The Annual 4th of July Cabin Trip

The sight of this trail is good for my soul. We spent a week at the cabin over 4th of July and had the best time.

The weather got GORGEOUS about halfway in. One could do worse than to wake up to sunshine and water every day. This is one of my happy places, and it was made all the happier by the people who got to share it with us: our friends The Rimbeys from Eugene, and then my mom and brother.

The critter-catching alone kept the kids happy and occupied, and ironically, began when we adults saw some super cool diverse fluttery moths the night before and caught them for the kids. They were literally fighting over who got to put this moth, ("Momoth" because of his mohawk) on their face.

The next night we caught Momoth's twin, Jomoth. About the only thing you find yourself missing at the cabin is GOOGLE, and hence a few nature encyclopedias were purchased at the local Goodwill to supply us with important information such as, the difference between moths and butterlies. One difference is that when moths land, they keep their wings spread, and when butterflies land, they fold their wings up. Thank you very much, nature encyclopedias.

There were also frogs.........Oh how glad I am that frogs still take center stage, even when attitudes and smirks take center stage for my now nine year old!

Lots of poliwogs this summer, too.

and Swallowtail butterflies.

This year we made friendship bracelets.

We took many a trip into Yelm for trips to the meat market, Waly-mart, and we checked out Yelm's awesome library.

There were also trips into Rainier for cookies....(they frost snickerdoodles here, people!)

We hit the pool, something I truly hadn't done since the late 80's. It looked exactly the same.

We met our first homemade Dutch Baby.

There were canoe rides, hikes, and hammock time. BB guns made an appearance. Nobody worked. Everybody danced. We hula-hooped.

We made more t-shirts,this one for my husband a tribute to a favorite childhood treat.

I had some quality time with my brother Ryan.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, for the cabin, we are all very very lucky. To another great summer adventure there!