Family getaway

Hello my friends! I hope you had a lovely weekend!

We were away with family this weekend and it was wonderful. One weekend a year my entire family -- parents (my dad and stepmom), the kids and all the grandkids get together. It’s a treat from our parents and it’s turned into a wonderful tradition for us.

The problem is finding a location that can fit us all. I’ve mentioned before that I’m one of seven kids – there are full, half and step and I’m the oldest of them all. I was an only child for ten years too, the oldest and only is a dangerous combination. ;)

This time there were about 20 of us – you can see why it’s hard to find a place to fit everyone. Usually we go to southern Indiana in the fall but this year we took a trip down to Kentucky to a spot our parents love.

It’s called Mountain Laurel Lake in Harned, KY and there aren’t any mountains and the lake is really more like a pond, but the name is pretty, yes? We were truly in the middle of nowhere:

It was SO quiet. And a welcome change from all the activity at our house over the past few weeks.

The main cabin was the biggest so it’s where we ate dinners. The kids (OK, and the adults) loved the horses:

And there was a fenced in area for all the dogs (we are an animal loving family) and plenty of places to sit and swing:

Down some steep roads were the rest of the cabins off the lake. We couldn’t swim in it but the view was lovely off our deck:

We sat on the deck during a massive storm the last night and it was spectacular! Actually, we were out on that deck about 90 percent of the time, day and night.

They had little boats we used to just tool around in or get to the other cabins:

The kids (OK, and the adults) loved them! Since there were so many of us we were in three different cabins and this made it easy to get to each other.

My favorite part was the hike my Dad kept telling us about. I’ve never seen so many mossy rocks!:

They were absolutely everywhere!

Big ones too:

It was really, really beautiful. I eat this stuff up – just love it:

The bugs…not so much. I think Dad was a little over his five girls and our fear of ticks and GINORMOUS spiders on this trip. But seriously Dad. GINORMOUS.

The scenery was just gorgeous though. Dad said there are usually waterfalls coming down but it hadn’t rained much before we went on the hike:

A few of us climbed to the top:

That’s me up there. :)

And we got a hiking selfie while we were at it:

It was another wonderful weekend with some of the people I love most in this world. The only one missing was my husband – he’s been away on a work trip to Singapore for 11 days and is on his way back as I type. We can’t WAIT to see him!!

Did I mention there wasn’t any Internet or cell phone service? Well, we would get spotty service up at the main cabin, but we weren’t there much. So we were forced to bond and the cousins had a ball together. It was nice to get away with my boy too:

The heart and soul needs weekends like this sometimes. I love our parents for making it happen for the whole family.

Do you ever get away with your extended family like this? Any favorite spots? Anyone know of a a cabin big enough for all of us within three to four hours of Indy? We’re considering Lake Michigan sometime – that would be spectacular.

Let’s go RVing!

Hey there all! I have to apologize for the later than usual posts this week – we’ve been traveling and with the time change I was posting later. And we were on vacation, so there’s that. ;)

Every summer for the past few years we rent an RV and take a trip up to Wisconsin for hubby’s work with drum corps. Most of our vacations/trips are tied into his work – sometimes it’s because it’s the only way we’ll see him that week and sometimes it’s because it’s a fun spot that we like to visit.

We took a four day trip on the RV up north this week and loved it yet again. I grew up camping every weekend and I still love the thought of it – but not sure I could do it now. One word: bugs. More specifically: mosquitoes. Seriously.

I guess you could call RVing “glamping” cause you have all the comforts of home and yet you still get to sit by a roaring fire in the evenings and roast marshmallows. It is the perfect combo for me! We LOVE it. It makes travel easy too – lots of room to move around, you can grab what you want to eat out of the fridge whenever you want, HELLO – no potty breaks cause you can just GO, and our favorite part – it’s easy to take this guy along:

The cats are jealous.

