weekends up north with all of our kids don't 

happen that often, so when little sister (and her fiance)

 and youngest brother came up friday night

it made us all happy.

my brother and sis in law came too, but...

their daughter, her hubbie and baby Bear weren't able

to join us as the baby was quite sick- poor lamb!

the weather was nicer than it's been in months

so cole did a bunch of logging in the woods

and it got us all out there for the afternoon.

we shared a big bonfire, beers and sandwiches

helped him drag wood to the fire and watched the 4 dogs play fetch.

several of us had red cheeks at supper, due

to the intense march sun reflecting off the snow.

( the dude on the right is not on duck dynasty. it's my bro.)

mary and I

ma, pa, and our new pup.

these 4 dogs started out on friday night acting POSSESSED, but 

after a few hours of intense dog nonsense and trying to separate them

to no avail...we all took our dogs and went to bed and got up

saturday morning to much calmer, more well behaved canines.

3 labs and one baby chesapeake. that's a lot of fetch.

seth in a deer stand

cole chucking a really big stick for the dogs~

sunday i tagged along while the guys tapped 

more of our maple trees.

how many norwegians does it take to tap a tree?

fleet farm pails are what we decided to use for the collection.

knowing, like we all do, that this little puppy won't be little for very long,

he was a big attraction. especially to adria and seth. he was

swaddled and babied and forced to take naps with these two every couple of hours.

agghhhh, to be a dog. 

week one is done with mr. koda pup.

pretty sure he likes his new home.

have any shenanigans planned for

april fools?