Real Life: Labor Day Weekend.

We spent four days in a row at the cabin in the woods and it was so relaxing, so fun, so wonderful to be with family and just so peaceful! Mom and Dad built a cabin years back and we loved it! Then only a few years later it all went up in smoke. The entire cabin and all it's "things" burnt to the ground. No one was hurt, thank the Lord! It was an accident. Dad worked HARD, so hard, to get the cabin rebuilt and we just love it even more today!!!!! It's beautiful! There's room for many! My parents did a really good job at making it a place of retreat, quiet and peace!

Every time we visit this place, we LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT THERE! It's like the whole world around us gets quiet. Poor phone service is just the perfect excuse for me to let the emails and social media go right by without me checking in! It's a place to read books, look through magazines and hum to gospel music!

Labor Day Weekend was a time when we used to head to Ohio! For years, Mike played in a ball tournament in Dublin and we looked so forward to time with the ball team, hotel swims and hang outs and the kids got so dirty at the ball park. The Rebels do not play baseball anymore and this is now just a memory. 2021, we decided to go to the cabin for this long weekend!

We had an extra long weekend this year because of Hurricane Ida. The East coast was flooded with crazy amounts of rain, wind and storms. Last Wednesday, we got over 6 inches of rain! So much flooding and high waters! The kids did not have school because of the forecast and flooding issues but we were able to do school virtual. This is now possible since COVID existed. The next day was a beautiful, sunny day and my plans were to make applesauce and can it at Mom Lapp's house. Because of still many roads being covered with water, school was out again but this time no virtual learning was required. Ashlyn and Austin went along and helped make applesauce. Matthew went to work with Mike! That night, we packed up our bags and headed for the cabin till Monday!

Normally, we make a quick Chickfila stop on the way to the cabin but this time we did MOD Pizza! We loved it and we may make this our new stop on the way to the cabin!

These boys are such good friends! They played in the woods a lot!

Playing Indians!

Lots of golf cart rides were given!

Mike went for a four wheeler ride and I knew where I might find him! We are buying some mountain land and I thought that he was maybe over checking it out! I hopped on the other four wheeler and went riding! Sure enough, he was there! We love to ride the mountain roads and feel the wind in our hair!!!!

Boys and their toys right!?! Ryan was around and it was good to see him again! The boys are practicing their bows and some are getting ready for an upcoming west hunt.

Zane was such a cutie at the cabin!

Tyler is heading out west later this week and so he tried out his new, tiny food cooker! He fired up that tiny cooker and boiled some water. Then we added it to a pack of dried noodles and beef. We all took a bite and it was pretty good!

Shuffle board games were fun!

I never knew that there were so many grasshoppers around until this weekend! Jeremiah said they needed to catch some live bait for their kayak/fishing adventure. The boys were running all around the yard catching these bugs! They filled two water bottles up and they were off to fish.

Dad bought two new kayaks and the guys were eager to try them out! Brother John Mike has two kayaks too and so they each took one to the river, with their grasshoppers, and set out for a ride on the river.

Hadassah and Mom dropped them off by the river and then they rowed down stream. The water was high from Hurricane Ida's rains earlier in the week and they didn't catch any fish because it was too muddy. Again, from Ida's waters.