Cabin Trip 2011

I have a million posts to do about the summer and I'm going to start with our cabin trip since it's fresh in my memory.  This will make the blog out of order, but nothing in my life is very orderly anyway, so who cares?  We weren't able to go to the cabin last year and we really missed it, so I was super excited to be able to go for a whole week this summer.  So excited in fact, that we followed through with our plans even though Randall ended up switching to Aspen Ridge (which he LOVES btw) and didn't have any PTO yet.  Needless to say, we'll be eating beans and rice and Top Ramen for the rest of the month to make up for it, but it was totally worth it.  All but Cari's three oldest kids were able to make it for at least part of the week.

Look at all those kids! 

And this is not even all of them!

Savanna spent a lot of time in the carseat because I didn't want to put her down on the dirty floor.  She also had lots of people that wanted to hold her all day so now she's totally spoiled! :)

We had fun painting rocks...

getting our hair braided (Thanks Taryn!)...

I may have jinxed myself by doing an Owies post. Meleah face-planted into the dirt when she was climbing out of the Pilot to go fishing.  She got a bloody nose and the scrapes and bruises that you see in the picture above. 

riding my Dad's gigantic dirt bikes (at least until they all crashed and were injured)...

and of course, FISHING!

Isn't this the cutest picture of Stryder helping Meleah reel in the last fish of the night?

 This is about as close as Meleah would get to a fish.  That girl doesn't just look like me...

 Lydia isn't squeemish!

 Carter caught this fish ALL BY HIMSELF!

Cameron grabbed his fish right after it came out of the water, but apparently didn't like how it felt and didn't want to be anywhere near it after that.  Yes, he's wearing his sister's sweater, as he pointed out to me repeatedly.  "This Ia's shirt!"

I'm not usually a big fan of fishing but even I had fun this time. Every kid caught at least one fish and we were there for less than two hours. It was perfect!  Meleah reeled in the first fish and we were all cheering her on when Carter came up the path holding up his line with a fish on the end of it!  We were so distracted by Meleah's fish that we didn't even notice that he had caught something.  The fish was a little dirty and missing an eye by the time we saw it (which Carter was DELIGHTED about and subsequently named him One-Eyed-Willie), but he casted and reeled it in all by himself. On the way home Carter said, "Mom, I learned today that fish have no brains!  Really!"

The motorcycles were also fun for a little while.  My Dad and Randall took them for a spin the first day we were there and at some point Randall crashed and hurt his shoulder. I wasn't too happy to hear about that since we are between insurances right now, but luckily it wasn't anything too serious.  It was actually a pretty mysterious injury.  He wasn't able to change diapers for a long time, but he WAS able to ride the motorcycles the next day. ;)  Unfortuntaly, while they were out Kenny wrecked the motorcycle as well.  He was waiting for Steve to come and help him, but Steve was up the hill with the other motorcycle on top of him.  The picture doesn't show their injuries very well but Randall had a bruised shoulder, Steve had a big scratch down his shin along with some other scrapes and bruises, and Kenny got a huge burn across his calf.  Not bad for an afternoon.  Kenny definitely got the worst of it, poor guy.

We had such an amazing time chatting, playing games, and eating smores.  I can't wait til next year!