a weekend away

last wednesday nathan headed down to florida to help his parents move all the way up to greenville. as we were searching the internet for cheap flights we were shocked at the prices people were willing to pay for a flight from detroit to tampa. us.... not so willing. nathan searched for a few days and then got the idea to check flights from flint. he found a one-way for a reasonable price...well, at least the price we were willing to pay. so the plan was set. i was going to drive him up to the airport that morning.

my mom was planning to go up north that weekend to clean up leaves and had asked if i wanted to catch a ride with her.... oh, how i love the cabin in fall!!! the weekend was really shaping up. then i got the crazy idea to go up early. i was already going to be in flint, so why not just keep going? so i packed up the car, the kids and enough food for a couple days of roughing it with my kiddos.

it was probably one of the best times ever at the cabin. i knew the colors would be mostly fallen, but it was still going to be worth it. and then i was pleasantly surprised when i neared tawas on 23... the colors were FABULOUS! it was certainly a needed time of praising God for His goodness. connor and megan were a little out of sorts the first night. poor kids are a fighting colds. meg woke up coughing, connor woke up b/c meg was crying, meg woke up hungry. then connor tried to get up at 7 and i told him it was still night.... thank goodness for dark drapes!! he slept in after that. then we had two whole days of playing in the leaves and walking in the woods. just me and my babies. no worries, just relaxing. if only real life could be that way. :) i often wonder what it would have been like to be born back in the day.... wilderness days. adventure. living off the land. scarlet fever.... ooohh..... that took a wrong turn. yeah, i'm thankful to be living in modern times, but i love the idea of that adventurous rough lifestyle. and the cabin is about as close as i can get to that.

then thursday night my dad got up there... this is his week of hunting, so we were totally cramping his style. let's just say, i'm pretty sure he's not watching the spongebob dvd since we've been gone. friday night my mom got up there. so we spent the days hanging out, raking leaves, having campfires, and yes, watching spongebob dvds. saturday night was... in the words of my father... "brutal". meg was up ALL NIGHT. she was really fighting a cough and congestion and this is the first time she's been sick. poor girl didn't know what to do with it all. we walked, we rocked, i tried to sit on the couch and she woke up. she finally fell asleep in her car seat, but it was intermittent. so sunday was a little less peppy. :)

we were planning to leave for home once my dad got home from his morning hunt and after he had plopped down for his traditional siesta. we got on the road as planned and were hoping to make two short stops.... connor gets carsick so stopping every couple hours is a necessity. i figured if we could stop for lunch/dinner and then one more stop at birch run we'd be set. my mom wanted to check a couple stores at the outlets and it seemed like a perfect stopping point. we stopped , she shopped, i fed meg, we hit the bathrooms and were ready to leave..... the car wouldn't start.

no big deal. this has been happening. just let it cool and then try later. so we decided to walk through old navy while we waited a while. it was probably about 30 minutes later that we went back out and tried to start it again.... nothing. it starts it sounds good for half a second and then .....stalls. i was calling nathan trying to get some ideas on what we had done previously when this happened. he told me to pop the hood and check our fluids. you'd think that would be easy, right? yeah, not in my life! pick a situation. any situation. envision lucy and ethel in that situation and that's me. with my sister, with my mom, with any friend..... i almost always have the lucy effect on everything. the handle to pop the hood is gone. broken off completely. there's nothing but a little wire with a tiny metal handle dangling. good luck getting your fingers around that. i wrapped my sweatshirt around it. i tried to rig the seatbelt around it. my mom put her lanyard around it. i tried wrapping the wire around a pen. we pulled on that thing so hard i thought we'd break it. then i get a call from nathan and he says, "you have to pound on the hood to get it open." so i started banging on the hood. then i started kicking it. then i pulled on it with all my might... or lack thereof. then i thought about the times that this happened to us and i remembered pulling on the wire while nathan pulled and pounded on the hood. so i told my mom to pull it while i cranked on the hood. PERFECTO! it opened and we checked wires, we checked fluids, everything looked fine to our mildly trained eyes. then my mom tried to start it again and POOF! started right up. we were totally prepared to leave it there and just figure it out when we got home, and praise God it didn't come to that. needless to say, we were yippy skippy. so we got home way later than expected, but we got home!

i was so tired, but i ended up getting everything unpacked b/c i knew that nathan was going to be on his way just 5 or 6 hours behind us and i knew i would not be unpacking his bags that night. he caught a ride with a buddy that was headed up from greenville on sunday, so he finally got home around 12:30 or 1... who knows really, i was sleeping on the couch b/c poor meg-pie was coughing and waking herself up. but we're all home now and thankful for a fun weekend for all of us.

begging to watch spongebob for the 100th time

"please don't put on spongebob again!"

little miss got her first cabin sink bath. she had a major blow out diaper that went all the way up her back. not a good picture, but i was alone this night, so i was trying to hold her up and take the picture all at once.

all bundled up for a walk down the road

helping bb with leaves... at one point they were up to his neck! i am kicking myself for not getting a picture of the kids with bb. she declined a photo when i actually was ready to take one.

this is the face of a man ready to work!

this is the face of a boy having way too much fun!

megan has her priorities all messed up. we were working, girl!

but it's much more fun to play!

all dressed up in cammo and ready for the woods

connor was out of his jammies by the time grampa came back from hunting so i just got a pic with meg and grampa