Aaah! It's Great to be Back!

After a 5 month hiatus, I'm baaaaaack! Aaron hooked up the computer for me this weekend and I'm back in communication with the outside world.

Last weekend Aaron's parents rented a cabin in Lake Arrowhead so the whole fam damily headed to the mountains. The boys have never seen snow, so this was the golden opportunity. The cabin was super sweet. It was 3 stories and the rooms were gigantic. You could see the lake from the HUGE balcony - it was just perfect. The only drawback (if you could call it that) was the cabin owner's sense of decorating style, or lack there of. There was a major theme throughout the cabin - Ducks...hundreds of them. Every shelf, lamp, picture, you name it was plastered with ducks.

In our upstairs bathroom there were duck hooks to hang your towels on. Above the toilet there was this lovely trio of duck heads.I'm sure they were placed there as a warning to whoever didn't wash their hands after using the bathroom that their eyes would be plucked out. In the living room there was a disco ball ornament cleaverly hung to the wooden beam with a bandaid.Clearly this must have been from other cabin renters or it would have had a duck on it too.

There was just enough snow on the shady areas of the mountain to take 4 little boys sledding. We found a great spot at Dogwood campground and let the boys have at it. Everett wasn't sure what to think of the snow at first, but after a little while of getting used to walking in it, he loved stomping around.
Since I'm hugely pregnant, I didn't get to take Ev sledding. I was limited to standing on the sidelines taking photos. Aaron and aunt Katie took Ev on a few sled rides.
He was a bit petrified, but by the last go down the hill managed to eek out a smile. Later that afternoon, we headed to Lake Arrowhead village for some ice cream and chocolate- yum! The weather was perfect - sun was warm, but the air was cold so you still got to wear a jacket. That night it was in the mid 20's, so we lit a fire, played cards and let the boys run around and play. Ev was up to his usual sleeping habits when he's in a new place which means - he doesn't sleep at all. By night 2 I was so tired I just brought Ev in bed with us.

About 3am we woke up to an alarm going off in the cabin. It was the carbon monoxide detector. Apparently the wind outside was causing the smoke in the fireplace to get pushed back into the cabin instead of out the chimney. We were told to open the windows, evacuate the cabin and that the fire department and an ambulance were on the way. I woke Aaron up and told him the news. "No way, I'm not leaving. Just open the window, we'll be fine." Aaah, yes...nothing like trying to sleep with freezing mountain air blowing through your window at 3am and a baby that wakes up every 30 minutes.

The fire department checked out the cabin with a "yep, smells like smoke in here!" (Duh)and had us keep the windows open to get fresh air in the cabin. Katie got her picture taken with them before they left - seize the moment! (I'm SURE this is what they looked like)

The next day, we had a lazy morning, packed up and headed home. Aaron had the awesome idea of taking the back way home a-la dirt fire roads. Looking back, I should have known better. I'm still not sure how Ev's head didn't bobble off his neck and I didn't go into early labor. None the less, we made it. We took Ev to the park before we got home. The weather was perfect, how could we not?