What a weekend!

I hope everyone had a great weekend - It feels like forever since I've visited everyone.

We had planned to leave Friday late afternoon/evening to head to my in-law's cabin for the weekend. Our plans kept changing and I soon didn't know which end was up. We finally left Saturday morning. We had planned to leave at 6:30 and I think that is about when we finally woke up!

It was about a 3 hour drive and we did stop for some breakfast Saturday morning. We arrived just before lunch. It was T's parents, T's brother and wife and their 4 children, T's oldest sister and husband and 3 of their children, T's other sister and her hubby and 5 children. Their cabin is in north-central PA and we were about 10 miles away from the NY line. It was a beautiful weekend to be up and I hope to share pictures soon.

T and Quintin went fishing several times, Quintin played tag in the woods with his cousins and dipped around in the creek behind the cabin. Elle and Colin missed out on some fun times, but they will enjoy it in a few years - naps are still a must for them (and momma!)

We came home Sunday evening and it was wonderful to sleep at home. Monday we worked to get some things done around the house - clean the very dirty truck, mow lawn, unpack and do laundry. We then had a picnic with my family - my parents, my brother, his wife and 2 children and my sister, her husband and their son.

T had to head out around 9:30 last night to drive truck to NJ. He usually gets home around 3, but this morning he came in around 6. He runs with another truck and the other truck ran out of fuel. T would only have been coming home to go to bed, but the other driver had to make another run - so T waited at the truck until a mechanic could come with fuel so he could drive home.

Almost an hour later, my niece and nephew came for the day. They start school tomorrow and my sister-in-law teaches at another school that started last week.

For some reason, I'm not able to babysit without turning it into a PE class. My nephew, who is 8, learned to shoot bow and arrow, cast with a fishing pole and my niece, 5, was working at riding her bike without training wheels.

My nephew and I also made gooey gunk. I want to make it with Quintin some time this week, so we'll post the recipe as well as pictures later.

We attempted to make our own bow and arrow following the directions in The Dangerous Book for Boys, but we couldn't find a good stick that would bend - everything kept breaking. Then I remembered I had thin elastic string and we used that to make a bow and arrow. The bow and arrow that my nephew used was given to us by T's brother. Quintin likes to play with it, but he is so much more excited about using the one we made. What a day!

I had hoped to do some school time with the children yesterday, but now I'm two days behind - oh well, I think with everything the children did these past 4 days, any attempt at school would have been wasted. I know they learned all kinds of new things being with their cousins these past few days. I wouldn't trade that time in for anything!! Having no cousins growing up, I feel we are tremendously blessed with 13 cousins on one side and 3 on the other!!