We were up by Bigfork, MN, which just happened to be celebrating its centennial. The trip up was long, but the kids did remarkably well. We crammed everyone (and a portable crib) into our Honda Civic instead of the van because we didn't want to spend $200 on gas. I'm the designated driver, so my husband read some stories to keep the kids occupied and we only needed one stop in Moose Lake. I was hoping the kids would fall asleep, but they didn't do that, of course, until we were only about five miles from where we were going. Once we got settled in the cabin, I got my daughter to take a nap, but my son was far too interested in running around outside. While my daughter was napping, my husband's cousin (once removed) took us out on their four-wheelers for a tour around his property.
Didn't have much time to do anything since we decided to go to Mass that night (Saturday). I had wanted to attend Mass Sunday morning, but got conflicting information on the time for Mass. Didn't want to assume Mass was at 9am, when it was really at 8am and then have to try to make it back to the cities to catch a late Sunday night Mass. Turns out the anticipated Mass worked out best anyway. Everyone was too tired to get up early on Sunday morning. It's been ages since I've been to a Saturday night Mass.
The church was kind of sparse, but the people were dressed nicely (only a few people in jeans), the tabernacle was nicely adorned and there was a tabernacle/altar light, too. All in all, they were quite reverential. I've attended many Masses in very austere churches that were done very reverentially. Unfortunately, my kids were the distraction this time.
When my son doesn't get a nap, he is like Jekyll and Hyde. My normally pretty sweet kid becomes someone else's child! During the Mass, I had to repeatedly correct him; tell him to be quiet. To which he screamed, "I DON'T WANT TO." Not being a patient person, my son was removed from the Mass three times. And, my daughter, who is just starting to walk, was really tired of being cooped up all day and wanted to crawl around. So, she had to be taken out, too. To all the poor people who had to put up with us at Our Lady of the Snows in Bigfork, I am sorry!! Sometimes the planets don't align the way I would like them to.
Oh, and before we left for the weekend, my daughter did a severe face plant into the sidewalk in front of our house. (Not much blood, in fact, none from her nose, just lots of crying...lots and lots of crying.) She looked just terrible and before Mass started, the priest actually came over to talk to us to find out what had happened. Other people were concerned and even stopped us and asked us what happened to her. I didn't get any "Bad Mom" looks, so that helped, because I really didn't need any snarky comments after having just wrangled my children during Mass for the last hour!
Got home to a hot house, actually just the upstairs where our bedroom is. There was a call from my Aunt Mary telling my my cousin just had her baby, a boy. We are going to go visit tomorrow night. My cousin had lost a set of twins last year when she was over five months along. This time, things were getting a little dicey near the end, so it is a blessing everyone is doing very well! My Aunt Marie had her cancer surgery. It was just a lumpectomy, stage 1, no lymph nodes involved. I haven't heard if she still has to have radiation, but I pray she doesn't. My Aunt Rita, who had a stroke, is doing much better and is now talking. Initially, she couldn't even talk and had a hard time remembering people. Now she has a hard time reading, but is going to get some rehab therapy. Seems like prayers are being answered. It's been a hard time in the family with all this going on lately.
Am proud to report that we survived the weekend and had a good time. Now, if there was just one weekend this month that I didn't have to run somewhere, that would be nice! Hope everyone else had a good weekend.
Oh, one more thing. Wood ticks were everywhere. Just before we left for Bigfork, I had read about what someone did to remove ticks. They took a cotton ball covered with liquid soap and placed it over the tick and supposedly the tick came off rather quickly. Well, my husband got one stuck on the top of his foot and we tried this. It worked within five seconds!! So easy!! Try it the next time you get a tick...hopefully, it will work as quickly.
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