This year my husband had to work during the day every day, so the kiddo and I took off on various adventures. I find great joy in exploring and finding little local treasures wherever we are. Even the smallest towns have an old little movie theater or a great diner – it’s those kind of places that I love to check out. And the local HomeGoods too, that never hurts. ;)

We were based in La Crosse, WI again this year and I wanted to make sure to check out the top of Grandad Bluff this time. The views did not disappoint!:

It was an easy drive up (it’s actually a mesa) and there’s a small park up there where you can check out the view.

I’ve always wondered why this area of Wisconsin wasn’t flat and it turns out it’s a very small chunk of the state that did not have any glaciers go through. I find that stuff fascinating. The city is down in a valley and there are these beautiful hills everywhere around it:

The next day we made our way to the Mall of America. I actually wanted to go here:

Young and the Restless fans, hello! But the Bub wasn’t into that (what?) so we headed on:

The mall is a good two and half hours from where we were but it was worth it – we spent about five hours at the indoor amusement park and then did a little shopping and eating.

The park was actually really fun – he could ride everything and it wasn’t busy at all so we had our run of the place:

The weather was CRAZY up there (and at home too) – but worse there. Two nights of storms and downpours:

Our RV was moving a little too much in the wind for our liking and the rain on the metal roof is SO dang loud – so we didn’t get great sleep on the trip. Our bed felt amazing this morning. :)

The flooding was unreal – this was our view of the Mississippi from the back of the RV at the campsite:

It’s not supposed to be that close. :)

Both my husband and I would check out the back window all night both nights because we were so afraid the water would get too high:

I heard from a reader that there’s terrible flooding in Iowa too – hope everyone is safe and doing OK. Looks like you’re finally getting a break from the rain today!

Here’s a look at our ride for the week:

I can drive one this big but prefer not to so we rented a small car for me to use instead. It was SO worth it.

The last day we were planning on visiting a water park at the Dells but it was pouring, so instead the kiddo and I took a trip to a cave in Minnesota:

This is something I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do so I was so excited I could barely stand it. It’s called Niagara Cave in Harmony, MN and it was literally in the middle of farmland. I kept expecting rolling hills or something, but no – it started from a sinkhole in the ground on a farm:

The farmer was losing pigs and found them (alive) down there. ;) He discovered the cave in the 1800’s.

It was totally awesome: 

It was an easy one mile walk and I loved it. It did get pretty tight in a few spaces, but it wasn’t so bad because it was so tall above:

I’ve been planning a trip down to the caves in Indiana and Kentucky so it was a cool surprise to visit one up there. I can’t wait to do it again!

We had a lovely few days exploring and relaxing – and we got to be with my husband which was the best part. :) It’s SO good to be home though – my goodness I love coming home to our house.

Have you ever been RVing? Do you enjoy it? My dream is to take a trip out west to Wyoming soon. I did it as a kid on a girl scout trip and it was the best trip I’ve ever been on.

Have a great weekend all!

Weekend in the woods

Hello and welcome to a new week! Hope you had a lovely weekend! I didn’t get anything done and it. was. awesome. No projects, no cleaning, no decluttering, no organizing – just being lazy and hanging with my family and it was a welcome change.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I have a large family – both extended and immediate. I have six sisters and brothers (a mix of full, half and step) and with the addition of some grandkids now, the our group is BIG. It gets harder every year to get together for holidays because there are so many of us now. :)

Family means everything to all of us I’m sure, but my Dad is one of those people who is truly bursting with joy when his family is around. So every year now he and my stepmom rent a cabin so we can all get together and have a fun fall weekend with just family.

This year we had an amazing view:

It’s a little early for the leaves to change but you can see little explosions of color starting to happen. :) We were near Lake Monroe in Bloomington, Indiana and if you are nearby it is an amazing time of year to visit.

I didn’t get many pics inside our cabin because I was usually either eating or laying around and I was just too lazy, honestly. (It was fantastic.) It was a big place with plenty of room for all of us – not overly cabin-like, but rustic.

