Staying in Hocking Hills

Each year for my family's annual cabin weekend my parents, sister, brother-in-law, Antoine and I usually go to either Hocking Hills or Gatlinburg and rent a cabin for a few nights.  We've been doing it for about 6 years now and it's almost always in November so we can celebrate my dad's birthday and Thanksgiving together.  This past November we decided to be a bit fancy and rent this vacation rental in Hocking Hills through Home Away.  It's definitely different from the log-cabin we normally get, but fulfilled our 3 bedroom and at least 2 bathroom requirements.  And while it was a good place to stay, it certainly was not my most favorite and had some definite design flaws.

The big windows and modern design totally drew me in, but the windows ended up being less than ideal since from 7am to 11am the sun shone through them relentlessly and made it impossible to watch tv (which is always what my dad does in the morning on such trips).

The main-level bathroom (which my sister, brother-in-law, Antoine and I shared) was my favorite part of the house...mainly the enormous bathtub!  The showers were enormous as well, like 8'x8', but the shower heads were positioned too high so by the time the water hit you it just felt like a light drizzle.

Loved that bathtub!  And I was so thankful that I brought a bunch of Lush bath products with me!

The first room you encounter in the house is probably the strangest!  It's a fairly large room and probably 75% of it is taken up by a gigantic koi pond.  It is kind of ridiculous and the fountain is slightly loud.  It is on an automatic timer and shuts off at night, but when it kicks back on around 7am it kind of sounds like someone is in the shower from the bedrooms....that didn't bother me too much though.  My main issue with the koi pond was purely design related.  So much of the main-level was dedicated to this unnecessary thing and the design/space for the kitchen and eating area suffered greatly.  Granted this would not be an issue if you weren't planning to do much cooking, but we always do during these family weekends.  We cook practically every meal, including your average, overboard Thanksgiving dinner.  And the kitchen was tiny!  It was tight if there were just two people in it (and Antoine and I are practiced at cooking together in a tiny kitchen...but this one was actually smaller than ours) and sometimes there were four of us in there at once.

The entry room also had a high-top table and chairs and a pair of big massage chairs over in the corner near the windows.  While I was not a fan of the massage chairs (they were a little terrifying and way too intense), my dad absolutely loved them!

One thing that we hadn't noticed in the listing photos for the rental was that one of the three bedrooms was actually an open loft.  We always try to avoid lofts (for a variety of reasons) when booking a place for our family weekend.  My parents took the loft, which had it's own bathroom with an equally enormous shower to the main-level bathroom.

There was also a really nice deck outside with a hot tub that looked out onto a yard below with a fire pit and little pond.  It was too chilly in November to really enjoy the deck, but my sister did take a dip in the hot tub...she can never resist a hot tub!

All in all, not the best place we've ever stayed for family weekend, but probably not the worst either.  I mean, that bathtub was pure magic and made the whole stay worth it for me.  Also, the weird koi pond in the front room wasn't all bad...at least there were cute fish to look at and feed!

A Hike, or Two, in Hocking Hills

Oh, hi there.  Remember me?  Did you think I'd fallen off the face of the earth or my computer exploded or something?  Nope.  I just needed a little break from the blog and from editing photos, I guess.  But hopefully I've gotten my drive to edit back, because I sure as hell have a ton or photos to go through!  And I'm going to have a lot more in the coming months, what with a couple upcoming trips and Spring flowers popping up everywhere!  So in preparation for all that, here are some photos from November...yep, that's right, November (don't judge me too much!).  This past November my parents, sister, brother-in-law, Antoine, and I went to Hocking Hills for our annual family cabin weekend where we celebrate my dad's birthday and Thanksgiving, all in one fell swoop!  I decided to share some pictures from out little walk in the woods one afternoon.

We started off in Conkle's Hollow so my parents could come along, since it's a paved, short hike and usually not as crowded as some of the other Hocking Hills spots.  As it was November, there were still some remnants of snow and ice from the day before and it was quite chilly.

My dad posing in a cave.

After Conkle's Hollow my parents headed back to the vacation rental we were staying at the the kids proceed back up the road to Old Man's Cave, which I had been to in ages.  And boy has it changed since the last time I was there.  It was also super crowded, in comparison to Conkle's Hollow.  We stopped into the visitor's center for a second, so everyone could go to the restroom and whatnot.  While waiting on the others I spotted these guys and couldn't resist taking their picture.

Well, that's all for now.  I'll be back in a day or two with more photos, but until then...happy Monday!

Mabel Update (in Instagram)

Today Mabel, our basset puppy and newest member of our family, is 17 weeks old!  It's crazy to think that she's only been in our lives a little over two months.  Life with Mabel has had its ups and downs.  She had a lot of health issues when we first got her: worms, ear mites, fleas, etc.  Combine that with all the puppy vaccines and our vet bills were definitely not fun.  She's also still struggling with her potty training, and other things like jumping and chewing on things she shouldn't (i.e. my winter hat, Cheese's harness, rocks, mulch...).  She's also a wild, little ball of energy, more so than Cheese ever was, or at least that's how it feels!

But man, oh man, does she melt my heart.  Those big brown eyes and her utter silliness just slay me.  She loves to chase her tail like it's out to get her and she will very often roll around in Cheese's dog bed (by herself) and growl and do somersaults!  She is definitely a mama's girl and will curl up on my lap like a cat...but then, true to her puppy-nature, the next second she's flying off my lap to investigate the cat or to crawl up Antoine and put her face in his face.  She's also quite fond of climbing on the back of the sofa, like Gui used to do when he was a kitten.  She's a little weirdo, but I love her!