Gough Family Cabin

Or... as Justin likes to refer to it as, (the real) Camp David.

We all made it up to the cabin for the inaugural family trip in July.  It was a fun weekend.  The kids loved the 'kid cave' and the walks around the neighborhood.  I think it was Kate and Milo's first trip on the river, and it was a perfect day for it.  We loved the great food and playing games on the deck.  I'm excited for all of the fun memories we'll get to make together in the years to come.

Lafeen's in Littleton

Justin has been traveling to Denver for his drill weekends for about a year now, at Buckley Air Force Base.  I think I've mentioned on there that during his second or third time out I went with -no kids, for the weekend.  We met up with a friend of mine and his wife and had dinner together and then I met them with their kids at a Farmers Market another morning.  We talked about coming back out and bringing our kids another time.  Our oldest two are pretty much the same age, and our girls are freakishly similar.  Red hair, a love for everything pink and purple and girly, and a bit... on the dramatic side.

Justin found out there was a sponsered "Family Day" during the July drill weekend, so we did our best to make it happen then.  A last minute work trip changed up our trip a bit, we left a day later and came home a day and half earlier (no Rockies game) but we did end up staying with Taft and Lesha's family for the time that we were there.

It was a great weekend.  The kids loved it.  Hyrum and Lincoln played great together, whether it was video games, lego's or jumping on their two trampolines in the backyard.  They attempted to sleep out on the tramp one of the nights... but the dad's weren't there, and after about 6 minutes it was too scary for the 6 year olds, so they came in and camped out in the living room.  Kate and Harper played how every 4 year old girl does.  Best Friends one minute, and mortal enemies the next.  Luckily for all of us, the friend time lasted much longer than the enemy time, and actually as the weekend went on they did better and better together.  Our babies are further apart, theirs in nearly a year and with Milo being almost three, we just tried to keep her out of his way most of the time.  Somehow the adults even managed to hang out a bit as well, in between day trips, lunches, and refereeing arguments.  We had dinner and a walk downtown, locked our keys in the van, Taft made a dutch oven dinner and we roasted marshmallows in their backyard.  Our kids played hard and sometimes slept hard the entire time we were there.

Saturday we went to the family day on base.  They had games, lunch, face painting, sunscreen and a few patches of shade.  I guess they hadn't done anything like this at the base for years, so we both thought they did a pretty good job of it.

Sunday.... was a long drive home.  We're not really fans of the road trip.  We were hoping on leaving the base a bit early (3:30) and instead, he got released later than usual.  So... we rolled in our garage around 1:30 that morning.  The kids and I have had a pretty lazy day, packing boxes, watching movies, doing laundry and packing boxes.  We've got another 2 days, and then we're heading to Alpine, WY for our first trip to Mimi and Papa's cabin!! (And then more packing).

The Cabin

(For those of you keeping track... I'm WAY behind blog posts.  I'll catch up.  Later)

We had a cabin growing up.  It wasn't fancy, but it was awesome.  Close enough to go up for an evening, far enough away that it felt like you were getting away.  I have countless memories of going up there with our family, my dad's family, and every once in a while our extended family.  There was an irrigation canal 50 yards away that we'd walk to and play in.  A small creek on the property.  Tons of space within the fenced yard and surrounding areas.  There was a swing set out front.  A BBQ pit and picnic table after a while.  There was only two bedrooms, one on the main level, which is where the bathroom was, and another upstairs.  The coolest part was the steeper than steep stairs heading upstairs (which made for an awesome slide on foam mats) and a loft overlooking the living room.  My great-grandpa built it with the help of his 4 sons and whatever grandkids were around.  (My dad was on a mission when they built it).

It's now under contract to be sold, along with the 20+ acres surrounding it.  I insisted that we have one last evening up there, and even though not everyone could make it, I loved being up there once last time.