From Dixie to Dairy: Winter Get-Away (Part One)

LL and I are Food Network junkies. We get the magazine, we love to watch the shows. One night last fall, we were watching Chopped, and one of the chefs featured worked at Camp of the Woods, a Christian camp in upstate New York. Growing up in New York, I had heard of the camp and knew people from my high school and college who worked there. I mentioned that to LL, and he decided to get online and check out what types of things they offered. He found they offered an all-inclusive family weekend for President's Day, and we decided to go. LL's brother Andy and his family decided to come with us as well.

We left at 3:30am Friday morning. Yes, you read that right. 3:30. This was actually a "late" start for us, since we planned on leaving at 3:00am, but somehow our alarm didn't go off/got turned off and we woke up at 2:54am. So by the time we loaded the kids, drove to Andy's house, loaded them, and left, it was about 3:30. My kids were both awake and excited. And actually... happy.

At 3:30am.

(You can see Trey laughing. Collette was actually happy, too, but the flash on my phone was too bright for her in the middle of the night. And the weird glow behind her is the reflective material on the kids' coats in the back seat.)

The trip actually went really well. The kids were awake for a while and then slept for a bit, and we made good time-- which is no small feat for two vans caravanning with 5 children aged 6 and under!

Happy travelers getting close to the Adirondack mountains!

We got there an hour or so before lunch, just like we planned--

because you know LL wouldn't miss a meal! :)

"Camp" may be a little bit of a misnomer... we actually stayed in the hotel they have on site. (They do have lots of more cabin-type buildings, but since it's the dead of winter, they were not in use.) The building we stayed in had the dining room (with the awesome food that originally interested LL) and... an indoor pool. To Collette, "vacation" is synonymous with "swimming." She asked the entire almost 7-hour trip if it was time to swim yet. :) So, right after we got settled in, we hit the pool!

It goes without saying, they had a blast.

Trey loved his turtle floatie... at first.

Then he decided getting in all the way in the water, like the big kids, was more fun. So he started leaning waaaay over the side of his floatie and almost flipping it over in an attempt to get his face in the water. Silly boy. Looks like we may have another adrenaline junkie on our hands.

Splashing with Daddy was way more fun. :)

My happy girl so excited to finally be at the pool!

We finished our swim in time for lunch, and after lunch we all took a nice, long nap. Bliss!!

After our nap, we went exploring. I stopped to take this picture of Collette in the snow:

And the staff photographer ran into us and asked if he could take a picture of Collette, too, which is now featured on their page. :)

via

We also went snow tubing for the first time that night. Since it has been "warm" (Read: at or slightly above freezing) the tubing was relatively slow. When we went tubing again before we left, it had been in in the sigle digits for a few days-- and that tubing hill was so.fast. I may or may not have screamed the entire way down. :) And let me tell you what-- if you are looking for a good work-out, dragging innertubes containing children weighing between 25 and 40 pounds up a steep hill in the snow is a great way to get your cardio!