Saturday we rented a double decker pontoon boat and took off for the afternoon. This was especially fun for me because every weekend growing up was spent on this lake with my Mom and Dad. Most of my memories as a child (up till about seven years old or so) were camping and then hanging on that lake in our teeny tiny metal boat. There was room for the three of us and that’s about it. ;)

I’ve only been back to this lake as an adult a few times so it was special to be there again, especially with Dad. As a child I remember thinking the rocky shores were so beautiful and I was still taken with them as an adult:

Some people aren’t lake swimmers – are you? My husband is not – I think it freaks him out. :) Even I was a little hesitant at first, but then Dad and the siblings started jumping in and I finally did the same…and then you couldn’t get me out:

I’m in the middle with my boy. :) My son is so like me when it comes to things like this. We watch and take it in for awhile…then we do it and love it and you’ll have to drag us away. I was SO proud of him for getting in to swim (he’d never swam in a lake). The boy is a FISH.

When you sit on the life jacket just right you can just hang out there forever…it’s bliss. ;) The water was chilly at first but within minutes we’d get used to it and it was perfect.

I don’t share many pics of my son on the blog but I am so in love with this one:

He drove the boat with Grandpa pretty much the entire time. Like a boss. ;)

On Sunday it was raining and chilly (a perfect fall day in my opinion) and we took the long way home through Nashville, Indiana and Brown County:

Downtown Nashville is a treasure. A quaint little area with shops, wonderful food and fun stuff to do:

And of course this is the BEST time of year to visit!

It was SO lovely – the rain made everything smell amazing and the mums were popping:

Every single shop and restaurant is decked out for fall and it’s just gorgeous:

We also stopped at a roadside pumpkin patch on the way out of town:

We saved the regular pumpkins for when we go to pick them at the local patch but got a bunch of really unique ones here. I’ve never seen a selection of gourds and pumpkins like they had!:

I was giddy, I must say. It was just a lovely weekend all around.

I am so blessed for so many reasons, but one of the biggest is that I am a part of my big beautiful family. Thanks to Dad for forcing us to hang out together at least once a year. ;)

Have you been to southern Indiana in the fall? Do you have a favorite spot near you that you like to visit this time of year?

Hope your weekend was wonderful too – this week I’ll be sharing more fall-inspired posts as we continue our parties again tomorrow! See you then!

Roughing it

Hello everybody! Hope you had a lovely weekend! We just got home from a little family excursion up north. We took off late last Tuesday for a four day RV trip through Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. This is our second RV trip -- we took our first one a couple summers ago and it’s safe to say we’re hooked. :)

RVing is SO fun – this time we rented a smaller one (the first time we got a huge class A and this time it was a smaller class C). The smaller one was still plenty big and we all loved it. (And I could drive it no problem – bonus.)

This trip was all fun for the kiddo and me, but some work for the hubs since we were traveling around with the drum corp he works with. Back in our old days when he and I were dating we would take off on these kinds of trips often in the summer. I love doing the same with our boy. :)

We love RVing because we can travel at our own pace, stop when we want and still have plenty of space to stretch out as we go. We saw some pretty countryside in Illinois on the first day:

While my husband worked with the corp the kiddo and I explored the cute little town of Metamora, IL – and ended up spending most of the afternoon at their awesome public pool:

It took a few hours, but right before we left the Bub got up the courage to go down that slide and LOVED. IT. :)

When we RV (or when we drive anywhere really), we like to hit up local restaurants, shops…and apparently pools. It was just by accident we happened on that and it was a perfect way to spend a summer afternoon.

The next day we headed to our stop for a couple days – La Crosse, Wisconsin. The Bub and I did some shopping at some local antique stores:

I didn’t find anything I had to have, but I did come across a huge selection of these glasses that totally took me back:

Man, I was so close to getting a few of them. I still kinda wish I had. They had all of the ones I remembered from my childhood – Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Muppets, E.T. It was such a fun blast from the past. :)

And of course, when Mama saw the HomeGoods sign I pulled that RV over faster than you can say, well…HomeGoods:

We actually came across an awesome find there – I’ve dreamed of one of these for our basement for years:

  

We both freaked when we saw it – the bonus was that it was $70 cheaper than what I’ve found online. (It was missing a couple measuring cups, no biggie.) Just another reason I love traveling in an RV – plenty of room to take the treasures home. (And I’m sure it was a sight seeing me loading this thing into the big rig.)

