California trip: cousin time

Once we knew we were going to make a trip to the cabin, we invited Heidi and her kids to join us. (Kent's brother, Sam, works at the nut company with Kent's dad, and this time of year they're putting in crazy long hours, 7 days a week, so it was just Heidi and the kids.)

Nicholas and Ellie love their cousins, 

and we do too. These are some fantastic, adorable, creative, and kind children. 

Once again, just like our reunion back in June, there wasn't a single cousin-to-cousin argument. (sibling-to-sibling is a bit of different story....but that's the way it is sometimes.)

These kids ran, imagined, stomped through the forest, and got very creative. 

They made snowflakes with Grammer,

 Concentration! Snowflakes are serious business.

Went to eat at Giant Burger (the cabin is located in the cutest woodsy teeny little mountain town.)

Nicholas and Preston decided that theirs was "The Boy Table" and only boys could sit there.

Ellie has now told me several times that "Carlee is mine best friend!"
She even sat happily while Carlee played with and braided her hair one night.
This is huge, people. Ellie generally freaks when I even try to comb her hair, let alone attempt to braid it or put it in a pony tail.

If we lived closer, I'd be tempted to drive Ellie to Sam and Heidi's house every morning so Carlee could do her hair for me.

We went to an awesome park/lake/beach

 (Quick side note: Nicholas never wants to be pushed high in the swings. He's always yelling at me that I pushed too hard. "Not so fast!"
Ellie? She yells at me for not doing underdogs and for not pushing her high enough.
Kids are awesome.)

 And tried really hard to not get too wet. Most of them were surprisingly careful and obedient.
The little one, Cole....well, he would have swam to the other side if we'd let him.

 Drew pictures in the sand,

Ellie even surprised us by writing the letter "E" for the first time.

We'll work on that.

And the kids later added their own decorative touches to the cabin.
Here's Ellie dressing up the little Welcome Bear:

And Nicholas and Carlee created this awesome leaf garland all on their own!
They were so proud. It was adorable.

I helped Heidi make pizza for lunch on Saturday. 

The Sunday we were there we drove down to Sam and Heidi's house to have dinner with the rest of the family. It was so great to see everyone!

This is the best group shot we could get of all the little cousins. 

And it pretty much sums up our weekend: