Weekend in the Woods

We've known the Melendez's for 3.5 years now and have had lots of fun times with them- as couples and as families. But we haven't yet vacationed with them... And we all know that there are some families you can easily travel with, and some you do not want to travel with. I was thinking they would fall into the first category, so when Christine started talking about spending the weekend at a cabin on a river, I kind of invited my family to come along! 

This was back in January... since then I have been on a girly get away into the city with Christine and Brian traveled to Portland with Jose. Now it was just time to get all 8 of us together- and we called it the McLendez Weekend In The Woods....

Guess who had to visit the doc the night before we were supposed to leave? This kid. 

Oddly enough, Tate got a permanent retainer put in earlier this day, and was having trouble talking, eating, swallowing, all of the issues that come with orthodontic work. He'd had spacers in for 4 weeks, so I was thinking having this "appliance" put in would be no big deal. I was wrong. Plus after school he had a fever, sore throat, runny nose- all of it. He threw up once, and then slept for 13 hours. When he woke up the following morning he came into our room and said "I feel pretty normal. What time are we leaving?" YES!

Brian insisted on taking the jeep- and this is what I envisioned it looking like-

However, he is an amazing packer and it all fit! We decided to do a girl car and a boy car... Off we go, right after poor Jose got the phone call this his grandmother had just passed away in Puerto Rico. Man oh man. I guess the timing of this family escape was going to be prefect on many levels. 

The cabin we rented was on the Shenandoah River, in Luray Virginia, in the Shenandoah National Park- 

The cabin was perfect for our two families! Bedroom and loft (for the girls) upstairs, another bedroom on the main level and then a game room with pool table and air hockey in the basement, along with another bedroom with bunkbeds for the boys. I'd happily go back to this house again, it had movies and board games galore- plus every cooking utensil and appliance we foodies needed. 

Nice job keeping the Corona's cold on the drive there Christine!

There was a hot tub on the deck that got LOTS of use- 

Tate who was still feeling a tad crummy- and sounded so funny talking with his retainer- would come around by Saturday morning...

We played lots of Jenga! Regular Jenga-

And giant Jenga!

And the Melendez's taught us how to play Spoons (well, reminded me as I remember playing this all the time in California with my high school church group) and their version which my kids now prefer- Tongues. 

I was NOT happy with my wine being served in a margarita glass-

From the deck, you could see the river-

Friday night we had a great bonfire in the backyard and after the kids crashed, the adults got to take over the hot tub! 

Saturday morning Christine and I tried to take a walk along what was labeled the "River Walk," nope- not so much.

Our adventure Saturday was to be on the river- canoe, kayaks and tubes- here we come! Unfortunately we couldn't launch from our spot on the river, so Brian found good spots to launch and to drop a car down river too...

What we hadn't thought about was how cold the river water was going to be. (Well, I did- and that's why I called the canoe!) We were still occasionally getting freeze warnings over night and it had rained the day before...  Nor had we thought about grabbing the correct oars for the canoe- so we had to use the ones that should have been used for the tubes. So they had nothing. And it was a very slow river. And did I say cold? 

Here is our floating barge- Jose, Tate, Macy, Mia and cooler- which had zero food in it. Beer and Gatorade, yes. We figured this would take about an hour. Perfect. 

Brian was in charge of pictures and trying to get us all in one was almost impossible-

 Closer- just Macy is missing!

Now no me or Macy- 

Who needs the mom's anyway? 

Where are Christine and I you may ask? Right over there along the shore-

Why were we there? Just waiting on the others. Truth be told, neither one of us can row to save our lives- literally. If there was a waterfall, we are going over it. Done. We just can't do it. Often times we were rowing against each other, and since we wanted to face each other so we could talk- apparently that didn't help our cause so said our husbands. 

So when we wanted to stay put to wait on them, we'd just ram the canoe into the shoreline and grab ahold of a tree branch until the others caught up. We got good at it. 

