Weekend at the Cabin: Hexed*

[*I need to point out my, ahem, clever wordplay--while "hexed" usually implies cursed, "hexa" means six, and I had 3 plus 3 kids at the cabin this weekend...usually plus one!]

When Abby joins us at the cabin, Adeline and Sam, shown here, usually tag along.  The girls have a cute way of using blankets and scarves to engineer a hammock in the back of the van for the dolls to travel in.  When they come down in the morning, the babies are dressed and ready for breakfast.

A highlight of the weekend was taking the kids down to "our" beach.  The tide was really low, making it the perfect mucky, sandy, crabby place to treasure hunt.  

The Magificent Seven, if "magnificent" meant "muddy", spread out to explore.  I'm sure Keith and Julie can guess who was ready to go back first....

Out of things to do--time to dare each other to go swimming. Make the like a sea lion and dive in!

Of course, that level of activity is exhausting to maintain. Time to watch Netflix AND play Minecraft.  If only multitasking went beyond screens....Wesley. 

It's really past time to install an outdoor shower. 

But you know what I say--fun can be measured by the height of the bathtub ring-o-grime!  This weekend scored quite high.

Did we make s'mores...and turn it into a Goldenest Marshmallow contest?  Ha!  Of course we did, and with another half dozen neighbors joining us.  Piper and Abby loved "babysitting" the 4-year-old twins next door.  

Kyla may have taken home Golden S'more Prize.

Neither the purchasing or packing of matching PJs was coordinated, but these two are clearly BFFs for a reason.

I spent the weekend, in addition to kid wrangling, finally setting up automatic watering of my wonderful garden, adding swings, and putting up the lights.  It's practically perfect! More pictures to come.  

Girls Run Wild in Langley

As much as we go out to the cabin, I rarely get time to meander through Langley.  I didn’t too much today, either, as Kyla adores shopping for about 30 minutes, and then is stick-a-fork-in-me-and-take-me-home-to-my-happy-place done.  But Langley is even more adorable at Christmastime, enough so that now the Victorian Clipper makes trips from Seattle to the Village-by-the-Sea so tourists can enjoy a day of shopping and meandering in the same place we can drive to in 4 minutes. 

Kyla, Piper, and her BFF, Abby, all joined me for a bit of Christmas shopping on 1st and 2nd street (2nd has Sweet Mona’s and 1st has Chocolate Flower Farm and Star Store).  The girls were quite darling, and a nice break from Whiney Wesley!

I found someone to kiss underneath the bough!

Merry Christmas, Langley!  You put extra roses in our cheeks!

At the Cabin

It’s  so  nice to be at the cabin with less chores to do!  My goal this time was to put the outside lights up at the cabin.  I wish I had remembered to take pictures, because the pergola and gardens looked good decked with Christmas lights!
The kids talked me into a late afternoon jaunt down to the beach; that is a killer walk!

Earlier that day, Dwayne and I took a lovely walk down to Sandy Point, where we got confounded by a high tide—too high to walk the beach (uh, there was no beach, a problem with winter tides!).  But the sky was blue, the eagle’s head was white, and the picture of it too small to be picked up by the camera.

The kids didn’t have to talk me into the Teardrop swing; I did that all on my own. I had been thinking about it since seeing it this summer at the local Ace hardware store. In the fall, it was on clearance.  In November, it was at the “Please Take It” price and I succumbed. It has already paid for itself and spring hasn’t even come.

MeerKerk in Autumn

In our first weekend at the cabin with no Pergola/Garden work to do, I wanted to plan an “old-fashioned” weekend on the island for us.  That meant a daytime adventure or two. 

Papa Jim was on the island for a teardrop trailer get-together, so he and Daisy came by.  After our required Pergola homage, we gathered neighbor Abigail and we all set off for Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens and Nature Trails. 

Every time we walk up do this little bit of loveliness, Dwayne has to listen to me whine “Why don’t I have one of these?”  He usually doesn’t hear me, as he is whining the same thing.

Look at these beauties!

The kids amused themselves by making pine cone fairies and fairy houses while the adults went around a nature loop. 

It was a beautiful day on the water and I was reminded why we invested in Whidbey Island in the first place, more than 6 y ears ago!

Cabin Project: Really, truly ALMOST done!

Last weekend, we finished the pergola (and added adorable lights—Denise’s contribution). 

I like how the picture makes it seem that it just grew there, but we had help.  A shout out to my amazing hubby, and Matt and Keith, who are very useful engineers, problem solvers and builders!  And Keith’s miter saw saved the day when ours coughed and died dramatically after years of loving abuse.

Dwayne and I feel like we’ve pretty much mastered the “Northwest Elegant” look, and good hardware is our secret sauce. 

This weekend, I finally got to start my garden.  With the addition of my dry rock stream and Spice Island, the area went from this:

to this:

I had been collecting from the McLendon’s clearance section for a while….

Then someone I hadn’t met before stopped by to compliment us on the project and gave us, what I think he called a Japanese Lizard Tree/Shrub.  

It’s so soft and scaly at the same time, and when you turn it over, it’s a beautiful white and green lace pattern.  I couldn’t find out more on the internet, but I love this guy!

But doing the garden meant that Dwayne was doing the stone facing on the pillars on his own.  It’s a truth about masonry, 2 people can go 3-4 times as fast as 1 person.  I pitched in towards the end of the day, but too late to make our goal for the weekend.

So we only got two pillars completed in those two days.  I love working with Dwayne, but that feeling’s mostly cancelled out by doing it in the rain.

Cabin Project: Phase II

We left you in suspense mid-July with Dwayne’s itch only half scratched.  Well, it was fully scratched but the project was only half done.

July 20th-Sept. 1, we left the cabin like this:

Arriving yesterday, we had 24 hours to install the four 12’ 6x6 posts as the foundation of The Pergola.

The auger was pretty useful.

 

For posts, and boys!

This little guy came out to inspect us wearing what all dinos are coveting this year—a jet pack!

To celebrate our accomplishments this weekend, we went to Emily and Matt’s, because, well it’s Emily and Matt’s!

Wes and Daddy enjoyed swinging together.  Well, one of them enjoyed it.

Have to wait for the end of the month for the next installment of the Pergola Saga!