A Fall Trip

Steve worked so hard to study for boards this past quarter and we hardly saw him, so... when fall break came around we jumped on it. A friend of mine told us about a place called Randell Glen. I took a look at it online, and booked us a cabin and off we were.

Clearly, Benji is excited to go.

After 9 hours of a car ride, we made it to our home for the next week. It was a cozy cabin that was full of everything that we need.

We got our key and headed up to the cabin. We were not alone. By the time we got the bags into the house we had guest on our porch. These dogs are huge! and pretty amazing! They are Great Pyrenees and they were so good to us. When ever the boys ran off they always had at least one dog with them, keeping an eye on what they were doing.

Benji taking himself for a walk.

I thought this was a good picture of the two of them trying to fish.

Steve was the first to catch a fish. This was one of four. We ate fish the next night

All was going well and then.... James fell into the pond. It was not surprising... I was, however, surprised that it happened so soon, we were up at Randell Glen for a total of an hour. And then.... James went to cast his line out. Next thing I know my glasses are gone. He had snagged them and tossed them into the pond.

This is what my view was pretty much the whole time we were up there.

Thankfully my camera had an auto-focus!

 Benji is sharing his Cheese-it. He was sharing just one Cheese-it and the dog would only nibble what he was given and never any more. Then Benji ate the other half....

{some of our catch}

Tommy took a turn milking the cow.

Here in Florida we don't get fall. Well... not real fall. There is definitely a change in the weather, but there is no color. Look at the pretty color!!!

One of the exciting things that caught our attention was a bat. It would have been a lot less exciting if it was outside. But it wasn't it was in the house! Steve caught it and tossed it outside {my hero}

The nights were chilly so we had a fire and toasted some marshmallows. It was so nice feeling the chill in the air.

This is the house of old Johnny. Old Johnny lived here until he was 85. Do you want to know when he turned 85... in was 1995!!! this guy lived here until 1995! He was an old mountain man and lived really simply. The story goes that he bought one new pair of underwear a year and wore them all year long. He had cock fights in his little barn, and that there is gold buried somewhere up here.

 Pretty huh.

Hiking along with the dogs in tow.

James decided that he needed to have a go at milking the cow.

 I love this picture of the baby ducks following their mama. {if she would have walked 3 feet to the right she wouldn't have had to go down into the little ditch...}

When babies are around you always find creative ways of baby proofing. This got me thinking... companies should hire moms they can find unique ways to solve problems, and they can usually do it with little to no cost. 

But I don't know why we would have to baby proof... does he look like he gets into trouble??

Up on our porch again. I don't think the muffin was big enough to share with everyone, but they sure thought so.

Tim loved going out and swinging on the tire horse.

More hiking. We borrowed a backpack thing to put Benji in. Probably the best thing that we brought with us. It would have been tough lugging that child up and down the mountain with us.

 {I love his baby blues!!}

Here is the trail that we could have taken.....

Here is the way we actually went. {Steve has a hard time with the "stay on the trail" rule}

Tim made a new friend. This is Petunia. Her mom died when she was born and was a bottle baby. She hung out with the dogs when she was little and it stuck. She never wanted to be in with the other sheep, and at night sleeps with the dogs.

The boys got to try gem mining. It was actually really neat! They found a couple rubies, an emerald, a couple sapphires, and garnets. There was also a lot of quartz to be found. they spent a good couple hours here. It was really neat to see these rocks in there raw form.{oh, and that's Mark, and his sleeves fell off.}

The boys got to hunt eggs. they got to be really good at finding them.

We had such a good time. The boys were up and out the door before breakfast helping with all the farm chores. It was a great time for Steve and I just to rest. This was the first vacation that I have come back from and didn't feel like I needed a vacation from my vacation. We made some great memories, and had so much fun together!