The Cranberry Harvest Begins

When Kevin arrived home Thursday morning from a 4-day fishing trip, he told us that there was a big storm coming in and that he should be home for 4-5 days. We were very excited as we haven't had that much time with Daddy since springtime. BUT, after being married for Kevin for almost 9 years now, I knew not to get my heart set on it too much - something almost always comes up, whether it's a change in the weather or some other obligation. And sure enough, Kevin got the call from his parents that they were going to start picking cranberries two weeks earlier than previously thought. And so, on Kevin's second day home, he headed back to the coast to work on the cranberry bog. Since our hearts had been set on hanging out with Kevin, I decided that the kids and I would go along too and "help" with the harvest. Plus, weather.com said it was supposed to be sunny and 71-degrees on the coast and I thought it would be a great opportunity to take the kids down to the beach again.

Well, the forecast was wrong as it usually is for the coast. While it was an unusually gorgeous, sunny, 77-degree fall day here in Olympia, it was cold, cloudy and rainy in the afternoon at the coast. Not only that, but the kids were terrified of the loud picking machines and cried in fear the whole time they were on the 4-wheeler. Abby just begged to stay inside at the house and Ben just kept longingly calling for Kevin (whom he calls "Mama" :). I don't know what changed for Abby since last year - she loved the 4-wheeler rides then! And to top off our disappointing day, Grandma had errands to run in Aberdeen most of the day so we barely got to see her. I was pretty bored and was sad that we missed out on what was probably the last warm, sunny day of the season. Oh well, live and learn.

I only took a few pictures throughout the day since my hands were full with both kiddos. The pictures below were taken shortly after we arrived. Grandpa and Daddy were working on the motor of one of the pickers, so we walked out to the bog to check it out.

The kids were having a great time, until they fixed the machine and started it up and it roared to life (it is quite loud, believe me). From then on, the kids were scared and both wanted to be held. Not fun. So we kept our distance for most of the day. Our one highlight of the day was the kids and my trek down to the beach. We found a nice sand dune that sheltered us fairly well from the cold wind and the kids had a blast just using sticks and their hands to play in the sand. I showed Abby how to build a tunnel in the sand and I dug a hole that Ben had fun climbing in and out of. We stayed about 45-minutes until it started raining. :)