I hosted my two nephews and my mom at the cabin for the past two days.  We had loads of fun!

First evening- Our guests arrived at dinner time.  I had my citronella candles lit out on the porch and I made everybody my homemade pizza…..cheese and pepperoni….YUM!!!!!

Eating ice cream on the porch swing!!!!

After dinner, the boys sat out on the porch swing and I made them ice cream cones for dessert.  It was so cute watching them swing, talk and eat their cones.

We put the littlest one to bed and played a long game of Risk with the older two.  It was great to get to see my nephews again.

Day one-  We took a nature walk up the trail.  Not too far, only as far as the little one’s legs would go.  He collected some pine cones and we watched dragon flies and found a cool spider web at Elm Creek.

We then went into town and shopped at Zeb’s General Store and Dondero’s Rock Shop.  After shopping, we headed back to the cabin for lunch.  We packed up all of our things to drive over to Echo Lake State Park.  I was delayed with an appointment with my property manager, so we didn’t get going to nearly 3:30pm.  Days like this make you really glad it’s five minutes down the road!

So what happens as we’re about to leave? Thunder!!!!!!!! We decided to go anyway because the boys were getting restless.  After unloading, we jumped in the water and within 5 minutes the lifeguard blows the whistle for everybody to get out of the water.  A second lifeguard says “You can hear it coming!”  It was then that I realized why they call this place Echo Lake.  We could hear the rain falling about a half mile away and we could hear it coming.  Really?  We just got here.  The wind picked up and now we could see the wall of rain racing toward us.  Everybody was screaming and taking cover up at the bath house.  The good news was it passed quickly, the water was warm from the rain and we could see steam rising in front of Whitehorse and Cathedral Ledges.  Because everybody left, we were able to enjoy the lake with almost nobody there.  The weather cleared, I lit the grill and we had hot dogs with all the fixings we had brought from home.  We got home around 7pm, took showers, put the littlest one in bed and spent the evening talking with the other two boys and lighting sparklers outside.  All in all, a good day!

Day two-  We headed over to Diana’s Baths with the kids, not to swim, but just to hike and wade as they had to head home in the afternoon.  To get to Diana’s Baths you have to park and hike in .6 mile.  It’s an easy hike and the 4 year old never complained.  When we arrived at the baths, I found them just as beautiful as in the pictures seen on the internet.  The two older boys enjoyed climbing around on the rocks and I’ll definitely have to go back there with Huck Finn better prepared.

Two words of advice:  those younger than 10 years old need to be well supervised.  The rocks are slippery!  AND wear river shoes if possible.

After the baths, we went to The Lobster Trap on the way home for lunch.  The food is just way too good at that place!  Not so sure I need that temptation right down the street, but the warm lobster roll with melted butter was out of this world!

Anyway, we had a great time!  Can’t wait to have them come again:)

Ciao for now,