Farm, Family and Friends

Sean pretending to be asleep

Friday was a beautiful hot day in Cannon Beach (although the water was freezing).

Sean and his miniature Haystack Rock

Hot sunny weather is not to be taken for granted in northern Oregon, where cold and foggy or overcast is more likely, even in the summer.

Sean and the waves

My parents, my sister Elizabeth and her son Elijah arrived Friday evening and we all had dinner together.

My parents and my mother's brother Nick

Saturday and Sunday we drove out to the farm at Birkenfeld where my mother was born and grew up.

My sister Elizabeth and Nick's son Olav

In the late 1800's, my mother's family emigrated from Scandinavia to the United States. The Birkenfeld farm has close to 800 acres of land, which was given to our ancestors for purposes of clearing and logging.

Nick's sons Olav and Alex and my nephew Elijah in the middle

My mother's brother Nick lives there now with his wife Ann. Nick's son Olav lives in another house on the property with his wife Mary Ann.

Sean appropriated someone else's chair to lounge in

It is beautiful there, like traveling to another world. If you click on this link, you can see a Google satellite photo of their property, you can see the house and the barn and the creek.

Sean fishing for crawdads

One of the traditions of this reunion is that a bunch of crawdads are caught in the creek and boiled in a big pot.

Sean trying to catch a particularly stubborn crawdad

Sean spent a really long time trying to capture a crawdad who valued his freedom, when he finally hauled him out of the water, the boys were intimidated by the crawdad's ferocity and let him run back into the water, maybe he'll still be there for them next time.

Nick and Ann's cat

The kids took photos of some of the pets at the reunion and insisted I include them. We don't know the cat's name.

Chuck the chocolate lab

Chuck the chocolate lab is few months older than our lab Buddy (who tops 50 lbs already at 5 months).

Hope

Hope is a really sweet German shepherd.

Steven and Sweet Pea

This is my cousin Karen's pug Sweet Pea, Karen has had a pug named Sweet Pea for just about as long as I remember.

My cousin's children Ciera and Hayden with Steven and Sean

My cousin Christine and her family do the American Cancer Society Relay For Life every year. Christine lost her brother Jason to testicular cancer at age 37.

A couple of years ago they did the relay in honor of Steven also, they called their team The Polar Bear Express and Christine made shirts for their team. Steven is wearing one of them.

My mother's cousin Jepson

I think Jepson is 86 now, farm living seems to agree with him. He chops his own wood. He and I had a nice long chat.

Jepson's son JJ explaining how he made the picture

Jepson's son JJ makes these beautiful wooden pictures. He travels around Oregon looking for old barns about to fall down. If the barn owners give their permission, he takes some of the wood from the barns and uses them to make all different sorts of pictures, kind of like a mosaic, one of them displayed above.

Jepson's daughter Val and my mother

Jepson's daughter Val and I are good friends. We stayed with Val and her family when we drove up for the last reunion.

My mom and Val in conversation

When I get home I always feel like I didn't take enough pictures at the reunion, but I think all of us really enjoyed ourselves.

Sean and Val's daughter Hayley

There were lots of games for the adults and kids.

Sean getting a Go-Kart ride

I didn't get a Go-Kart ride, but maybe next time. Sean had a blast, he was timing how long other people were out on the kart so when it was his turn he made sure that his ride was as long as the longest ride.

We all had a great time, we're already looking forward to 2009.

To be continued...

- Kathleen