This & That: Flashbacks

My husband retired last week, and we spent his first unencumbered weekend at the cabin tending Eric's kids for about 4 days.

We took them up to the cabin for several reasons.

First off, to get out of the wicked heat we had at home for several days last week. Temperatures up over 100° which totally qualifies as a brain-baking hazard.

Plus there are just so many things for kids to do at the cabin....throwing rocks, swimming in the beaver pond, trying to catch some fish, taking rides in the rhino...you get the idea.

There are also some pretty cool things to see...

...if you take the time and look closely enough.

Always a different assortment of flowers on display.

We walked them up the road to a lone Ponderosa pine in the area, hoping for some big pinecones, but apparently it's not a good year for them.

We did get a picture of the whole group together, though, amid groans of, "howfarisitwhydidntwebringtherhinowillyoucarryme"

Marc's family joined us for part of the time, and the cousins had a lot of fun together.

I'm not exactly sure how the girls got to be butterfly whisperers, but they don't seem to have any trouble attracting them.

We did have a little boredom issue to deal with. Miss Gwen is our reader. She loves to find a corner and fall into her latest book and she finished the one she brought on the second day there. Fortunately we had a puzzle she and I could put together which was fun for both of us.

Food is not a battle I'm willing to fight when I have kid duty, so this pull-apart pizza bread went over pretty well.

I'll modify it a little next time, but in general it worked well for all the kiddos. We had fun, and there were certainly some flashback moments....diapers, settling arguments, and we had definitely forgotten the ins and outs of traveling 2 hours in the car with 4 children under 12. Permutations of "stoptouchingmeshesbreathingmyairhesonmyline." Ah yes, we had forgotten. It's amazing how quickly it all comes back, though.