"All the Days...": Montecito Lodge

Last weekend we all enjoyed our Christmas gift to the kids -- a getaway to the Montecito Lodge in the Sequoia mountains. 3 other families from our church joined us, all with kids about the same ages as ours, so that was nice for the kids. Every time we go here, we love it, and this time seemed to be even better than ever. Maybe it was because our kids are all old enough to enjoy the snow and can walk up the sledding hills by themselves or maybe it's because we all have such good memories from previous years. In any case, we've definitely decided to make this an annual trip (and if any family members would like to join us, we would LOVE to spend a weekend with you some year here!!!)

Here we are, a bit tired from our busy weekend playing in the snow.

And here are all the families that joined us --our family on the left, the Heeringas, the Ankers, and the VanderTuigs

The brave dads took the kids to the hot tub one night after dinner. It was quite an interesting experience for the kids to go swimming surrounded by snow.

Time to eat! Having all your meals provided was one of the best perks of the weekend for us moms -- no meals to prepare and pack. The food we had was great -- we even had steak and crab legs Saturday night for dinner -- we felt pretty spoiled! It was also nice to be able to come into the lodge and have hot chocolate, cappuccino, or hot soup if we needed a break.

The boys had fun playing Foosball in the lodge. There we also lots of different board games, puzzles, and crafts available for the kids to do.

Daniel and Calvin got to try snow-boarding on one of the hills behind the lodge. Although they had absolutely no control over where they were going, they had fun just getting the feel of it. It was fun for them to do this with Jack and Case Anker, too, since they were the same age as Daniel and Calvin.

Daniel is getting ready.

Calvin seemed to be a natural and had lots of fun -- look at that big smile! (check out the video of him doing this at the end of the blog post).

Daniel had fun racing Jack on saucers. They seemed to think that was the fastest way to get down the hill.

Norah was a total trooper -- she reminded us of Daniel when we went 3 years ago. She just hiked up that sledding hill over and over!

Having so much fun!

Getting ready to go

This is view of the hill where we did most of the sledding-- just to give you an idea of what it looked like, although it's a little hard to get a feel for the degree of decline.

Norah is getting ready to throw an ice chunk. Notice that she's not wearing a winter coat. It was so warm while we were up there; it was sufficient to wear snow pants and mittens to stay dry most of the time.