Christmas at the Cabin

Here's Part 2 of our Christmas pics, from our time at Mimi's cabin. We spent 3 days with Mimi, April's parents Janet and Zan, and sister Mary. It was a fun, care-free time and the kids had a lot of fun outside (at least Nate did, Elin's limit in the cold is 5-10 minutes). Thanks Mimi for a great time!

This is the lake Mimi's cabin sits on, currently a beatutiful winter wonderland.

And Mimi's cabin from the lakeside... picturesque!

April's family are big game-players. As you can see, Nate's catching onto checkers pretty quickly!

April and Mary playing Mancala. Mary was kicking all of our booties in this one, but I did manage to beat her one time!

Mary and Nate before our hike... note Nate is still smiling :)

Zan, Mary, Nate and I went for a 1.5 mile hike through the woods... this little trooper did a great job considering we were going through thick snow and up and down some hills.

Near the end he started getting a bit grumpy and tired, so he took a ride on my back a couple of times. Overall, great job Nate! Note Zan and Mary waiting for us in the background.

Lunch with the family! This was a tasty treat after the hike. Notice some of us kept our winter coats/hats on... we were close to the door which consistently let in arctic blasts of air.

One of the family's winter traditions at the cabin is building a sled run down the hill to the lake. This was our sled run (Zan and I put this one together), apparently humble compared to some past runs. It was tons of fun, though, way fast with a couple of unintended air-borne jumps. There were a couple of casualties, but overall it was great and the kids loved it (climbing back up was a different story).

This is a shot of the upper half of the run...

and this is part of the lower half (into the dark abyss!)

Nate flying down...

... and Elin with Mary. I sent Elin down once alone, but she would only ride with someone else after that (can't imagine why).

Nate truly has no fear, sometimes I have to instill a little in him. After several crashes he would just get up and go again... where does he get this from?

"Marshmellows roasting on an open fire..." I learned that I very much prefer s'mores with dark chocolate Hershey bars instead of milk chocolate.

I don't think Nate cares what kind of chocolate is on his.

Grandma Jan and the kids. Great to see you Grandma Jan!