October, a wonderful month with family

For most of the month of October we had my parents visiting with us, and we had a very good time together.

The highlight of their time here was probably our road trip that we took to the Adirondack mountains, Niagara Falls, Toronto and Pennsylvania to visit our friends the Tysons and the Braunings.

We rented a car for our trip, and though we booked a minivan, we were given a big SUV. There were a few moments of wondering if we could possibly fit all our stuff in (mostly food!), but we managed. In the end, the big gas guzzler wasn’t too bad, despite our initial hesitations. Oupa sat in the middle between the kids and was amazing at keeping them happy and entertained, or as acting as a pillow.

Thankfully Esther decided on this trip that sleeping in the car wasn’t such a bad thing after all, and we got a few naps!

With this post, I’ll start off by showing you photos from our time in the Adirondacks. We stayed at a place called Lapland Lake, which is actually a cross-country skiing resort in the winter, but they have cabins that are available all year round.

We had a cosy little ‘tupa’ and my mum enjoyed its fireplace.

It was cold enough to enjoy its warmth, except perhaps the first night when I encouraged mum to stoke it well so it wouldn’t die out in the night. A couple of hours later, Ben woke up half-delirious from the heat and threw open all the doors and windows muttering under his breath things about “sauna” and “hot!”. Needless to say, the fire wasn’t stoked again. Oh well, it was funny in the morning!

Talking about saunas — there was a sauna in the office building that was complimentary to use, and all of us except Ben did use it. The lodge is run by a Finnish couple, and so the sauna was a traditional Finnish sauna, whatever that means — I’m no sauna connoisseur! I just know that it was hot!

We arrived mid-afternoon, and took advantage of the nice calm afternoon to enjoy the beautiful lake about 10 minutes’ walk away. The walk was lovely, and the autumn colours stunning.

At the lake, the kids enjoyed the ‘beach’ and the swing set.

The kids weren’t the only ones who enjoyed the beach!

We tried the paddle boats, and some of us even tried the canoes. There were a few almost capsizing moments, but thankfully we stayed (mostly) dry.