Double Happiness--adventures with Lily and Elsa: It is Maple Syrup time

Buster the Horse sticks out his tongue at Mark and Elsa.

For our family adventure this week we took the girls to the Howell Living History Farm. They were having a maple sap harvest. Back in Indiana, I used to go to the Maple Sugar festival out at the Dunes. So, I was happy to share a piece of my childhood with my family.

It was really fun. The farm was about 15 miles away from P-ton out in the hills near the Penn border. Mark had never seen a maple sap harvest before, so it was cool to show him something new. They had a large grove of trees tapped and we got to participate in the collection. There was a huge workhorse named Buster pulling a sledge of large collecting containers The rangers let all the kids take the small buckets off the trees and add them to the sledge. We've had a large thaw this week, so the trees were really going. The whole grove was thunking as the sap hit the metal buckets.The girls happen to think that maple syrup is one of the best foods on Earth (right along with ketchup, icecream cones and chicken nuggets). So, they were very impressed to see "maple syrup" pouring out of the trees like a faucet. Lily and Elsa wanted to taste the sap, so we did. But, it wasn't very sweet yet.

Checking for sap.

Later we sloshed up the hill to watch them boil down. My favorite moment of the trip was while we were walking through a muddy field and Elsa just started spontaneously giggling. I asked her if she was enjoying the day and she said "Elsie is REALLY happy." What else could a mother want to hear from their kid? Like we do most nights, I asked the girls to recap our day and Lily said, "we had family time, Mommy." Good to know the girls appreciate our time together. They are such sweeties.