Today we were homebodies (or cabinbodies, I guess)

It turned out to be cabin day. We slept in (hallelujah), hung around the cabin, played on the deck, went for a loooooong hike in the nearby woods, then played on the deck some more.

A hiking we will go:

I think we must get lost easily for hikers -- the woods are incredibly dense, we’re always running in various directions to look at flowers and climb logs, and there are tons of paths -- so we make a whole bunch of arrows as we go. It’s fun, and I can’t tell you how many times we blessed those little arrows on the long walk home today.

Ok, this must be a world record for me showing my face on a trip. Now you probably won’t see me again until next summer. Heh.

Tough little hikers. They got dirtier (and happier) with every step:

We were gone for what felt like a half a day but was really probably only 90 mins or so, and when we got back to the cabin the little drama queens threw themselves on the floor and one of them said “It feels like I’m gonna die!”:

They gave another wood-band “concert,” and in the middle Ro said “Reeeeee! You’re doing boom whack whack and you’re supposed to be doing boom boom whack!” What’s even funnier is that Ree said “Oh, yeah!”:

There’s my new Tahoe hat. Got it at the Fresh Pond gas station on the drive up here. I was trying to decide between this hat and another one that had a bright scarf tied around it when I heard Ree wisely whisper “Um Ro, I think that one is too colorful for Mama…” Yeah she gets me:

Lunch was on the deck, of course – no one felt like getting in the car:

By the way if you like peanut butter and chocolate, do NOT buy this stuff because you will not be able to stop eating it and will sneak it uncontrollably at night when the kids are sleeping.

They put together a show and made me the announcer. But, clearly doubting my announcing abilities, Ree (aka Sapphire the drummer) made me a script to follow:

After the show, they spent at least an hour making pictures out of the treasures they had collected and the things they saw on our hike. I vividly remember spending hours doing this with my little bro and Lon and Alecia when I was a kid here at the cabin. Awesome:

It’s kind of fun having the little purse camera along for trips like this. I always have it in my pocket, shoot blindly from the hip, and get some good in-the-moment shots that I wouldn’t otherwise. Cheers!

PS: Lisa and Kayce, you ladies would have a ball up here and so would your girls. Next time, kay? Also, the packaged s’mores are by Russell Stover. They’re just the ticket for beach trips without campfires. They’re huge, by the way, two graham-cracker halves around an inch-thick block of marshmallow that’s been dipped in chocolate.