Ya’ll. I just had one of the sweetest weekends I’ve had in a long time. Matt finished school on Friday and is now on summer vacation, which means, lots of husband time!! He still has a football workouts a couple of days a week, but all in all, I will be seeing him a WHOLE LOT more. We decided to kick off summer with a trip to my family’s cabin on Smith Lake in Alabama. My grandfather built this cabin with his own two hands about 48 years ago, making it an iconic memory in our family. In the 5 years of us knowing each other, Matt had still never been there. It was time. We headed out with my parents Friday afternoon for a 3 day weekend of rest and relaxation.
Little did Matt and I know, but one of my brothers and his family came to surprise us at the lake! My parents found out that morning that they were coming and kept it a secret from us! It was such a fun surprise getting to spend the weekend with my nieces and nephew (and brother and sis-in-law!) who I dont’ get to see enough as it is. Living 500 miles apart makes it difficult but because of weekends like this past one, it doesn’t always feel so far! The only person missing was my other brother Jonathan. Next time, bro!
I seriously enjoyed getting me some Avery time. This little girl is already 7 months old and growing like a weed! Also, the rolls. How can you not love the wonderful thing that is baby rolls??
Saturday and Sunday we spent the majority of our time outside. Swimming, fishing, riding in the boat, cliff jumping, inner tubing, laying in the sun, and sitting around the campfire. It was good old fashioned fun free of schedules, TV, and computers (besides our phones, which I used to take all of these awesome-quality pictures.)
Matt, sporting one of my grandfather’s old fishing hats.
It took a while to get Rilynn to actually go in the big “pool” but once she did she seemed to enjoy it! As long as she had her floaties and her life jacket to keep her from going under.
The lovely Smith family (with the exception of Avery who was snoozing away in the cabin).
Terrible picture quality, but swimming with my dad at Smith Lake like old times had to be captured on camera!
Like father like son, lounging in Big Bertha.
Andrew was dying to go cliff jumping ever since we first started telling stories of the times we all cliff jumped last time we were at Smith Lake. When we took him to the first cliff, he decided it was a little too high for him. So we found about a 10 foot cliff that he conquered like a champ. And then….he worked up the courage to go back to the first cliff, as long as he could hold his daddy’s hand. He absolutely LOVED it and went back a second time to jump again!
Matt and I jumping the mini-cliff. We both jumped the big one at separate times, but I jumped so fast we didn’t get a picture. I didn’t want to take the time to look down.
Jason and Andrew jumping the massive cliff! I’m telling you, from the top, it looks like a much further way down.
The boys had some brother bonding on Big Bertha. It didn’t last too long before Jason went tumbling off.
Matt’s hat. Hahaha.
I attempted to take a panoramic of the lake while we were on the boat. Rather difficult considering the waves we were hitting.
I got to try my hand at driving the boat for the first time! Not as hard as I thought it would be, but I still think I’ll leave it up to the boys.
One final view of our cabin at the lake and the pier! We can’t wait to go back again many more times this year!
It was a great Memorial Day weekend. My sis-in-law agreed that we should definitely make it an annual tradition to kick off summer. Sound good, fam??
{ in pursuit } 