Yesterday was day 10 of our little road trip. We had to pack up and leave the beloved Cabin and head for other places. We were all tiiiiiired but we got out of there in only an hour or two.

We headed to my friend J~’s cabin that she occupies with her family for most of the summer. She’s one of my closest friends and her kids have grown up with my kids so our families always have a blast together. This was no exception. I actually have NO pictures and didn’t even take out my camera because J and her husband are amazing photographers so I’m heavily relying on them for all the great memories Seriously it was so fun talking photography with someone and peeking at all her awesome digital scrapbooking layouts. I feel so inspired! The kids had fun, too. The big kids went sailing (and omg was it windy!!!!!! They FLEW through the water) and the little four took our a pedal boat which was fun because they did not have the manpower to get it back against the current so Teegan made T~, my friend’s same-aged daughter, get out and push all three of the kids back to the Cabin by herself. Isn’t he a gentleman?!?! He was all “I can’t dirty my clothes, Mother! And the water…it’s chilly!” in his best British accent. Anyway besides that excitement, we had good food, good friends, good fun. I didn’t want to leave.

We barely pulled off when half the kids passed out in the car. Aaahhh, bliss. They stayed asleep until our next destination - outlet shopping! It’s a tradition…Birch Run in Michigan has the best outlet shopping EVER! Most of the time it involves heavy looking and not so much buying and MUCH angst from the kids. That’s when I remind them that I stayed in the cabin all week JUST for them and now this is MY treat. I am not beneath guilt as a parenting tool.

We ate at Pizzeria Unos which is also a tradition. Mmmm, shroom Pizza. Everyone needs one. Then we headed to the infamous Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland. We go each year and let the kids each pick out one ornament that represents them or an achievement from this year. It’s fun but OMG that place is CRAZY-overwhelming! It is bigger than a mall!!! I have never been there without leaving absolutely EXHAUSTED!

After that I made Tony go BACK to Unos to pick up a giant peanut butter cup for dessert later on. Dorin, this was in your honor sweetie! If you have never had Uno’s peanut butter cup, you haven’t lived.

And then we drove down to my Mom’s where we’ll spend the weekend. With Internet. Ahhhh….sweet Internet. And that means time to upload pictures! yay!

A few flowers at the park:

Shoe love:

My babies:

At the park:

Playing on rocks (one of the only times the kids have EVER asked me to take their pictures!):

I’ve been wanting to take pics of this barn for YEARS and Tony finally made me stop and do it. I couldn’t get close enough because of the huge NO TRESSPASSING signs up all over the place. ha. but I got a few. I can’t wait to get home and play with these in Photoshop!

Today was just blah. No grandparents. No fun parents for the kids. Blah. Have I mentioned we have NO technology up here? There is no phone and no cell signal most of the time. Which also means no internet. The internet I can get is so slow it makes dial-up look like lightening. Like it may take an hour or so to load a single page. No exaggeration.

But today I took the laptop outside into the, did I mention, FREEZING morning air and had a good enough connection to chat the morning away with a friend. I admit I miss technology.

After Addy’s nap we headed into town, grabbed lunch to go from the deli and headed to our favorite park for a picnic. It was soooo windy. But we managed. We had a fun time and left literally 20 seconds before the rain hit. Hard. Driving back to The Cabin to sit inside (without technology. or toys. or even books.) gave me a rash so we headed to a local book store to browse until the storms passed. That never really happened but we have lots of ideas for books we want to buy now!! And we learned that Addy is absolutely in love with Playmobile. So now we have christmas ideas.

We grabbed dinner and headed back to the Cabin to call it a night and go to bed. Without even the luxury of the better outside connection, I can’t upload pictures or really use the ‘net at all so this is going to be light on pictures. These are mostly from yesterday. And I do not have photoshop. And it took me like 140 hours to get them uploaded and another 600 hours to tweak the first three pictures in flickr earlier today with the “good” connection so I’m sure as shit not going to edit the rest in flickr. So ignore the muted colors, ok? Just pretend they are all post-processed, like I do!

Today was a nice relaxing day but it was also the last day my Dad and stepMom would be here at the cabin. There was the sort of hustle and bustle that comes with the last day….do everything left on “the list” and make it count. There has been a lot of talk this year of selling the cabin and another neighbor up here is selling so it is sort of adding to the difficulty because we just don’t know if this will be the last time we see this place.

With the turtle removed from the permise the kids had more fun swimming today. At some point the little boys buried Dalton into sand up to his head - everyone has to have that experience once in their life right?

That’s his head under that life jacket.

There were a few fishing outings and kayak excursions but no real major catches. There were games of Monopoly and Racko. Grandpa gave Dalton his first “good lure” (as opposed to…I dunno). Noah and Grammy made this great rock woman who Noah says reminds him of me. I’m pretty, um, honored. These are the kinds of things that go on at The Cabin, though.

This place has the heartbeat of my children’s childhoods and the essence of their very beings embedded into it. Its hard to put into words but all the parts of my children’s personalities that I so love and that are so core to their beings are intensified up here and (almost) all the other parts just fade away. Something about peace and nature and lack of technology and family, I guess. I know they count down the days all year until we can go up and we really were not thinking we could pull it off this year and I’m so glad we made it happen.

But there’s more to it than just the magical spell this place casts. It’s also the memories. No one warned me that when you are not the child, but the parent, all that the memories do is give you a concrete measuring stick with which to measure your children’s growth. I walk into this place that we only visit one time a year and I can instantly see Teegan, 2 years old, in diapers. And Dalton learning to cast a fishing pole for the first time. Teegan grew up frogging and Dalton grew up searching for turtles every single summer on this lake. My kids learned how to kayak here. We honeymooned here. We celebrated pretty much every anniversary here ever since. We came up here soon after we got Addison’s referral and I knitted and knitted her a beautiful dress and carried her referral pictures everywhere and showed anyone who would look. Noah, Addison and Teegan don’t know a summer that doesn’t include The Cabin. We even have a 5 year old pet turtle who was born here and bears the name of the lake from which he was caught (before we knew better than to catch and keep wild turtles). I sat here and pondered war and peace and politics and talked until all hours with my Dad and Tony about all these topics and more. I can see huge huge chunks of my children’s life (and my own, truth be told) pass by in a heartbeat the minute I walk through the door. It shook me hard this year, all the memories and how much time has passed.

When it was time to say goodbye to Grammy and Grandpa, Noah pretty much lost it and Teegan wasn’t far behind. It was rough. Every year this happens, one kid gets so emotional. But this year was especially bad. I think we were all a little more sad than usual. And then there is always the guilt that soon follows when the kids frantically ask “Who will come fishing with me in the morning?” and “Who will take me out searching for magical and special items and take me for kayak rides?”. These are grandparent rituals and even if we try, we won’t really truly do it “right” and it won’t be the same.

But it isn’t quite time for us to leave the Cabin yet. The boys were invited to a bon fire tonight and had such a great time. Tomorrow we have our annual trek into town for a deli picnic and window shopping. And Friday brings a fun visit with one of my closest friends here in Michigan whom I haven’t seen since last year. So there is plenty of fun to be had but saying goodbye really sucks.