The last 3 years, my family, most of my extended family, and some of our friends that are just-like-family, have ventured up to the mountains of Big Bear! In years past, this trip has been all about the snow, snow, SNOW! However, as luck would have it, this year, I FINALLY broke down and bought my kids
actual snow clothes, and there was NO SNOW! :0((( We knew that would be the case in the days before our trip, so fortunately by the time our vacation had arrived, our disappointment had subsided, and our attitudes had rebounded. We began to look forward to the plus-sides of a no-snow-experience...
1. No snow meant a much easier drive up the mountain! Last year we were literally driving in a blizzard, and to say that provided much anxiety is an understatement. It was SO nice to have clear (and dry!) roads! And while snow-covered-trees-and-mountain-tops are a gorgeous sight, it was also really cool to see them "undressed"...God's creation is simply stunning!!!
Once we arrived at our cabin, and unpacked everything from our van, we had a little bit of down-time with our cousins. :0)
After that, there was the official celebration of the 8th birthday! I was keeping things low key this year...no party...just cupcakes for my Wyatt. :0)
Although, the "just cupcakes" (for my Lego Ninjago fan) were pretty cool, IMO ;0)...
...and so was the #8 sparkler/candle-thingy too!...
Wyatt of course loved gift-fest-2012! (Don't mind the black teeth from the black fondant cupcake decoration, lol)...
2. No snow also meant we weren't cabin-bound. In the prior years "the ladies" were so exhausted by driving in the snow, that by the time we reached our destination, we had no desire to leave the cabin in the next 24 hours! But this year, instead of having "the guys" bring us back something to eat after they had watched the football game in town, we decided that it would be fun for us all to go into town together for dinner! Mexican Food it was! :0)
(But more about "That Mexican Food" later.)
Back at the cabin, 3 nights of sleepover-silliness began! There was hilarity amongst those
in the cabin...
...and silliness was sent via text message to my younger sister (shout-out to Jenni!) who wasn't scheduled to arrive until the next day. We sent her pictures of me in her room...
...waiting for her by her bathtub...
...her bed...
...and her fireplace...
We stayed up way too late having too much fun. :0)
However, our night came to a close when we discovered that Anna's middle child, Jackson, had puked, echoing, "Ooooh, that Mexican Food..." :0(
That was the end of our first day/night in Big Bear.
My morning began (and by "morning", I mean, it was *technically* morning, and only 1 hour after I had gone to bed) with Wyatt waking up and needing to vomit...followed by the saying of, "Oooooh, that Mexican Food..." :0(
That first night was a ROUGH night. I think I got an accumulative, but not consecutive, 3 hours of sleep.
By *real* morning, both Jackson and Wyatt were 100% better, were acting 100% healthy, and never had a problem for the rest of the weekend. Praise the Lord!
An hour after waking up though, lol, Trevor, Anna's oldest son, had a solo puke session as well! He too spoke the words, "Oooooh, that Mexican Food..." LOL! (It just was funny to us that none of them had heard each other (or us) say that, but individually they all said the exact same thing!)
Once Trevor was
done, all Mexican Food related puking was done. WooHoo!!! (But you see how I left that window open for all other related puking to be had??? Yep. Sigh. A couple of hours later, my younger sister and her family would arrive in BB...unfortunately My sister and her son Zachary were getting a belly ache in those final twists and turns up the mountain...literally right as they parked in front of our cabin, Zachary announced, "I just threw-up!" LOL!!! OK, noooooow all puke stories are done!)
There were sweet moments to be captured on that first morning waking up in Big Bear... :0)
My mom and her sister (shout-out to Auntie Veronica!) in full work/technology-mode! We've got an iPad, an iPhone, and a laptop all in action in this picture, lol!
Trevor, before he got sick, lol...
Jackson & Wyatt after they had gotten sick, lol...
And my sister Anna with her God-Daughter, Beatrice...
In Big Bear, all of the meals are divided up amongst all of the guests as to who is responsible for buying/making/cleaning-up-after them. It works out really well! My meal with my team is always Friday morning breakfast. I LOVE it! Thursday arrival/meals are a free-for-all, and so our first organized meal together is Friday morning. I love getting my responsibility done and over with first thing so I have the rest of the vacation without that hanging in the balance. I'm the team captain for this meal, and after making those pumpkin doughnuts a few weeks ago at home, I came up with the fun idea to do a doughnut breakfast bar for our meal...SUCH FUN!
In addition to fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, and sausage, we made 3 different kinds of doughnuts...Chocolate, Pumpkin, and Plain...
...we had 3 different kinds of dipping glaze...Butterscotch, Chocolate, and Plain White Icing...
...and finally, welcome to topping fest! We had powdered sugar (not pictured), rainbow sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, sliced almonds, crushed peppermint, marshmallows, and graham cracker crumbs (we were also supposed to have chopped peanuts, and shredded coconut, but those 2 items didn't make it up the mountain)...
The doughnuts were a lot of fun!...
My personal fave at "The Damsels Doughnut Bar" was the suggested idea of a "Smores Doughnut"...although, I also added almonds to that combo...YUM!
After breakfast, in our down time, there was a fishing trip...
...some playing of cards...
...winners, winners, chicken dinners...
...There was general-playing-of-the-Nintendo-D.S. ...
...and holey-sock-playing-of-the-Nintendo-D.S. ...
Then lunch time rolled around.
Friday Lunch is always a competition of some sort.
The first year, there was the meatball competition (which my dad won), last year was the chili competition (which my sister Jenni won), and this year was the Mac-N-Cheese competition (which my Auntie Veronica won)...
In addition to Mac-N-Cheese, my sister Anna and her team added some retro side dishes consisting of hot dogs, jello salad...
...and a beautiful "regular" salad...
Or, in the case of my dad, he preferred gutting and eating the fish he had caught that morning, eeek!...
Either way, you couldn't go wrong with your choices...lunch was fabulous!!!...
After the heavy-carb-loading, it was nap time!...on the couch...for the "senior citizens", lol!...
Meanwhile, there was an on-going game of hide-and-seek all weekend...but not of the usual kind. I was given the CUTEST stuffed 3-fairy-God-Mothers from the movie Sleeping Beauty, and it was my job to hide them around the "main cabin" (we rented 3 cabins for our large group, but one of them is the very largest, and considered the main cabin...where we eat, and generally gather for all fun, etc.)...the kids had to find the fairies, and once they did, they brought them to me and they got to pick a bag of money (various amounts
somewhere between 50 cents and $10) out of my goody-box. Each kid could find a fairy and get a prize up to 3 times total during the weekend. This was a lot of fun!...
In between lunch and dinner, there was also some TV watching...
...and some intense planning/preparing for a post-dinner-party done by Wyatt and Zachary...
I'm SO disappointed, but I did not get a single picture of Friday Night dinner put on by the Team of Barbara, My dad, My step-mom, and cousin Carl. :0( Shortly before dinner we were celebrating my cousin Rebecca's birthday with a toast...
...and then rest of the night was conveniently (???) not photographed, lol!
One thing is for sure though...dinner was AMAZING! They grilled up the best hamburgers and had 100 (slight exaggeration) different toppings, along with BBQ baked beans, chips, and???
For dessert my step-mom made her famous Cherry Crunch and Apple Crunch...Mmmmmm...everything was deeeeeelicious!
The only thing better than dinner was the hilarious gab fest that went well into Saturday morning!
But more about Saturday another time... :0)
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