Picking Pine Nuts

We decided to take a family outing to get some pine nuts so we all loaded in the car and drove the 2 hours to the mountains.  We knew the trip was going to be a doozy from the get go.  First of all, we got off later than expected.  We left Aiden's blanket and had to run back home before we got too far to get it.  Then we forgot the Pam spray to remove the pine gum so we stopped in Enterprise... they didn't have any either.  We spent $25 on paper towels, vegetable oil, wipes, and a burrito.  The vegetable oil didn't work anyway. 

Needless to say, we were relieved to finally get there.  We did stop at the train tracks and put some pennies on the track, hoping a train would come by while we were gone. 

We headed up the mountain searching for the pine nuts... and couldn't find hardly any! :(  It was like someone had beat us to it... We ended up finding two trees that had a few (that were missed by the previous pickers).  I was under the tree... then went to move a branch out of the way, it snapped and hit me in the face.  I began to bleed... perfect in keeping with our trip. ;)

We finally gave up and realized we were only going to get 3/4 of ONE bucket.  We got back to the car and made some lunch, took some pictures, and headed back home.

When we got to the train tracks, our coins were still sitting on the rail... a train hadn't come by. We were bummed. We picked up the coins and looked for some old smashed ones.  About 15 minutes passed... I looked down the tracks to see some faint lights... it was a train!  The kids were so excited!  Bob and I hurried and put some coins back on the track while the kids waited to the side with my mom.  They had never seen a train that close before.  The driver waved and honked the horn as they went by.  It was so loud! Brooklyn was jumping up and down. :)  After it passed, we found all our coins!  It was a good end to the trip! :)