In case you didn't know...

I.make.adorable.children.

No new news for you, but here's a reminder!

 

 (The photos took some post-session candy bribery, but totally worth it!)

S-N-O-W!

A week of vacation.

Car packed full with snow attire.

13 hours in the car together.

Two families in one cabin for 5 days.

It was a roller coaster of emotions, but the memories were so so worth it!

Day 1 in the car.  God Bless portable DVD players and endless snacks.

We decided to stop half way & stay the night in Savannah, GA.  After a day full of potty breaks at a gas station every 45 minutes, it felt great to get out of the car for the night!

Both boys slept great that night.  Praise God!

Day 2--we arrived!!

It was cold, the cabin was perfect, and the kids were so content with just playing in the backyard all day.  Connor was excited to find 'scat' and ventured all around as a little nature detective to see if he could guess what animal produced the poop.  Free entertainment, for sure!

It was cold (40s), but not cold enough for the snow we were hoping for.

It was so sweet to watch Connor and Peyton team up together to help one another trek through the brush.

"Be careful, Pey."

"Hold my hand and I'll make sure you're safe."

It was precious.

Our evening was full of kid playtime downstairs while we sat by the fire upstairs.  I found myself checking the weather on my phone several times during the day & watching the tiny weather emojis change from cloudy, to windy, the snowflakes...  We needed it to snow just once for my sweet boy who wanted to see snow for the first time so bad.

Bethany found this rock wall climbing facility in town, so it was a great place to utilize on the gloomy, rainy day.  It wasn't harnessed like we envisioned & we found ourselves gawking at the ridiculous strength of others there as they dominated the toughest courses.  I was the most surprised with how much Connor enjoyed climbing all the way to the top, since he's always claimed he didn't like heights.  I was pretty proud of him.  Noah was behind the scenes swinging from a rope swing and dabbling in hoola-hooping.

The trip has its fair share of sibling/friends bickering, yet had a nice blend of sweet sibling/friend playtime too.  These goobs enjoyed their large tub with fancy jets at bath time.

It was rare to see the sun, but when it was out, it was gorgeous!

Matt's all in his glory when he can build/play with fire.  The men perfected their fire crafting skills, while the kids ventured around the stream & backyard trails, while we sat & enjoyed the view!

The next morning was one hot mess after the other.  I was doing the mom work from behind the scenes with having my camera charged, setting out everyone's layer upon layer of winter clothing good for snow tubing, and having everyone ready to be out the door by 9am.  I had a plan of putting the kids in one layer of clothes, tossing them in the car, once we arrived to our snow tubing appointment at 10am, I'd help kids get into their snow bibs/jackets/boots/gloves/hats/etc at that point.  Well, we were in the car on time & as I looked up the address for the snow tubing place, I noticed the advisory on the website that noted the snow tubing location was CLOSED for the day after the weather was too warm & made the man-made snow too sloshy.  Wahhhhhh!

So I called Bethany, in her car, and told her the news.  We made the choice to go to the ski resort right up the street to at least let the kids play in the fake snow there since they were all dressed for it already.  We pull into ski resort, I take 20 minutes to get both my kids into the bibs, jackets, fit wide feet into their narrow boots, wiggle little fingers into the right slots in their gloves, and so on, all while my own fingers were numb from being so cold, and we get inside to purchase our tickets.  Bethany & family were already in there and broke the news to us that we weren't able to play in the snow unless we purchased ski lift tickets for each person, which was crazy expensive.

Soooo... with everyone dressed & ready, we loaded back up into the car & decided we'd find a hiking trail on the mountain.  At this point, the kids were still being troopers and unfazed by all the changes, and I was exhausted from having to now undress my kids yet again to get them to fit into their seats in the car, and we headed out up the mountain.  I prayed Connor and I didn't get car sick from the windy road & we tried to enjoy the view along the way.  When we got to our destination, we were informed that due to the misting rain & conditions, the trails were CLOSED.

I wanted to cry.  Connor began to melt down.  Noah whined.  Matt held it together & asked a local if they knew of any other trails around the area.  They told him about a trail just up the street that would be open we could hike on, so we headed that way next!  When we made it up the steep roads in the spitting rain, we arrived...

We got out of the car, got the kids back into their coats, gloves, boots, and hats, filled our pockets with snacks for the hike AND...

the spitting rain turned to SNOW.  It was like God knew I was going to lose.my.mind. if our morning didn't take a turn for the better and it SNOWED.

Hooray!!!! Connor got the snow he was hoping for this trip & the morning was not a total wash!!

You can't see the snow flakes in the photos, but they were there & the joy after the more of disappointments was incredible!

We made our way down the trail and ended up at a pretty little waterfall.  We snuck in a snack for the kids, then opted to head back.  I heard my dad's voice in the back of my head at this point, reliving his story of how when we went hiking when we were younger, it was all great going downhill...

but once you had to head back & go uphill, the kids all decided they needed to be carried.

Haha!  Funny how live comes full circle.  What I did to my dad as a kid, my child did to me.  Matt & I took turns toting Noah back up the trail on the way back.  With all our layers on, Matt & I were good & sweated out once we got back to the car.

I was able to reschedule our snow tubing for the next day & got to do oodles of laundry when we got back as all the clothes we had packed for snow tubing, we ended up wearing that day.

Once all the clothes were washed, set out again, and ready for snow tubing yet again, we woke to this pretty view out back.

As we headed up the mountain to our snow tubing destination, we stumbled upon a few 'look out points,' so we detoured for a few photo ops along the way.  We even got to see a few elk as we drove that morning too.

Day 2 of snow clothing was a little easier since I had a test drive on dressing everyone the day before.  Besides all of our toes being numb from the cold inside our double pairs of socks & boots, we did great in the snow!  

The kids loved it!!

My tiny daredevil rode with Daddy over and over...and thought the big, faster slopes were great!

My Connor and I took a break when our toes became too cold & just lounged in our tubes in the sun.

This face.

By the end of our tubing session, I had to use the restroom really bad, but wanted to squeeze in one quick family photo.  Noah's face says it all.

Once we got back to the cabin, Noah went down for a nap, and I was happy to be back inside & cozy.  We had planned on doing gem mining while we were there at some point, so Matt took Connor with the Hunt family and I stayed back to let Noah sleep.  I was happy to get pictures like this texted to me while they were there.

My Minecraft loving boy thought the gem mining was pretty cool!

On our final morning, I remember vividly Connor opening the blinds for us to see white outside.  It felt like Christmas morning.  All he wanted came true on our last day!  I grabbed my camera, got the kids bundled as much as I could over their jammies, and we all headed out front to experience the snow!  At first, Connor was just too cold, but once he saw Matt make snow balls and doodle funny things on our car in the snow, the cold didn't seem to bother him anymore.

Our own Lightning McQueen.

From that point on, it was pretty magical.

The snow kept falling and my boys kept smiling.

Since Matt was the only one with waterproof snow gloves, we had Connor wear them & poor Matt went without (that would explain Connor's giant lobster claw hands).  Matt didn't hurt too bad until he helped the boys make a tiny snowman & had to make snowball after snowball on his bare hands.

Our tiny snowman :)

(his carrot nose was actually a veggie chip)

As we checked out of our cabin & hit the road around 10am, we left our tiny snowman behind.

We crammed in 13 hours of driving in one day & made our way home at midnight.  It was a looooooong drive, but we made it home!!  Timing was pretty perfect too, as the snow storms rolled in just as we left.

The boys had a great time & the trip was so worth the memories!