Each day I am home, I have lunch guests. Making a nutritious meal matters to me. But with the fall chill, a hot and hearty meal is a must. One day this week, Miss A and I cleaned out the fridge of all the veggies and some leftover pork and made what I call “Once Around the Kitchen”, using whatever I have to make a hearty soup and avoid letting food go to waste. Hunter, our teenager, came home for a quick but big bowl. And then I snapped a shot of Nathan and Miss A enjoying their bowls of Once Around the Kitchen soup.
There is something I want to box about these moments and hold on forever. A hearty bowl of soup with my family on a fall day. Burned into my memory. Nothing fancy but worth it to me to be home for the moments like these on a fall days.
While I now have much more time at home than in years past, every mama needs an outing. After some hectic weeks, months, well just say years, my husband planned to attend his 15 year college reunion. He needed an outing much more than me. Small, private colleges have reunions every five years I have learned. I tease him about it but the truth is, I love his little community of friends he has from college. He planned to attend the reunion and I was able to go, thanks to wonderful grandparents taking the kids for the weekend.
Guess what happened?
We went on a REAL date. We stayed the hotel that we stayed at on our wedding night and for our first anniversary in Fargo, North Dakota. Later this month around our anniversary, I am going to brag up just how swanky Fargo is and more about our stay. Bet, you didn’t know North Dakota was swanky. It is and was a perfect two-night outing for us.
No matter the season on the North Dakota prairie, I capture each sunrise and sunset I can. Fall never lets me down on the prairie with the vast and vibrant sky.
And even when the sun doesn’t shine, I still love the beauty of the prairie in the fall.
Hunter has a different beauty he loves in the fall. Pheasant hunting. He went last weekend with Ben, an employee at our family business and our dear friend. Ben is an avid hunter and has taken our Hunter for the past few years to his favorite area pheasant hunting spots.
Ben created a keepsake for Hunter with the pheasant feathers in a shotgun shell for each year they have hunted together. Hunter’s name means he had better be a “hunter”. He is very proud to put these on these on bedroom shelf.
And I am proud of my family this fall. It’s a different season for us. I am home. To make a hearty lunch. Hunter is not playing football due to ongoing back pain and an injury he had to his tailbone in eighth grade. We are home together more than ever before and it’s a season I am soaking in and enjoying.
At the same time, we have new opportunities, new challenges and that brings excitement.
On Wednesday, we had a local video production group record our family cooking and eating together as a family and of me taking pictures of the sunset. My husband could hardly believe someone cared about our family’s meal and North Dakota sunsets enough to want to make a video about it.
But it is a story worth telling I believe. And my husband knows that as much as he likes to tease me. So I will keep sharing about my family on the North Dakota prairie. Even when. [Deep breath]
Even when,
I try to take a family picture. One daughter was wrestling a kitten. One daughter had her eyes shut. We aren’t perfect. But we are a family on the prairie loving the fall, together.
What’s your favorite thing about fall?
My favorite season is Fall, because its a time where we start winding down, after a very busy summer of pushing to get the hay mowed, and baled up for the coming winter,, and getting our cattle all ready for market, and then winterize the barns for the new calf crop in March.. So after that is all done,, we get a little breather, before the snow flies,, and the pace picks up with taking care of our cattle herd, which the guys watch over daily, making sure they have feed and water,, to keep them healthy. I love the Fall colors, the sunsets,, and just knowing that life can be less hectic, and Thanksgiving is near,, which is a time for family fun, and a celebration of giving thanks,, for all of Gods goodness through out the year
I also love the fall colors and the hope of some cozy, less hectic days, Donna!