Cabin Life's Coming to a Close

Summertime at the cabin is coming to a close. It's the time of year where people are dressing in sweatshirts and jeans by the campfire at night, acorns and pine cones liter the yard and docks are being pulled out of the lake. We have three more weekends left of our summer cabin rental agreement. It's a sad part of the year where we putz around the lake and wonder where the summer's gone. What once was filled with anticipation for fun, sunny days ahead is now dread for snow and cold. I guess that's what enjoyable about living in a place with four seasons. There's never time to grow tired of hot summer sun because it's gone before you know it. Autumn rushes in with beautiful fall colors, apple orchards and pumpkins.

I worked at the Gopher football game on Saturday, so our cabin time was cut short this weekend. In a role-reversal, Andi had Tory and all of our things packed up and ready to go when I arrived home from work and we left town around 6pm. It's feels strange to hear about their daddy/daughter day together while I'm at work. I much prefer being the one at home who gets to play at the park and go for walks with our little Bean, but it's also nice for them to spend some quality one-on-one time together.

Our friends Ellie and Derrick were already at the cabin when we arrived Saturday evening, along with their friends Maia and Billy. They had prepared delicious ribs and corn on the cob on the grill for dinner. Andi put Tory down to sleep, and I put my feet up and relaxed. After dinner, we sat by the bonfire, drank a few beers and laughed until our faces hurt. Sometimes those night are so unexpected and such a treat. Friends around a fire, laughing and talking. It was perfect.

Sunday, Ellie and Derrick left with their friends and Andi and I decided to take Tory to the apple orchard. We visited the same orchard last year when Tory was just three months old. I remember her being so tiny and worrying about her being outside in the wind and cool breeze. A year later, she was tottling all around the farm. For some reason, she was afraid of the pumpkins and won't touch them or sit next to them for a picture. Maybe because they were big and orange? Who knows. The farmer took us on a hay rack ride around the pumpkin patch. Then Andi and I pulled Tory around the farm in a little red wagon. She had a blast looking at all the trees and pumpkins.

We picked out two big pumpkins for our front porch and bought some Honeycrisp Apples to take home. I love the tradition we've started by taking Tory to this orchard every fall. I hope we'll be able to go back every year. It'll be fun next year to watch Tory pick out her own pumpkin from the patch.

Andi and I talked about cabin life on our drive back to the Cities. Renting a cabin in the summertime is such a good investment for our family. Every weekend we spend quality time together, enjoying the outdoors and each other's company. We eat meals together. We laugh. We spend time in nature. Those are the memories we want our child(ren) to grow up experiencing.