Week at the Homestead

All summer the kids begged to go to the homestead. Finally, we were able to get away for a whole week. Steve met up with us that weekend. Ashley (SIL) mentioned to me that the night before they left the cabin, they discovered a big mouse and tried to get it out of the cabin, but couldn't and left traps. She told me I could find a dead one, or it could still be wandering around. I hoped it was gone, but as I walked in the cabin, a yucky smell was there and my kids had to use the bathroom so bad so I went into the bathroom and thought, "Nice, someone left something in the toilet!" On go the lights and surprisingly, I didn't scream :) I was quite relieved that I wasn't going to have to find or kill a rat. It killed itself.

Can you say "RATAPOOEEEE?"

After getting a man to fish that out, I had some sanitizing to do! Bathroom, counters, tables, cupboards. I don't think it was wandering that long. It even got into it's own box of poison that it probably did the first night it was stuck in there, lucky for me. :)

Up to the rope swing

Hailee can finally swing with a little help from big sister

Nature walk

Take time to smell the flowers

And ride the bull

Meet some new cousins, go crawdad fishing

Put on a play
Catch some more crawdads
Go take a hike

Rest and check on dad

Hailee's quite the hiker, she beat us all up the mountain

Sadie, making it to the top

Sadie and cousin Dani

Queens of the mountain

Donut Lake in the distance

Fishing again, "Let's see how many we can catch"

Cute little baby crawdad

After only 1 hour, 97 baby crawdads

Daddy's here! Now the real fun begins

Chad and Ashley came for the weekend to join in on the fun.

Hailee and Cozy

Must take dad fishing for crawdads too

I've always wanted 2 of me...always on the lookout...

This was soooo fun! The kids would push this up the mountain a little ways and then jump in and roll with it, like little hamsters. Best roller coaster ever!

Sweet little munchkin City kids! Can't stay away from movies for too long :)

My favorite thing to do up at the cabin is go to Greens Peak. Growing up, I loved these trips. We would go to the lookout tower and then run down the mountain as fast as we could. We would even knock down trees, (that were dying)

And we're off... WAAHOOHOOEEE! Here I come!

Come on, come on! What's the hold up?

Now, we're talkin! Go Hailee! You can't tell, but she's in the air jumping, or leaping...

Poor Sadie twisted her ankle, so we took it slow after that and enjoyed the walk. She's a trooper and made it down. Griffin, Piper, Cozy, Hailee and Tyson playing Harry Potter

Tyson found a Frog!

Picking strawberries

We made it out alive :)

Which reminds me, when we started down the mountain, we were a talking about all the animals that could be in these woods, and tried to make some noise, to maybe scare any off. Steve got a bright idea to sneak around and scare everyone. I noticed he was gone and I hung back to watch this scene unfold. I wished I would've had the camera. Next to the trail, there was rustling and then pounding footsteps coming straight for them, along with a growl. Ashley turned around face pale, they all started screaming and running for me. Ashley is screaming "Where's Steve, where's Steve...Why are you laughing???" I don't think I've ever seen her so scared. :)