Weekend in the Woods

Buck usually tries to pack in some back-to-back days off leading into the Christmas season; he can't take vacation, so it is usually a long stretch of workdays on either end of snuggled up regular days off. Normally, we head up to the small town near my family where Buck and the kids participate in the first weekend of deer season hunting. However, since they hunted already in Colorado, we decided to use a few of those weekend days (we gave one back) to spend 40 hours with our NGFs in the woods. Well, sort of :) 

There's a resort state park with a kabillion amenities that is basically impossible to book without planning years in advance. During the winter season, though, it's a little bit friendlier on the reservation side of things. I liked that we didn't have to bring bedding, towels, rugs, hot pads, etc. etc. Plus only staying two nights meant that we didn't need to bring the full range of meal preparation luggage, either. 

The downside was that the on-site restaurant we were going to order pizza from the first night, was closed the entire time we were there. But the upside to that is, the six of us had to go out to eat and we found the BEST bbq restaurant we've eaten at since the KC trip we took . . . when was that? We were drooling. Buck was over the moon about his smoked sausage and everything else sandwich. The onion flower (Caelan had to order it because it was a flower ;) was extraordinarily crispy without the usual grease puddle at the bottom. The sauce was saucy, the Crew was happy :) It felt like we were on vacation! All of us together, this time 💓

So the "cabin" we rented turned out to be massive. The main level had a kitchen with two stoves/ovens, two sinks, and even two toasters :) There were enough cupboards for the little kids to play an epic game of hide-and-seek (Brennen was the seeker and got a few very unexpected surprises when he popped open doors that seemed impossible for children to be hiding behind :). Each side of the living room had a hallway with two big bedrooms and a bathroom. The back bedrooms were connected by a screened-in porch (which was also behind the fireplace). Buck kept a wood fire roaring over the hearth, and we were all snug and cozy in the giant space.

When our NGFs are around, there is also a lot of tech around. Oculus took Buck and the kids into other worlds to fight robot dinosaurs, a high-end drone flew through the house before crashing on the turn down the stairs, videos games appeared on every phone screen, and (a bit lower tech) the kids played poker in the basement, ha! Well, it was really a lower level more than a basement. It also had two bedrooms and two bathrooms (one bedroom had an additional murphy bed and the other had bunk beds; one bathroom had a jetted tub the size of a small swimming pool ;) and a full-sized kitchen (minus the stove), with an additional seating area/TV, foosball table, and of course the poker table. Clearly this place was set up for family reunions and large gatherings. Buck LOVED it!

The next day was the coldest we've had this season. The kids stayed up, literally all night, but after breakfast Gabby and Brennen set out to find out about bikes and observation towers and hiking trails--they came back bright pink and shaking with cold. They decided to take naps and stay indoors while we parents went shopping! We didn't expect the nearby country town to be so charming. It was like my favorite little town that we moved from, but in another state! Our mission was directed at browsing one cute store, but we ended up finding a whole street of them! All the old buildings with original hardwood floors, mosaic tiles, tin roof panels, adorable, quaint, loved it! We giggled and explored and laughed at all the stackable animal designs Buck found (one had glitter water swirling around it like a snow globe). And coffee, the guys and my NGF found so much coffee (not for me, of course, I had a hot chocolate :) 

We shopped and talked and sipped and after a couple of hours got a text from the cabin saying, "We're hungry. Should we be starting lunch?" Well, I didn't plan in a lunch, because we ate breakfast late and were having soup for supper. So, we stopped at the grocery store and bought a bunch of sandwich stuff (the man in the "deli" gave us freshly sliced turkey for a fraction of its *for sale* price, because he was so surprised anyone would actually ask him to slice it, and he thought it was marked too expensively anyway--we got $30 plus dollars' worth of fancy brand meat for under $10 and so did our NGFs). 

The kids were happy to eat when we got back, and we all found ways to keep busy until the activity center opened in the late afternoon. I addressed Christmas cards, my NGF edited photos, and the dads took naps :) No one wanted to go outside, so the trails remained unexplored and the ponds remained unfished and the mini golf course remained unplayed, but maybe next time we'll be able to do those things and more!

I found Caelan a sign :)

While we were disappointed that the outdoor ice rink was not yet up and running (it was in the 60s last week), the indoor rock-climbing gym was no joke! What a cool feature to have available to guests at the resort. The kids climbed and climbed and repelled (which took a lot of courage the first time from some of those heights), they raced, they challenged themselves, and they all had achy hands and sore arms to remember the experience by ;) Also, the massive indoor playground was pretty fun, even for the big kids in the crowd.

That time when the kids were literally climbing the walls, lol!

Hot soup and bread tasted just right for supper. Evening activities included watching football by the fire, the little girls chasing Brennen around the cabin, and decorating giant gingerbread men with the youngest of our NGFs' bunch.

We parents required sleep by midnight and all the kids complied. Caelan got up early to head to class, but not until we'd enjoyed our NGFs' traditional family Christmas breakfast of croissant French toast with berries, whipped cream, and syrup. She put my burnt eggs from the morning before to shame (I cannot stand those silver cooking pans without the non-stick bottoms and it seems like that's the kind of pan EVERY rental property chooses to stock their cupboards with, ugh :)

We made a few stops along the way home and then did lots of truck stuff (because Buck's NGF is a police officer and he said our truck is a prime target for theft; he actually recommended a club and some anti-theft lights). We got it registered and got plates and paid taxes (gasp!). The girls went to work, the rest of us unpacked, and we ordered that elusive pizza from the first night for dinner at home. I also put my quaint, country-town find in the Christmas tree--aww, a nest of eggs! Overall, I'd say it was a nice little weekend away. Yay for that!