New Experiences...Old Style...(Part 2 of 3)

The whole crew sitting in the loft at the end of the first day. I chose to stay on the ground. One of the advantages to being the one holding the camera. 

As I look through the literally hundreds of pictures that I took the first day of the barn raising the thing that jumps out at me the most is the amount of fun that everyone is having. There is no doubt about the amount of work being done and yet the atmosphere is so relaxed an happy that everyone was able to have a good time. 

Aeryn and Mo ended up popping two can's of soda....

 The week before the barn raising had been crazy for me personally. And I know that it was probably the same for a few other people involved as well. The majority of us work in the education field and there are only a couple of more weeks before the school year ends. So basically every one gets to rush around like a chicken with their head cut off. At one point I had mentioned on Facebook that "to relax on the weekend I would be at a  barn raising." A few of my friends scoffed at the idea that a day of hard work would be in any way relaxing. Boy were they wrong.

Kira helped to make one of Aeryn's dreams come true ...

Unfortunately one of the down falls of my job is that I work in an environment where the atmosphere can change from positive to negative pretty quickly. It is more emotionally and mentally exhausting than physically exhausting. Sometimes that can wear on a person more than the physical and it makes things rough at times. I know that after a long day at work going to the gym, or working with the cows, is a great release for me. So it turns out that this was exactly what my children and I needed to just let go and be happy for a weekend.

Lilly is easily one of Aeryn's favorite people!

 There are so many things going on everybody's lives right now. This provided us with a way to just forget everything else that was going on and just enjoy being alive. I met some really cool people. Three of which are amazing women that my daughter can learn many things from. As much as I encourage her to be her own person I want her to also be able to see good examples of strong, independent, women. I don't always feel that I am displaying the best example. So it is nice to have a few others.

 Some how it all leads back to the fact that "...It takes a village..."