The Perfect Fall Day at the Cabin

We had the best time this weekend at "the cabin." We went up with my wonderful and fun friend Ellen and her kids and their friends. In fact, all of the Hawkins' are my friends so it was great to be with them. There are giant trees in the front yard and the first thing they kids did when we got there was jump out of the car and start making a pile. We all pitched in with everything we could find in Grandpa's shed. Rakes, brooms, snow shovels. We worked for almost an hour before anyone was allowed to jump in it. I have movies of some super cool jumps the older kids did. (Stefanie needs to show me how to post movies) They basically had the time of their lives. It was so great. Thanks Dad and Mom!

Leah is a very photogenic girl.

Ellen, Adrienne, Sammie, her friend Megan, Nathan and his friend Kyle and Leah.

Chancelor's hair looks really blonde in this picture.

Hanging out in the Bjorn. He was so tired and hungry but all the leaves and laughing were so fascinating that he stayed pretty happy through it all.

I remember how fun it was to be buried in leaves. I am not so fond of it now to Camryn's dismay.

Small, Medium and Large.


There were so many leaves in the front yard. You can imagine how effective the armful at a time technique the little girls employed was.


We came up with the idea to have a little kids pile and then the huge pile for the older kids to do cool tricks in all to themselves. That was fine with the girls they just wanted to throw leaves at each other.

Savannah doing her part. This lasted two seconds.

Ellen's clever and talented boy Nathan wanted desperately to play kickball and came up with the idea to have piles of leaves be the bases. The huge mound was home base.


I was trying to get the perfect fall shot. In the golden leaves. Golden smiling baby. No luck. Chancelor was not amused. This is the only shot with his eyes open and mostly he cried until Ellen took pity on him and told me he probably had had enough. Know this. I will ignore my child's discomfort for the perfect shot. A wonderful picture lasts forever. Crying will eventually end. Good thing Ellen had Chance's back. "You do not get to get out of the scratchy leaves until I get a smile young man!"

I had a thought on the drive home. It seems like we packed up and then unpacked and then cooked and then cleaned that up and then entertained and put kids to bed and woke up and cooked again and cleaned up again and entertained again and then packed up and then really cleaned again. Not relaxing in the least bit. But, and here is my epiphany. That is what being a parent is all about. A lot of work. But it is all worth it for those few truly perfect moments and wonderful experiences and laugh out loud funny things that happen in between.