Cabin Memories

We made so many wonderful memories at the cabin in the short 5 years we owned it. I'm going to share a few of them so I always have them recorded. Actually, there are a lot of them. I stole a lot of pictures from Tiffany's blog and tried to look for some that I know we have somewhere, but I can't seem to find them. If any of my kids want to add more pictures to this, please send them to me. The pictures are going to be in random order - I tried to organize them, but decided I would just write about them as I upload them.

We loved seeing the wildlife walk by our cabin. One morning we awoke to 2 huge elk eating apples off our tree in the front yard. Unfortunately, the camera was in the car and I couldn't go out to get pictures of them, but they had huge horns and they were able to reach pretty far up the apple tree. Besides deer and elk, we've seen javalina, skunks, and lots of squirrels. Our neighbor has seen a bear on his front porch before.

Look how little Kylie and Lexi were when we first got the cabin! All of our grandkids probably don't remember a time when we didn't have it.

One of our favorite times to go to the cabin was when it snowed. We watched the forecast and tried to plan a trip up there when snow was expected. The hills around the cabin were perfect for sledding down and we also had a favorite hill off of Highway 87 that we went to until they shut it down. 

I have to explain the writing on the drawer above. When Lexi was a baby, we put her pack & play in the mud room where it was quiet and she slept in there. One morning we woke up and Lexi had found a marker in the drawer and written all over the drawer. I actually thought it was so cute that I left it there and even had her sign her name to it. Well, when Sadie was the same age, she must have seen Lexi's artwork and thought she could add to it, because that's just what she did. You'd think I would have learned to put the marker in a different place, but we went ahead and signed Sadie's name to the drawer as well. We now have this drawer in our garage at home and I'll always remember how cute these little ones were. 

We were happy that Holly, Jeff, Claire and Michael were at our house for Christmas one year (2007, I think) and were able to go to the cabin with us when there was snow. 

This is Tyler with Sadie and BJ with Sam on one of our cabin trips.

One of my favorite things about the cabin was when the grandkids all hopped into bed with us in the mornings. I loved it! Lexi, Kylie and Sadie are here with me on this morning. 

We loved going to the Community Park in Payson. Lexi and Sadie are here with Papa.

We used to have a canoe that we took to the Community Park in Payson and floated around in. This is BJ, Shannon and Kylie. We also took the canoe to Blue Ridge Reservoir a couple of times.

More pictures at the cabin and at Community Park

We played fun games, went for lots of walks, rocked in the hammock and painted the deck with water. 

One of our favorite things to do was go for walks when it was getting dark - just before the kids went to bed. They all had a flashlight in hand and Tyler would throw rocks in the bushes and tell them it was a bear. None of the kids ever believed him though! He also told the kids that a troll lived under this bridge, so they always wanted to go down and see if the troll was there.

We snuggled and told stories.... 

We made trains out of the chairs.....

We loved sitting on the porch. Even though we had a huge deck on the back of the house, we always migrated to the front porch and crammed as many chairs as we could there. It was especially fun sitting on the porch during rain storms - another one of our favorite times to be at the cabin. We saw some pretty awesome storms from that front porch. In fact, one time Michael and I were playing Yhatzee on the front porch and came really close to being struck by lightning. 

Here is our view from the front porch..

We loved going to the Payson Community Park for fireworks on 4th of July. It was so much cooler in Pine than it was in the valley. We had lots of fun rolling down hills and anticipating the fireworks. 

BJ and Shannon waiting for the fireworks.

Sadie in Papa's hat 

Sam in Papa's hat. 

Shannon, Sam and Brodi waiting for fireworks 

Ty and Tiff waiting for fireworks

Here are my boys on the cabin back porch. 

The kids loved playing on the swings and in the sandbox. And they loved it when Tyler brought his big toys to the cabin!

Especially ETHAN!

We loved having a visit from Holly, Jeff, Claire, Ethan, Michael, Mallory, Madie and Grandma for Thanksgiving 2010. We were able to come to the cabin for a very short visit, but we had fun.

Mallory, Claire and Madie are playing ring a round the rosie...

Sadie shared her air mattress with Ethan. Their heads were each at the end of the mattress and their feet were in the middle. It was so cute - they got to be good buddies.

Mal entertained Ethan and Sadie!

And we played Don't Eat Pete.

Here is Grandma Clark holding Madie

Kylie, Tiff and Lexi

Shannon and Sam

We had the best food ever when we were at the cabin! Everything always seemed to taste better up there. We always had great breakfasts (thanks Ty) with pancakes, bacon/sausage, eggs, orange juice. A great way to wake up in the morning! We also barbecued a lot, made peach cobbler and LOTS of chocolate chip cookies. Papa even made bread a few times.

Here are BJ and Tyler having dinner with their girls.

We also liked to go on hikes. We went to Tonto Natural Bridges several times. Holly, Jeff, Claire and Ethan are on a hike in this picture.

We loved playing these games at the cabin. We get together every Sunday and never seem to play games, but at the cabin, we played games and had such a good time.

One of the sad memories I have of the cabin is July 2008 when our 13 year old dog, Spike died. I was on my way to the cabin and I had him in his crate in the back of our pick-up truck. We had transported him like this many times with no problems. For some reason and in some way, he managed to get out of his crate while I was going 70 mph and he jumped from the back of the truck. In the fall, he broke all of his legs and I knew with his age, it would be really hard for him to heal. So, I made the decisioin to go on to the cabin and knowing he would probably die on the way there, decided to bury him at the cabin. Ty and Tiff were behind me by about 20 minutes, so I knew Ty could help me when we got to the cabin. Much to my surprise, when I arrived at the cabin, Spike was still alive, but I could tell he was in pain. When Ty arrived, we went to the vet in Payson and had Spike put to sleep. It was horrible and I cried many tears for that little guy. Tyler dug a grave in the backyard and we buried him there, while Tyler whistled Amazing Grace! I'm so glad Tyler was there to help me with this. Actually, Spike was Tyler's dog in the first place, but I bonded with him. Here is Spike and also some pictures of his grave at the cabin. This was one of the biggest reasons I didn't want to sell the cabin. My Spike is buried there.

So, I hate to end on a sad note, but it is really sad for me to sell the cabin. I still have all of my decorations in a box in the garage because I hope to have another cabin someday. Here are the pictures of our moving day. I think I'm not the only one that is sad. What do you think?

Kylie and Lexi getting their favorite rocks they gathered from the rock wall Papa built.

The empty rooms

and the moving truck with some very sad girls sitting in it

I'm so thankful for this little cabin. It has brought our family closer and created a fun atmosphere for us to enjoy each other's company and get to know each other better. I can look back at the great memories we had here and look to the future for other ways to create some of these same feelings. Looks like it's time to dust off the camping gear and make some new memories.