Book Club Retreat

The Taylors - well, Blake initiated the whole thing - invited several couples to participate in an couples' book club earlier this year. Each month, one couple chooses a book and hosts the meeting. Rules: non-fiction only. We leave the kids at home (for the most part). And have FUN! Chadwick and I have been loving it.

The non-fiction genre is a step out of my fiction comfort zone - John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Smoky the Cow Horse, Jane Austen, and Stephen R. Covey have been my go-to novels or authors in the past with a sprinkling of others in between. I don't mind historical non-fiction and have enjoyed Gerald Lund books in that genre. Blake is a stickler for this particular rule....Erin and I are working on opening up our minds to this new world. Ha!

The Stewarts' know someone who owns a large cabin in McCall and they put together the idea of creating a book club retreat. Genius! The Ericksons subbed in for our normal couple, the Dunkleys and are going to be a permanent fixture in the group.

It occurred at the end of October and was a glorious weekend of chaos, games, sleep deprivation, food, games, and constant minor boo-boos. There was an outing to the lake, catching frogs, manly competition for who could throw a rock the farthest, and a run-in with some good friends from Meridian.

Love that this looks like their first baby, not their sixth. 

The Stewarts

10 adults. 18 children under the age of 11. You do the math.

The cabin was amazing. I've never stayed in a place that actually had enough beds and bathrooms for a large group. Two fridges, three ovens and two large eating tables accommodated us perfectly. The kids dove into the bunk room. This room had vaulted ceilings, 6 bunk beds plus a day bed, large floor space, a television/DVD player, a second story play area (reachable by a ladder), and...the slide. The kamikaze slide. Starting at the upper level of the playhouse 14 feet above, it shoots you down with great speed and into the wall not very far from the end of the slide. To minimize damage to the wall, there was a large, round bean bag at the bottom. Rather than landing comfortably on the bean bag, sliders normally end up between the edge of the slide and the bean bag. Smashed uncomfortably with your back in the tough edge of the slide. The kids minimized the problem by loading the gap with pillows and blankets. Our parental joy of the slide lasted about an hour; the kids slowly started coming to their parents for a kiss on a bump. To whine about a new bruise. To complain about someone banging into them. It was constant!

Amazingly, the largest injury occurred to Spencer two hours before our departure Sunday morning. The kids tried to tell him to not come down the slide, and either he didn't hear or listen, but he ran into Morgan at the bottom of the slide and she fell onto his face. Hard! Blood and instant swelling....I was so worried he had broken his nose!! The next day, things looked more normal, thank goodness.

The television was on. It was off. It was on again. And repeat.

Aside from attending the boo-boos and feeding the hunger, we really didn't see the kids much for the weekend. They played so well! And Tally won the award for the best baby. Ever.

The adults gamed hard all weekend. With the kids, with each other, there was always a game being played in one of the many corners of the house. Or shenanigans of a sort.

The big debate over whether a triathlon is a swimmers' sport or bikers' sport. Not sure who won. Mostly I love that these three tall men are cozy on the couch.

We were up way past midnight both nights playing Code Names, boys vs. girls. The girls handily won the first five rounds Friday night and the boys wanted a chance to vindicate themselves from the constant losses. Saturday brought new rounds, and the guys won! Multiple in a row. It was ridiculous. All the while, we were trying (rather unsuccessfully) to stay quiet so the kids could sleep. But after Logan finally got his team to guess the word "pasted" for the win, he went ballistic. And Cyndi turned the celebration into a meme that will forever reside in our memories. This picture basically sums up the evenings for the adults.

The Katseanas organized a talent show Saturday evening for the kids who wanted to participate and adult couples. I was so proud that all of my kiddos got up in front of everyone for a few brief moments. It's a terrifying place to be. I won't elaborate on our particular "talent," let's just say it involved breaking an apple in half with bare hands and $2 in quarters. =)

Sunday was cleaning, avoiding catastrophic collisions on the slide, and booking it back to Boise for sacrament meeting.

I love these people. They are a group that I feel safe around, where I can be myself. Where we aren't judging others or their children. Honest, hard-working, fun-loving, solid people. Whom I would call my family any day of the week. I feel uplifted when I'm with this group and so grateful to be part of their lives.

We all voted to make this an annual thing. Perhaps without children next year. 

Photo Dump

What have we been up to....

Juicing grapes. We got 25 beautiful quarts from our grapes.

I brought some concord grapes home several weeks later and in the process of juicing them, the pot overflowed and created a burnt mess on the stove. Unfortunately, the smoke "smell" leached into the beautiful purple juice and likely ruined all 15 quarts. There's no amount of anything that can cover the burnt flavor!

A random chain of events landed our little piece of the world in the middle of a photo shoot. We had 6-8 photographers, editors, and story writers on the property along with two super sweet Asian children and their parents for like 3 hours one afternoon in September. The photos were for a children's book about a day at the farm. The crew was at our neighbor's with cows and bees before our house. They rounded off the photo shoot with our chickens, sheep, dog, picking beans/grapes/apples and the red barn. I am pretty sure we will get a copy of the book. The children held up amazingly well for being told where and what to do for over 4 hours. And I laughed as most of the group showed up in straw hats, trying to look the part of country folk.

We made it up to High Valley on multiple weekends - to work on the driveway, to admire the driveway, and play by the shriveled up lake. There was not a lot of water but tons of sticky mud and cat tails! The kids had a blast making snow in the fall. Poor Darwin really wanted to be with Chadwick and the others in the canoe. He swam out to about the middle of the lake before I could get him to come back to shore. While he was paddling back to me, I asked myself if I would be willing to jump into the frigid, dirty water to save my poor, sputtering dog....luckily, he made it back without incident and I didn't have to answer.

The school carnival - hosted each year as a fundraiser, the carnival was a huge hit! Games, food trucks, and a silent auction completed the night. My kiddos were such troopers as we were there early to help set up and late to take down. We met Kenzie and her girls which added to the fun of it all. The weather was perfect and not too hot as it's been in years past. The event went smoothly and everyone seemed to have a good time. Mallorie got to try a pizza in a cone...to which she gave a thumbs up on taste. I volunteered my artistic husband to create the backdrop for the photo booth (castle/knight theme) and he went all-out. Using dot markers, he colored the dragon and castle on the garage floor. Turns out, dot markers bleed through fabric and we were left with a dragon and castle on the concrete for about a month. It was a nice welcome as we parked the car each day!

October brought cooler temperatures, general conference (What?? Two hour church rumors were real!), fallen leaves, and canning applesauce (we purchased apples from the Caldwell orchard again this year. Mallorie cried the whole way there and back because her ear was hurting, poor thing.)

A beautiful weekend camping in the Sawtooths and a cabin trip to McCall rounded out the first and last weekends of my birthday month, but those will need to be separate entries to keep this one from turning into a full-blown novel. =)