Cottage Weekend, 2012

We spent the weekend at a friends' cottage, where the weather and the company were magical and perfect. No, really. They were. I'm not sure if it's because our families don't spent a ton of time together during the school year or if the all-boy family meets up with the all-girl family and cancels out the excesses of each, but it was literally three days of gloriousness. Excellent moments and miracles included:

• All five children sleeping in a room together with nary a peep after bedtime. (Well, except for that second night, when we got cocky and tried to put them to bed a little earlier, thinking they must be completely exhausted, and then we got them back out of bed to see the complete double rainbow happening over the sand dunes. Other than that, no peeps.)
• An hour or three in the hot tub with my BFF, where we talked about every possible topic and I saw a shooting star. For real.
• Lots of boards: stand-up paddle board (hard), a cheese board for grown-up cocktail hour (yum), and boogie boards for all on Sunday, when the waves were oceanic in their height and none of us could resist the water (awesome and exhausting).
• Two families sitting down to eat great meals together, with a little prayer beforehand and lots of armpit farting during.
• Getting the kids up on skis when the water was calm, and how encouraging, brave, and proud they all were.
• Throwing little wads of children high into the air and watching them land with a splash, go under, and come up, big-eyed, to say, "Again!"
• Watching the sunset, watching kids slingshot rocks from the deck into the water, watching the Olympics, watching five blonde heads crowd around to play Angry Birds and Bayblades after breakfast in the morning.

We came home sandy, happy, and tired, and with a ton of laundry and cooler-cleaning to do. Worth every minute.