February Family Weekending

We're back from a family retreat at Skamania Lodge in S.W. Washington.

The last time we were there, I was 7 months pregnant with all day and night morning sickness. I was so exhausted I would fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, picking it back up again when I woke. I spent that weekend sleeping on our hotel bed while my husband watched CNN beside me (we don't have cable at home).

What difference a couple of years make. This weekend was full, fun, relaxing and perfect!

We played in what was left of the snow (yes, he's wearing the infamous Spider Man hat):



It's been unseasonably warm in the Pacific Northwest - and consequently the snow has melted, refrozen, and become a this crusty, hard mess. But The Little really wanted to play in it, so what's a mama to do?


We lounged in the fireplace room:







We took in the rustic artwork:


We went on a nature walk:


It was such a glorious weekend. My favorite moment, of course I didn't capture with a camera. We took The Little down to the huge pool to swim one evening. Super Hubby and I were busy taking off our flip flops and lounge pats when we turned around to help The Little. He was already ready. Completely stark naked, having removed his swimming trunks, prepared to skinny dip. It took quite a bit of convincing that public pools required shorts. We would tell him we had to put them back on, to which he would reply, "No. No pants Mama. No need." I was a giggling mess. It was almost too bad that we had to cover up that cute little hiney with a pair of swim trunks. Is there anything better than naked toddler bum?

Our weekend culminated with Skamania Lodge's renowned brunch. Smoked salmon, peel and eat shrimp, king crab legs, eggs 50 different ways, fresh fruit piled high, pastries, cheese and meat platters, steak, bacon, ham, links, chocolate covered strawberries, tarts, coffee, tea, juice, mimosas, etc., etc., Heaven for this foodie.

On our way home, we stopped by a local playground to take in the last few hours of rare winter sunshine.



While we were there I found the mother load of huge, gigantic, acorn caps. Does anyone else get as excited about these as much as I do? In all we collected over 500 of them! We soaked them in water to clean and then placed them in the dehydrator to get rid of any unwanted hitch hikers.




It was a perfect, fabulous, beautiful weekend - that ended far too soon.

I hope your weekending was wonderful!

Simple Mama