Family Time at the Cottage

Our last two days before taking daughter G to college were spent having family time at our cottage. It was PERFECT.   Note to self:  do this again when the next child is preparing to leave for college.

Light hearted fun.  Laughter.  No computers or ipods or cell phones.  None of the chores and responsibilities of daily life.

Just having fun and making memories as a family.  PERFECT!

The boys played chicken at the end of the dock all weekend.

Little Man held his own fairly well against his bigger, more muscular brothers!  Here he had just pushed in brother G.

We had contests to see who could jump out the farthest.

And of course there was much laying in the sun.

We played Uno and then introduced our children to the game of Pit.  Hilarious (and loud) fun!

 Three of our four handsome boys.

The new college student....contemplating life.

Daughter H, jumping in backwards!

It was a fantastic weekend and a great "exclamation point" on the end of summer.  So thankful!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

In honor of the fact that we have snow flurries blowing about today!

(from vacation this past summer - son C in black and orange suit, Little Man in light blue)

2014 Vacation, Part 2 ~ Camping and Creation Museum!

It was a tight squeeze, but we fit everything in for a week of camping!

My husband had the brilliant idea to use pool floaties for double duty....floaties by day and air mattresses by night.  They were less than a dollar each, so we could afford some extras in case of breakage. ;)

There was a gaggle of girls at the campground swimming pool who were quite literally oohing and ahhing over our teen boys.  **Sigh!**

Fortunately, our boys had eyes only for the pool, or their books!

Scrabble!

Breakfast in the rain.

Dinner at Steak 'n Shake!  A good plan to eat out on a rainy day. :)

At the Creation Museum!!

After labor day weekend we almost literally had the entire campground to ourselves.  It was wonderfully relaxing to not fight the crowds.

On our drive home, we detoured to the city and the actual apartment where I was living at the time that my future husband and I finally saw one another again after two years of letter writing and falling in love through the mail.  The lower apartment behind us was the scene of his declaration of love, the place where we first spoke of marriage, and the scene of our first kiss!

Thank you, Lord, for family and making precious memories with them.

2014 Vacation, Part 1 ~ Hands on Science Museum and Amusement Park

 Hands on Museum ~ super cool!

 Amusement Park!

This is not a good picture, but it's the best I could get...sons G and L are in the very front car with their hands in the air.  They were being shot onto a runway at 120 mph to a straight vertical climb, immediately followed by a straight face-down vertical drop at 100 mph.  They kept their hands up the entire time (all 35 or so seconds of sheer terror!).

Son G's hair when he got off that ride!

An exhilarating day!