I was so tempted to use it one night on the RV, but we didn’t have the popcorn or oil, so we waited till we got home. I have to say, I think it made better popcorn than my WhirleyPop! That’s saying a lot cause I adore my WhirleyPop people. (The popcorn from the machine was much crisper, if that makes any sense.)

Anyhoo – that was our best find on the trip. :) We saw a good share of drum corp rehearsals while there, with the backdrop of the beautiful Wisconsin hills:

And one of the highlights for me at least was the cauuute cabin we stayed in:

This was at an RV park that had cabins, so we were able took hook up the RV and still camp out inside that night.

It was so totally precious:

A few of you on Instagram wanted to see the inside so I made sure to take a few pics before we left. It was very rustic, but had all of the modern conveniences you could need (including air!).

It had a cute little bunk room that would sleep at least four and a bathroom with all the basics:

 

The main part of the cabin was one big room with a kitchenette:

And another bed with trundle:

And a TV!! Glorious TV! We didn’t have it at all on the trip otherwise, and I actually really didn’t miss it. But it was nice to have while we were there. We only ended up turning it on a couple times though – it was nice to disconnect for the most part.

They had everything you could need while there – toiletries, dishes, cookware. It was great! I drank my wine out of a coffee cup:

Ha!! Told you…rough.

My favorite parts of the cabin were the ceiling:

The view:

We were perched right at the edge of a cliff in the woods– I thought we had the best cabin there. :)  

And the AWESOME screened in porch:

Usually when we travel to Wisconsin or Minnesota the mosquitoes are horrible this time of year – but this time the temps and bugs were both great! Low temps and very few bugs.

Then it was time to head on, this time to beautiful Minnesota:

We stayed in the RV that night and heard the Kenny Chesney concert nearby. :) The weather was PERFECT…at least till later when a crazy long storm came through. Pouring down rain hitting a metal roof for three hours straight doesn’t really make for a great night’s sleep. :)

The next day we spent a few hours at the Mall of America:

The hubby and I had been briefly years ago, and this time we were excited to take the Bub to see it. All he cared about was the Lego store, of course. And they were having a huge Lego event throughout the mall all weekend – perfect timing!

We ended up heading home early so didn’t get to do all the rides and stuff – we definitely want to go back!

What a fun, relaxing trip! I loved having all of my boys to myself for all that time:

It was just lovely all around.

I love that we’re doing these trips with the Bub – growing up I spent every weekend in the summer camping with my parents. We were out on the lake ALL the time. I wish my boy could experience that, but at the same time I’m not sure I want to rough it quite as much as we did back then. :)

RVing is the perfect compromise – you have a safe, comfortable home on wheels, but you also enjoy the best parts of camping – making your meals, sitting by a fire, enjoying the outdoors. We love it!

We looked into buying an RV earlier this year but held off – it may be something we look into next year. I am dreaming of a long trip out west to see all the sites I saw on a girl scout trip as a kid – Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park, Snake River, Jackson Hole. It was an amazing trip that I still remember so well and I want the Bub to see all of those sights as well.

And as much as we love to travel, it is always SO good to come home. When we travel I find I’m so much more appreciative of everything – how lucky we are to take trips like that, how much I love exploring our country, how wonderful it is to come back to our sweet house. We are lucky indeed.

So have you ever been RVing? Did you like it? Did you camp a lot as a kid or do you do it now? I keep hearing the term “glamping” lately – I guess you could call an RV trip that? :) Air conditioning and no bugs – two of my favorite things.

**Here’s the campsite we stayed at in La Crosse for those who asked! :)