Door County 2009 - Year FIVE

This past weekend landed us back up at Door County for Year Number FIVE. I love a good tradition. Rather, a GREAT tradition.

This year was eerily reminiscent of our first trip to Door County back in 2005, when it was negative 30 below and we froze solid. No, I'm not kidding. We froze. The wind ripped through our bodies and we never thought we'd thaw out. We huddled around the fire, moving only for potty breaks {Yes. I have young children in the house} and food re-stock.

Despite the cold this year, the traditions within the Door Country tradition lived on. We did our hike to Eagle Tower. My personal favorite. Water on the left. Woods surrounding. Cliffs and caves on the right. Breath-taking really.

We were on the three hour tour. The three.hour.tour. With a three-year-old it took that long, but it made for great conversation with Jenni and Nate and it was a great pace to actually take in the scenery.
We stopped for photo shoots. {Too many in Jack's estimation but I say poo poo to you!}

I did love this year. As always. We shared meals around a fire with friends new and old. I was especially thankful that Melissa was there. While this picture of her is fuzzy, it shows her cute-ness. She styles with her hat. She won the "good attitude of the trip award." {Let's just say that camping isn't her favorite thing to do. But she does it. And well!} She asks the best questions around the campfire. She and Jerry hosted everyone for the potluck meals. She froze. With a smile on her face! We had our church service Sunday morning which was moving to hear how people have seen God working in their lives this past year.

We did our annual night hike, heading down to the beach after dark, looking at the ba-zillion stars. {This made me really miss Boppy because I know this is one of his favorite things about Door County.} The heavens took our breath away. {Note to self: Next year take TWO night hikes. One with kids and one without kids. Because as delightful as it was, there were about seven whine-ey kids, over-tired and grumpy, tripping over rocks, bumping into each other, not wanting to share flashlights ... which sort of took away from the magnitude of God's creation for oh, just a minute or so.

Okay, so here's where I'm going to be brutally honest but we can't have any hard feelings from anyone, okay?

So as great as this year was, it just wasn't the same as every other year.

Wanna know why?

Cuz this year there was none of THIS ...

Or this ...
No jumping pirates.


No Mor Mor and Boppy being Mr. and Mrs. Hospitality Extraordinaire.
We are anxious for Door County TWO-THOUSAND-TEN, when all will be right again.

We missed your smiles. And your goofy-ness. And your laughter. And your attention to details. And your fUn-NeSS.
We simply missed YOU ... all of you!

{And this time, they didn't even bribe me to get on the blog!}

And of course, we also missed the Kittredge folks. My personal favorite photo from last year!