesn't sound so boring and wierd afterall, does it? Well, maybe wierd. But really, there's no getting around that.

What did you do this weekend? I'd love to hear about it. I'm already gearing up for next weekend. We'll be off to the water park to spend some time with the family! Have a good week!