The morning after the wedding, a bunch of us broke down the wedding site, picked up all the hay, stacked picnic tables, etc. (u.William has some great brothers and he and Natalie have some excellent friends.)
The goal was to sell those 30 picnic tables, and by the end of the week, they were all gone. Kudos to everyone on that.
Around noon, with as much of the heavy lifting completed as I was going to be able to help with, I grabbed my girl and the munchkins, and we dashed to our cabin in the woods.
Unlike last year where the place was a mess and I spent weeks finishing out the trim, screening the porch, installing the kitchen sink, shelves, running the water lines from the pond, and clearing out the view, this year we pulled up, swept out the mice droppings, and made our beds.
It took about an hour to get the water running the 1/4 mile from the pond to the cabin, but once it was going, the shower, fountain, kitchen sink, etc. were all up and running.
One of my favorite things about Alexe: first thing's first, fresh flowers to brighten the place up.
Dinner over the fire.
View from the porch. The lens on the iphone camera has a hard time focusing through the trees on the distant mountain ridges. They keep going after the ones you can see here.
Because of the wedding festivities, we had two nights here before the family was headed home. Much too short, and we hope to have more time next year. After a lovely night, Alexe and me on the porch, the kids in the loft, we had a pancake breakfast.
The kids hopped up on their swing. They've grown; I had to raise the swing a few inches.
What was pleasantly surprising was how instantly at home the kids feel here. We don't have to worry about fire ants or poisonous snakes, they can run free, with no worries about neighbors or dangerous animals. (Well, moose and bear, but we haven't seen anything but their tracks so far.)
Alexe will not wear her own clothes out here.
We found that the kids give great back massages.
And on a rainy afternoon can be pretty good at pictionary. Annaliese's word/phrase was school bus.
I don't remember what Caspian's was, and now, like then, his picture isn't helping me much.
Then, sadly, we packed up the family's things and headed back to my parents' house. Alexe and the kids were flying out from Manchester, NH the next morning, and we wanted to have a last evening with the grandparents.
Some hugs and photo opportunities the next morning, and we headed out.
One last helpful truck washing during a gas up, and I dropped most of my heart off at the airport and headed back to the cabin for over a week of R&A at the cabin by myself.
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