Breakin' it.

 We had a nice spring break as a family. 

Monday, we took a day at the beach, and enjoyed the sunshine.  

I felt it was a bit chilly to be in the waves, but Lil was not deterred and was out on the boogie board for 

a good portion of the time. 

 The kids thought we should set up near this big hole that someone else dug.  

They spent the rest of the day slowly filling it with sand and water, 

makes sense . . . 

 We even flew the kite for a bit, just a nice lovely day together. 

. . . . 

What to do after a day at the beach?  Head out to pick strawberries of course at one of the local farms.  

I've been looking forward to fresh strawberries to jam, freeze, and consume since January, and they are finally here!  I think we picked about 18 pounds or so, and will need to go back at least one more time. 

Mmmmmmmmmm.

. . . . 

 Friday we were invited to join a camping trip, and thought it sounded like a great idea!

Thanks for including us, and giving us a chance to get completely covered in dirt, smoke, marshmallows, and chocolate, just right. 

 The kiddos all took turns with the coveted Hatchet, and cut several logs out of a fallen dry tree, excellent way to spend the morning.  

In case you were wondering, we brought an inflatable mattress and lots of pillows, thought that should do it . . . right up until we went to bed and noticed the mattress was "mostly dead."  Still, it wasn't too bad, but I'm pretty sure we just need to toss that one in the garbage and get one that doesn't lose it's air!

. . . . 

 Monday, Lil went back to school, but Benjamin had developed a rash on his face.  We weren't sure what the cause was . . . He and his dad had gone to fly his new plane in a big open field after the camping trip.  On it's maiden voyage, it got stuck 30-40 feet high in a tree.  BIG let down!  But, not to worry, after several attempts to get it out of the tree, Jeff borrowed a ladder, took some rope, felled a smaller sapling in the neighboring forest, and went to work getting that plane out of the tree.  

Benjamin's responsibility was to keep the ladder steady while his Daddy hit the tree, pulled the tree, tugged on the tree, used the sapling to try and reach the plane, did anything he could think of to get it to fall to a reachable distance:  including many prayers.  I should really have Jeff be the one telling this story, because even though visualizing him up in that tree makes me smile and maybe even chuckle a little bit, he and our son had quite the faith promoting experience.  So the story from my point of  view was as follows: Ben guided that plane along two beautiful loops, and at the end of the second loop he promptly crashed it in an enormously tall pine tree.  One that had branches only above the 30 foot mark. I tried to shake the tree back and forth, and was able to move the plane a little bit. I then used a large stone that I found and beat the tree trying to get the plane to drop. All I knew was that we couldn't give up. I kept remembering how my Dad got my toy out of the bathtub drain when I was a little boy, and how that solidified my belief in prayer. I wanted Benjamin to get to have one of those experiences too. So, we prayed and talked about how since this was important to Benjamin then it would be important to Heavenly Father. Then we worked even harder. We got a 20 foot ladder, and tried to climb to the plane, to only find out that it was still out of reach. I stood on top of the ladder, and Benjamin had the job of not letting the ladder fall with me on top of it. We tried using the sapling  to poke it out, and that worked a little bit. Then we used a rope and pulled the tree back and forth. Finally, just as we decided that we had been at it long enough and that we would give 10 more minutes, we said one more prayer. After that prayer, Ben was inspired with a great idea of how to get it out, and by following that inspiration we finally got it to fall. When we finished, we made sure to say one more prayer of thanks. All in all, I think the five minutes of flying was well worth the experience at the end of that whole ordeal as I heard our Son pray and sincerely thank his Heavenly Father for caring about what was important to him and for providing for him a way to meet that desire.  Great experience. All the combined effort DID bring the plane down.  Jeff made sure to tell Benjamin to hold the ladder steady as he was trying to the plane loose, that one more tug might just do it, but to make sure he held the ladder so that Jeff didn't fall (I'm also seeing how great injury could have occurred during this entire ritual, very grateful it did not . . . ) even if that meant the plane would fall all the way to the ground and essentially crash.  Jeff worked his magic, the plane slipped down, but came right within grasping distance, and he caught it.  "Nice catch Dad!"  

The whole process took about two hours . . . 5 minutes to try out the new plane, 1:55 to get it out of the tree.  We're thinking that there must have been some poison ivy around the base of the tree and that Benjamin touched it and then his face?  Needless to say, SOMETHING caused an allergic reaction, and topical cortisone cream, and oral antihistamine didn't touch it.  Tuesday, his poor eye and face were so swollen and puffy . . . we took him in and the doctor put him on prednisone.  

He had an extended spring break and was home with Goose and I through Wednesday (although he did go to chorus that morning to get ready for honors chorus.) 

Don't worry, his sweet face is returning to normal, it looks more like a sunburn now, and looks better every day, but I think the memory that he and his Daddy made might just have been worth the trauma that followed.