Family Time!

Today was an absolutely beautiful day out! I believe it was about 64 and sunny and just a slight breeze outside. We ended up picking Daddy up at work around 1:30 and made our way to Chuck-Lin's Sugar house for Maple Open House Weekend! The kids had so much fun, we ended up running into our cousins Michael, Cayce, Jake and Cooper. The kids were very excited to see them and we did not know they would be there. We waited patiently at the bottom of the road for the Horse drawn carraige to take us up to the sugar house. Riley was super fascinated with these gigantic horses. They are beautiful! The road was very very muddy. There were parts where it was pure slop. Once we got to the sugar house they had sap and syrup samples and the best tasting maple cream cookies. No Joke. I have never had anything that has tasted as yummy as these cookies did. They got them from On the Rise Bakery right in Richmond and I will be going tomorrow to see if they have more down there! They were kind of like a shortbread cookie with a smooth maple cream in the middle. There is a picture below of Riley diving right in! The kids got to see the sap boiling and turning into syrup. They were fascinated by how much smoke there was inside the sugar house. My husband got a lesson on the difference in the grades of syrup.....while I chased and hunted three crazy kiddos. We know Jack Linn and his family through my husband's famly. So they spent time catching up while we ate the cooies and sampling the yummy goodness! We ended up walking back down the road and it was a great walk in the woods and through the mud. The kids got to check out the sap lines and buckets. It was so much fun and much needed family time that we don't get it very often! Daddy unfortunatly had to be back at work to help out after his own 8 hour shift. He will be home for dinner, but I cannot wait until we are through this and he does not have to be working there anymore! It was a lot of fun and here are some pictures from today!