our week in the poconos

we had dreams for a more exotic family vacation, but one thing led to another and we ended up in our own backyard. we drive through the poconos every time we head to poppy and grandma's house, what an unusual sensation to stop and get off the highway and make that our home-away-from-home for a week of family vacation time. somehow seeing deer on vacation is SOOO much more exciting that seeing the deer we see all the time at home.....
ron and his family came for a short visit over the weekend. ron and eric were able to steal away to the nascar race and emily and i occupied all the kiddos. we also had mimi's family come up to their family house for part of the week. it was fun getting to see them outside of home and do new and exciting things with them.

a brief recap of our trip in photos...


playing baseball and all sorts of games right out back of our condo. we were on top of a ski slope (well, they called it a ski slope, keep in mind we're still in PA you have to use your imagination) and had a beautiful view.


swimming in the icy waters in the pool associated with our condo. gracie and i were the only ones brave enough to go in!


jackson taking a turn driving mimi's pop pop's boat on lake wallenpaupack when they visited us over the week.


again, little miss swimmer braved the waters to dabble in a little lake swimming.


and here's little miss pass out realizing that a weeks worth of vacation activities is proving to be a little much for our BIG girl. she actually fell asleep sitting up while the boat was moving full speed holding on the hand rail. poor thing....


FINALLY jackson braves the chilly waters on his own time and in his own way hours later.


now THAT'S a bubble bath! what more could a girl want than a jacuzzi bubble bath!


a trip to claws n' paws. a local "zoo". never saw a giraffe so close up before! they do feedings there and he comes right out to you!


family portrait on our way out.

things i didn't have the camera for were a trip to the county fair. we had a GREAT time on the rides and winning expensive really cheap stuffed animals and getting to see all the farm animals up close. and a trip to the amusement park which started out iffy with whiny and tired kids but ended up being a great afternoon of bumper boats, go karts, mini golf, and a little swimming, of course by just me and grace:-)

action packed, fun filled, great time had by all. vacations don't necessarily mean the same thing once you have kids. we still go go go, partly because we want to do fun things in new places but partly we know the kid's need to DO stuff will eventually drives us out anyway! so we may have over planned but we enjoyed everything we did and you can tell the kids did just about the right amount that when their heads hit the pillows at night the fell asleep fast and hard.