July 2013: #SeekelCabinWeek2013

One of my absolute favorite weeks of the entire year just happened! That is when we pack up and head up to a rented cabin in the Brainerd area for an entire week with all the same family that I grew up at my cabin with! This is one of my favorite weeks because some of my fondest memories of my childhood happened at my cabin growing up, and I only hope the same becomes true for my children. There's just something about cabin life!

Saturday morning, after a quick stop at urgent care for Adelyn (seriously...this kid was sick again!!) we packed up the car (it was REALLY packed!) and headed up North for the week. Adelyn had been sick the entire night before so she wasn't much fun on the way up (or the whole first half of the week for that matter) so we tried bribing her with a ice cream push-up to get something...ANYTHING...into her system!! She had about 1/2 of it, and then didn't want any more. Poor girl.

Well, I think that should have been my red flag right there as to what the rest of the week would bring. Adelyn was sick and miserable (unless in the water!...I'll talk about that later) until about Thursday...Misquitos were the thickest that I've seen them in many years, resulting in us only getting a couple of good bon-fires in...11 of our family members got swimmers itch after the first day swimming in the lake off the shore...Michael had to leave 2 days early to get ready for a mission trip for work leaving me with both kids...we had issues with the pontoon for the first couple of days...and two of our days at the cabin were spent trying to keep things from blowing away in the crazy 2-day windstorm that we were in!!!! Whew! Sounds like a train-wreck of a week!

But the craziest thing is that while I am sitting here thinking back on what we have deemed #seekelcabinweek2013, I can't think that it was anything but the best week of the year!

It's amazing how things can happen that may not be ideal, but it's all about how you react to it and the people that you spend those times with that make all the differene in the world. And we were with some of the best!

There was a park right outside of our cabin that Adelyn LOVED to play at...

We got the pontoon fixed and enjoyed a few rides on the pontoon...

Olivya experienced her first boat ride...

The "kids" got lots of tubing and skiing in...

Brady got up on skis for his first time!! (yay Brady!!!!! Way to go!!!!). I was in the water helping him get up, and got so excited when he stood up for that first time after working with him for the past 4 years or so. I think I shouted so loud out of excitement that I scared the poor guy and made him fall:(

Us "adults" got some tubing in too!! We call this "Red-neck tubing!". What a hoot. (We were out in the middle of the lake enjoying some sun and the pontoon that we were tied to needed to move. Well, we didn't want to get out of the water...so they pulled us along.)

Adelyn developed a LOVE for the speed boat...and would even sit by herself (with me holding her down with my legs as I sat across from her) when the boat would go fast by the end of the week.

I got to have coffee out on the deck each morning, overlooking a beautiful lake...sometimes with a kid in tow...sometimes not. 

My girls got LOVED up by my awesome family...

And I got loved up by my awesome family too!!

And after learning our lesson of not swimming off the shore where everyone got swimmers itch, we still managed to get lots of lake swimming/wading in! 

Even in our two-day windstorm, we got one of the boats out of the water and headed to the next lake over where it was much calmer to get some quality sun/water time in.

We tried Pinterest ideas...(roasting starburst!)

And NAILED them!!!

Or not. 

We all went out to eat at Zorbaz on the Lake (Yum!)

And took Adelyn swimming in the pool. A lot. Usually in the morning before the boats were ready to go out on the lake. What a great ammenity that our cabin had! As I mentioned earlier, Adelyn was sick for a good part of the week. I was frustrated. She was miserable. The ONLY time that she would act like her self and not cry, whine, or throw a "I'm miserable" fit would be when we were in the water. Because the shore that we were staying on had swimmer's itch and chiggers, we took full advantage of the pool that was onsite. It was a HUGE lifesaver for us! 

And just when I think this week couldn't get any better, it does!! My family threw me a surprise "Congratulations" party for graduating from Seminary and/or getting a call as a pastor! 

What a fun surprise! I had no idea!! 

We also biked to Nisswa one day...

And took advantage of another [cloudy] day and got to spend a day shopping there too...

But I think the absolute best part of the entire cabin week was spending it with these faces...I mean, come on. How could you not love to be around this...

or this...

or these guys...

Oh - and Adelyn taking baths like this every day was probably the icing on the cake. I laughed every time she got in the "bath". But she loved it! 

Yep, a week that could have been horrible turned into one of my favorite weeks of the year. It never fails. Thank you to my wonderful family (Bob, Judy, Todd, Logan, Jimmy, Mom, Dad, Brady, Chris, Holly, Hannah, Sarah, Rachel, Michael, Addi, Olivya - shout out to all of you!! Oh - and Hunter too!!) for continuing to love and have fun through the best (errr...yep. We'll call it the best) of times!!

#seekelcabinweek2013

#nailedit #lovedit #familylove