Pymatuning 2010

So every year Dan's extended family gets together and we go to Pymatuning- a camp ground right on the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania. It's definitely a drive for us- and I ALWAYS have an event that Friday so I can't take off work or leave early, so it's quite the adventure driving 8 hours into the late hours of the night. Thankfully, Dan drove the first 3 hours getting us out of the state of Illinois. Chicago rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon is awful. Just awful. Then, I took over the wheel in South Bend, Indiana. I should have taken the fact that there was a salt truck on the side of the road a few miles back as a warning, but I just brushed it off because it is the first week of November. Snow? Please. By the time we had stopped at the next rest stop to get dinner, we were in a full out blizzard. Huge snow flakes. Icy, slippery conditions on the road. 25 miles per hour. New car that I'd never driven in the snow = not fun drive. I probably only drove in it about 30 minutes and then it died down and thankfully in Ohio there was no snow, but it felt like FOREVER. The sad thing about this was that I was actually looking forward to the first snow of the year! Mainly because I thought it would consist of me waking up on a Saturday morning and peering out our apt window and joyfully watching the snow flakes softly falling to the ground. God likes to make me laugh lol

Overall though, once we made it to Pymatuning around 2 a.m. we got some rest and had a good time hanging out with the family :) Dan's cousin Bill, has two adorable kids that we always love seeing (Sara and Michael), and it was good to catch up with everyone else! They are all SO fun to be around- there is seriously NEVER a dull moment during Pymatuning- even though we just sit around eating, watching football, and hanging out around the fire! And, it is basically a tradition to take a walk to the lake, and this year Jeff decided to scare everyone by bringing out his creepy homeless mask. He actually did a great job of wandering off into the woods and breaking a bottle to get everyone jumpy- and it worked. Everyone started RUNNING full speed back to the cabins. Not what he expected, but he had a good time running to catch everyone. Always good times :) Sad that Pymatuning 2010 is over, but already looking forward to next year!