2014 Breakfast on the Farm Recap!!!

I have had a lot of people ask this past week "How did the 'Breakfast on the Farm' go?"  So, lets do a little recap and overview for anyone that wasn't able to attend or just wants to know some 'behind the scenes' tidbits.

Planning an event like this starts months in advance.  I got my 3-ring binder out that I used from the 'Breakfast on the Farm' 2 years ago and started going through the list of what we have to do.  The wheels really started spinning back in March from sending letters out to our amazing vendors asking for support, to reserving rental things (like the kids inflatables, Spiffy Biffs, etc), to starting to get family and friends down on the "worker list" to help out.  From March to June was a lot of e-mails, phone conferences, texting from various people at all times regarding the event with random questions.  In April and May, we started doing a lot of publicity from radio, print articles, magazine, and even T.V. interviews.  But something different this year as compared to 2 years ago, social media has really taken off so every time that I would share an interview on my personal Facebook page or Northern Lights Dairy Facebook page, it would instantly be shared by people, businesses, and even organizations pages! 

The week of the 'Breakfast' was a lot of last minute running around, cleaning, errands, final preparations, shopping, etc.  The day before was probably the craziest day and thank God for my family and friends that showed up on Thursday and said, "What do you want us to do?" (Sidenote- the ONLY reason that the Breakfast went so well was to all of you...each one of you means the world and I am so blessed to have you all in my life!) 

The Monsanto Crew flew in on Friday to do farm pictures and an interview for the 2014 Northwest Region Farm Mom of the Year Award.  Here are a few of the pictures that were taken:


Huge THANK YOU to The Schlosser Family for allowing us to use their Tractor!  The tractor, the flag, and everything turned out perfect for the pictures!



Interview took place in the Calf Barn.  It had some definite memorable moments!



The Monsanto Crew along with my family heading over to another picture location.



One of the pictures taken by Curt Dennison Photography on behalf of Monsanto.

I am anxiously waiting for the CD with the proofs of all the pictures they took during that time.  Thank you to Curt, Chris, and Tracy for flying all the way to N.D. and spending time with my family, it means so much to us, I hope you enjoyed your time here!

On Saturday morning, we got an early start of 4 a.m. and we all went over to farm to make sure that last minute things were done, food line set-up, and we were ready to roll at 7 a.m. start time.  Sure enough, right at 7 a.m. the first people starting showing up:



Here are people already waiting in line to eat Breakfast: Domino's Pizza, Cloverdale Sausage, Dakota Mill Pancakes, Land O'Lakes Ice Cream and Milk.

 

Here are the 4H Go-Getters and Mandan FFA volunteering and helping us out with the Food Lines and Parking (THANK YOU!)

 Here is the Announcer (my Dad) calling off news, information, and Door-Prize winners!  You can also see Domino's had a booth, the food tent, Midwest Dairy Booth, and N.D. Dairy Princess Booth in the background.

In this picture, you can see the 'Branded Envy Western Store', along with a few Pride of Dakota Vendors, 3 Kids Inflatables, and Christ the King School had a huge Kids Activity area.  The Cookie Walk, Face Painting, and Petting Zoo areas were also by the calf barn and they were all a HUGE hit!

We had 4 different Tour Wagons constantly going.  Thank You to our amazing volunteers, family and friends that help give Tours and drive the Tractors!  Thank you to Case Northern Plains Equipment for the New Tractors!

 

 



It became a flurry of activity from about 8 a.m. on!  People just kept coming and coming!  Two different times the FFA Parking Attendants came up to me and said, "There is no more room for cars, what do you want us to do?!?"  My response, "Have them park down the road and in the ditches...wherever!"  My main job was the Tour Guide on one of the tours that only stopped to basically let people on and off.  But, I did have a chance to jump off a few times and walk around quickly and everything was going fantastically (the Food Line did get kinda long, so I apologize to everyone that had to wait; we will definitely fix that next time!)  But to be able to walk around the farm and see so many happy, smiling faces that were enjoying the kids activities, or watching the parlor turn round-and-round, or the people enjoying the delicious food, or playing with the baby animals at the petting zoo, or just visiting with family and friends.  It was an amazing experience and my heart was over-joyed!

At 9 a.m. Monsanto did a short 'Check Presentation' to me for winning the 2014 Northwest Region Farm Mom of the Year and the Agriculture Commissioner of N.D. Doug Goehring was here to help present the check. 



Here is Tracy during the Check Presentation

Doug Goehring, N.D. Ag Commissioner

Then it was right back to doing tours again.  At 11 a.m when we were suppose to be "officially" done, there was still people showing up and I told them "we aren't going to kick you out".  But the bad part was by that time, we did run out of Chocolate Chip Cookies for the Cookie Walk, and Domino's Pizza ran out too so people had to settle for pancakes and sausage.  At just before 1 p.m, the last stragglers finally left and we were able to start taking everything down.  Phew...we came up with a final number of 'Over 3,000' people from the surrounding communities came to enjoy our 'Breakfast on the Farm'!  It really, truly turned into a memorable time and we were so blessed by how many people come out to enjoy the morning with us.

2014 Breakfast on the Farm was a complete success!  Thank you to all the vendors, volunteers, friends, family, and everyone else that helped partner with us for this event.  We couldn't have done it without you all!