Hi!  And Happy Wednesday!

How are things in your parts? (When I re-read this, I thought it said “how are things in your pants?”  Ha!)  Things here are great- spent the day with my parents on a tour of the new Mormon Temple downtown and then we had brunch at Green Eggs Cafe.  I had grand plans to get to the pool this afternoon, but that’s not going to happen so I thought I would finally update here about the epic family vacation we went on last week!

Due to conflicting schedules, we couldn’t plan any extravagant vacations that everyone could be a part of, so instead- we headed to the Pocono Mountains for a 3 day “adventure” vacation.  My mom did some research (bless her and her planning abilities) and decided that a 4 day vacation on Lake Wallenpaupak would be the perfect little getaway.  There is adventure, plenty to do, and plenty of ways to have a vacation without having to spend a lot of time together.  Kidding 😉

The vacation began on Thursday (early), but everyone was dragging their feet to get out the door and I was ready to goooo and get this vacation started. I was pretty angry that everyone was taking their good ol’ time.  All like….

Once we were eventually ready to leave, I was all like…

So we started the afternoon with some (pretty mediocre) sandwiches made by yours truly, eaten by the lake.

After lunch, we set out on a long hike that looped part of the lake and along the dam that was created awhile back.

We were pretty pooped after all of that hiking (about 8 miles in total), so we headed to the hotel, showered, and had dinner at the closest diner.  But before we did all of that, my dad and I took the most terrifying picture ever.

So glad I’m not a boy!

The next morning, we were up and out early!  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera on this day, so all of these photos are from my phone.  We started the day with a bike ride, which was pretty great since there is a FREE bike share program in Hawley. You can keep the bikes as long as you want.

The trails aren’t marked that well, so we did our best to follow the path.

We rode through the town for a bit…

And then Lee and I set out on a quick (UPHILL) 5 mile ride to a creek that the hotel receptionist told us about.

Besides the minor highway riding that we had to do to get there, it was absolutely worth it.

In the afternoon, we continued the adventures with a little kayaking and swimming in the lake.  Lee and I took out a kayak while my parents took a boat ride with other older folks 😉

It was so nice to spend an hour with my brother, making the dumbest jokes and cracking up over them.  It’s been a long time since we have done that!  And no fighting!!

After the kayaking, we took a quick dip in the lake but I wasn’t really into the muddy water.  We got changed and then headed up the road for some drinks overlooking the lake at The Dock on Wallenpaupak.

Drinks turned into dinner (everyone ordered burgers and fries but I wanted something fresher- fish in lemon sauce hit the spot!)

And then to end the night, we played a competitive game of corn hole- boys vs. girls, and guess what?!  Girls won!  And my mom scored 6/11 points for our team!  Actually, it was 10-10 and then I scored the last point.  Very exciting, especially with this sunset in the back.

(Silverbirches resort is right next door to their restaurant and the property has fire pits with chairs overlooking the water, as well as lawn games that we took advantage of).

On our last full day, we planned to go out for some family zip-lining and treetop adventures.  First stop, Milford- a small, all American town.

And then onto the adventures…

My brother and I were all for trying it, and my dad wanted to do the zipline, but with a 30 minute wait, I started to chicken out when I saw how HIGH these ropes courses were…

Instead of doing the courses, we headed to Bushkill Falls for some hiking.

The entrance fee seems steep when you arrive, but it’s worth it for the beautifully manicured and winding trails.

Bushkill is something you always see on bumper stickers, but none of us had been.  Now we can knock this one off our bucket lists!  Know what else we can cross off?  Seeing a wild bear!  We were walking and saw a couple taking pictures and then they told us they had seen a bear!  Within minutes, we saw the bear!

See the bear poppin’ it’s head out?!  Too cool.

Everything was so lush and green that I couldn’t help but stop every 2 minutes to take pictures of the trails and my family.

Along the way we saw a family doing (what appeared to be) the YMCA.

And we spent the last few minutes watching the water flow over the falls, talking about how amazing it all is.

That was it for the third day.  For dinner we stopped back in Milford for dinner at the Milford diner where we all really loved our food.  We stopped off for some homemade ice cream and live music afterwards, but agreed the ice cream wasn’t great.

The next morning, Lee and I got up (too early) to head to the hotel gym.  I really wanted to do a little bit of exercise before a long day in the car.  I just did a quick run/ walk on the treadmill and some light arm work before calling it a day and heading to breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed to a local conservatory for some hiking before the rain rolled in.

This place was full of cool mushrooms and growths that my dad and I (mostly my dad) had a field day taking pictures of.

And then we took our last family photos before heading out for the ride home.

We headed out to another town where we left Lee to catch the bus back to school.  It was a short, but very, very sweet family vacation.  We may bicker a lot and have our issues (like every family), but we love each other a whooooole lot, and I feel very lucky to be a part of this completely dysfunctional group.

But 3 days was plenty!