Mary planned a fall trip to the mountains and invited us and Stephen's family to come along. It was oh so nice having someone else do all the planning, especially since it was the weekend after we got back from our big trip. We shared a house with Stephen's family that had a 3 level air conditioned tree house! Sadly no pictures were taken of the awesome treehouse and its triple bunk bed. Elliot and Annie got to sleep in it.
A herd of cattle wandered through the yard
Mary stayed at the house we stayed at with her a couple years ago. For some reason they took the zip line down, but the swings and treehouse there were still played constantly!
Somehow they found out that there is a hill right near where we were staying that has tons of geodes on it. Andrew, ever the minecraft enthusiast, used his own money to buy a pick ax to facilitate a geode adventure. This was a huge hit.
Geodes abounded! each kid filled up a bag of geodes. Our backyard now has them dispersed among the gravel. Andrew gave Elliot the biggest one he found, and it has a place of honor by the boulder.
Geode hill! We found out that dropping heavy rocks on them was faster than using the pick ax. Stephen got to be the designated boulder dropper, a role that he fulfilled with strength and grace.
Boulders may have been faster, but the pick ax was cooler
Annie and Isaac were still a little jet lagged and woke up way too early every morning. I got to have some good mornings with them wandering around outside to let everyone else sleep in to a normal hour.
Annie making a "dirt porcupine" at 6 am
I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the sleepy mornings wandering the forest with my little ones. I played some music on my phone, and we explored all the little things.
Another huge hit of the trip- the Water Wheel hike! This place is the bomb. It's a lovely scramble over rocks with natural water slides along the way. Even better- Mary stayed back to watch Isaac for us, so we didn't have to carry him!
I carried this girl a lot of the way instead. Not necessarily an upgrade from Isaac in terms of weight, but she is a better conversationalist. We took up the rear together.
Our biggest regret was not having swim suits. Most of the kids decided to just get wet anyway.
Elliot tried to keep his pants dry by rolling them way up. It's a great look. Eowyn is about to go down one of the slides here, there is a video of it at the end of the post.
Not having shoes or thigh coverings didn't stop the lad from climbing to the cool wedged cube
My handsome man
A couple of Blood Brothers. I love how they are in the same pose here
After a long day of hiking, we roasted marshmallows at Mary's rental house. Everyone except Elliot that is- he fell asleep on the couch and refused to wake up for marshmallow roasting.
Rare footage of Elliot napping. We were playing hard! Even sleepier than Elliot was Aaron. Aaron got a job offer from a company called XR Trading right before this trip and had to decide if he was going to accept it or not. This was intensely stressful for him. The stress manifested itself by him falling asleep at 6pm every night and every time we sat on couches. It was good that Mary was there to play devil's advocate for him and help him talk through all the factors of the job change. More on that to come later.
Here's some video clips from the trip. It was a good time!
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