For most of our time on the river (which turned out to be almost 3 hours- with our tubers sitting in frigid water and having no food with us) our canoe was floating across the river, instead of down the river. It was quite lovely. This way we could see in front of us, and behind us. And somehow each time we heard rapids up ahead, we managed to turn it around and head down river! Apparently your canoe can't be going across the river through the rapids, our you will capsize. So says our husbands. 

This was Brian's view from his kayak- 

 Serene and relaxing, right?

Well, for almost the entire 3 hours he had to tow our floating barge, so this was the 300+ pounds tied on to him-

 And after about 40 minutes of that, there were no smiles. Jose- a freaking Marine- said he couldn't understand how our kids managed so long in that water. And I don't know how Brian managed to row all of them for so long- almost 8 miles. But because the river was going so slow, and they didn't have any paddles, they just weren't moving much. So while his towing them was still slow, it was incredibly faster than had he not towed them!

 I think Nico did the best that day-

He hung out with us often-

We would eventually tie the cooler onto the back of his kayak to lighten Brian's load a bit. We probably should have given him Macy to tow too!

Okay, so now we are getting to the end of our adventure- cold, 4 of the 8 with hypothermia ready to set in, and all miserably hungry. The owners had given us advance warning not to try to get in or our of the river where our cabin was- but why? How bad could it be? Christine and I had a grand plan- we'd run our canoe ashore again, grab hold of a tree and then everyone else could use us as their anchor and we could get out where it'd be just a short walk to the cabin- the kids could quickly hop in the hot tub to warm up, we could get food going and only Brian would need to carry down to where the car was parked to retrieve it. 

Fail. 

The owners knew what they were talking about. Imagine that. 

But we tried... 

And Nico was game to try with us. He made it ashore- barely. He was such a trooper, as we asked him to climb out of his kayak in waste deep, muddy water and climb up the riverbank. It wasn't this steep, but it was bad-

The others saw us struggling and decided to pass us by and stick with the original plan. We just knew that if Nico could make it up the riverbank then he could help us get up and we could carry the canoe, he would have his kayak and we'd save the guys from having to make a second trip to get all our gear/boats. 

Well, just a Nico got ashore and pulled up his kayak, we'd realized that we had the freaking car keys in the cooler with us! We looked down river and saw everyone waving wildly our way and could faintly hear them yelling "KEYS! YOU HAVE THE KEYS!" 

Okay, off we must go. Nico looked at us like- pleaseeeee no, don't go! He had no idea where to go, and honestly we didn't either. We told him to figure it out, and wanted to add "Save Yourself!" And he did. Covered in mud and the nasty little bugs that try to get in your eyes, nose, ears, mouth and coming upon a snake- he found the cabin, lugging that kayak the whole way after rowing for 3 hours- and was the first one in the hot tub! 

See, we knew what we were advising him to do. Not. 

Needless to say that night, Brian was thrilled to be off the river and in front of the grill-

 Christine and I even managed to sneak in a little nap!


My oh so cool girl with her wild wind blown look-

Macy (and I) loved that Mia would style her hair, especially in a fishtale braid-

The cabin had a great backyard for fun- whether it be horseshoes or gymnastics-

Sunday morning we DID NOT want to leave. The weekend had gone by entirely too fast. Boooooo

So we found some adventures along the way home. We stopped off at art galleries, gift shops and farm stores along the way-

 There is a new brewery about 30 minutes away that we'd been wanting to all go to, so we figured today was the day!

 The place did not disappoint. It reminded me so much of a German Beirgarten on a cool spring day when everyone was just desperate for some sunshine, live music and laughter.

Wow wow wow. What a weekend! Looking back at the pictures now, I love seeing everyone looking so happy and relaxed. We left the hustle and bustle of jobs, commutes, kid activities, life- and plugged in as friends, spouses, parents. We joked that we all passed the "friends-who-vacation- together" test, since our time on the river was like an extreme team building exercise. And now we can't wait for the next trip all together....