Family Trip, Part 1

Jeff, Griffin and I were in the mountains this past weekend with my side of the family. There were 10 of us ... my Mama and Daddy, Jeff, Griffin and me and my brother, his wife and their three kids.

We do this trip every year from a Thursday to Sunday. It's always during the summer, but the dates just sort of vary depending on what everybody has going on.

I think this was the last year we could play it by ear, though. I had a really hard time finding a house for us. The houses we've rented before now require a 5-day minimum rental, and we just can't stay that long. And as I started searching some other rental house websites, I was running into the same problem.

In my search, I found a house I really like in a different mountain town than we usually go to. I was going to book it this year, but it was already booked for the weekend we had available. I told my family how much trouble I had finding the house, and we all agreed that for next year, I'm just going to pick some dates, and we'll work around them. It's a little scary to have to book so far in advance, but I guess that's what you have to do to get the place you want.

Anyway, our requirements for our house are as follows: at least three bedrooms, at least two bathrooms, a living room big enough for all of us, a kitchen equipped for cooking (as we eat most meals at the house), a firepit and some kind of water (preferably a river or creek).

The house I found met all our needs and exceeded some. It had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a living room, a game room, a well-equipped kitchen, a firepit, and according to the house's website, a short, pleasant walk to take you to an easy river access.

The website lied. It was a long, long, LONG walk straight down hill to the river. Then when we got there, we found an overgrown staircase that stopped about 4 feet above the river. That in itself wasn't terrible because we could've jumped, but it looked like someone had put a big metal box into the river as a last step, but it had been there so long, it had warped and rusted. No river access and a straight-uphill walk back to the house.

It wasn't a huge deal, but we did feel a little deceived.

Other than that, everything was really nice. The mattresses on the beds were the nicest rental-house mattresses I've ever slept on. 

The house was 2,300 square feet, which is a good bit bigger than any of the other houses we've rented. But it was really nice that there was a living room and game room where we could spend time together. And there were also two wraparound decks, a small yard, a loft area and other places where each of us could also spend some time alone.

Here are a few pictures from the house's website:

The room where Jeff, Biscuit and I slept. Biscuit has this cool little cot that we can set up almost anywhere.

My brother and sister-in-law's bedroom.

Obviously we didn't visit when there was snow, but you can
see the house better in this photo than in the summer one.

The living room. The doors go out onto the deck.

The loft area. My nephew slept on the futon in the loft.

The bedroom where my parents slept. It was the only bedroom on the main floor.

The game room in the basement. There was also a bedroom and bathroom
down there, and a deck that wraps around the whole bottom floor.