Fun in the County

I love going HOME to my roots.
My childhood was simple, and our fun was cheap.

We didn't have a t.v. for most of my growing up years, we were taught to use our imaginations to make up our own fun, and we learned rather quickly to never state that we were bored - because there was always a behemoth sized garden that either needed weeding or harvesting if one could never find anything to do.

Many of our family vacations were also spent here at the Quint Hunting Resort:

I assure you, there was no cable, no internet, no video games, and no texting on cell phones that ever took place here!

There WERE however, ginormous spiders in the outhouse, skunks that came up through the floorboards in the middle of the night while we were all in bed, some seriously scary bedtime stories accompanied by fathers and uncles who rigged booby traps in the middle of the night to terrify us, mattress rides through the mud, pond water for drinking, bonfires as big as the camp, and midnight spook walks where all of us kids were left alone in the woods to find our way back by ourselves.

My childhood was rich.
And it's the kind of childhood that I want to replicate for my own kids.
And besides - they're boys. They'll appreciate these sorts of things even more than I do....

So, anyway, we ALL love going up HOME.
And we all love the kind of good, clean, cheap "County" fun that takes place up there.

It involves:

:: Time away as a family. A break from life to play, reconnect, and just be. I especially love watching big Daddies with their little boys out in nature.

:: Playing in the leaves. Mom and Dad have a rockin' yard with tons of leaves for raking up and jumping into. I also really, really love the smell of the leaves on the ground. When I don't think about all that could be living under and around everything, I don't mind taking a running leap myself, once in awhile.

:: Grammies who celebrate each and every child and grandchild - complete with cake, decorations, and presents.

:: 4-wheeler rides. Every day. Sometimes more than once. Or twice. This is seriously, one of my most favorite things to do of all time. In the Fall, with the leaves changing, and all the boysies stoked about the possiblity of seeing a bird or a buck makes everything that much more fun and exciting. I just love every single thing about it...the trails, the conversation, being outside, not having to exert myself physically in any way, and every single one of my babies being lulled to sleep on one of these things.

:: Four-wheeling pit stops. On our day trips, we always park our Beverly Hillbilly contraption somewhere in the boondocks, and we have ourselves a little smorgasbord of funky deliciousness. Dad always has canned sardines or oysters, sharp cheese, crackers, and snacks of some sort; and Mom always packs treats, hotdogs for roasting, and all sorts of fun little snacks for everyone. Good times. And it is the ONLY time that I ever eat canned oysters and sardines. But somehow, it just seems like the right thing to do on these trips.

:: See that little itty bitty white building kind of in the middle of this pic? That's my sweet, little church where I was born and raised. There's something pretty special about taking my babies back to my roots where all of the older people in that building remember me when I was a baby.

:: Adventures with Mom. She and I always try to carve out a tiny little bit of alone time - just she and I - when we all go up North. On this particular trip, we kicked it for the afternoon for a winterberry quest to fill up all of her sap buckets and outside containers. Always a good time. The boots were pointless, as the best berries were at thigh level. Dad was gracious with the small ponds that I brought home inside his boots.

:: Little boys who live outside. The two go hand in hand.

:: And crazy times with Dad. Sometimes we catch and release...or catch and dispose of critters. Sometimes we go on nighttime moose calls. Sometimes we go on nighttime four-wheeling adventures to terrify Mom. And sometimes we go on hunting excursions where we're fairly certain that he is intentionally trying to get us lost. But no matter the adventure, it's crazy and it's always fun. And I especially love when certain aspects of my childhood are replicated for my own children to love and remember.

Yes, fun in the County.
There's nothing much like it.