Cabin in the Woods

Wasn't going to write a post about this but realized that I should. It's the saltwater way. In actuality, I made some big realizations from this little weekend getaway. 

Rewind to December, and the idea for a weekend in the mountains got stuck in our heads. We're in the prime location for quick drive up to the mountains and we scoured Airbnb for a place to stay. Apparently, people plan WAY out (guilty, this is *usually* me, but ya gotta leave spontaneity in your life and this is one of those situations, but also, like, 2 months out is a decent amount of time) and a lot of places were booked for weekend days. We managed to find a place, booked it, and marked in on the calendar. 

The weekend finally rolls around we hit the road heading south. I had to go grocery shopping with the boys and they somehow convinced me that we needed to purchase four boxes of pasta for six people. NEVER AGAIN. On the brightside, we made it out with provisions for our stay. 

We settled into our quaint, snow-covered cabin and started a fire while waiting for Crystal and Sharon to arrive. The time was passed by playing card games and baking the blandest premade pizza for dinner. Brent even found a long blonde hair on his slice. Ew.

Crystal and Sharon came late in evening, and we all chatted and played more cards. Each round unfortunately had a punishment. The round I lost, I had to get pelted with snowballs by everyone outside - most of which I dodged. 

The next morning we awoke to a fresh layer of snow. For breakfast, Sharon made a Finnish pancake dish and we all prepared for the day. 

Our main activity was snowshoeing. The crew loaded up into my car, with Brent in the trunk hanging with the snowshoes, and headed out to Mt. Rainier National Park thanks to Shon's annual pass.

We snowshoed through trees as it snowed and were in awe of the winter wonderland. Giant flakes of snow were piling up on the trees and our hats. Pictures don't do it any sort of justice.

The trail we followed had us trekking up to a scenic outlook that was semi-obscured by low hanging clouds, but still gorgeous. On the way down, I got hit twice with falling snow from the twenty foot trees, *amazing*.

Somehow this activity took us a good chunk of the day and we were all STARVING. As soon as we got back from the park, we got moving on food while taking funny polaroid pictures and commenting on the nine cameras taking up table space. Lunch, if you can even call it that, wasn't ready until 4:30pm and was completely a carboload. Remember that ungodly amount of pasta? Well, we ended up only using about two of the boxes and still had a large mixing bowl full of pasta leftover.

The sun was starting to set and we made our way to a nearby river to attempt to watch the sunset. Emphasis on attempt. Once again, low clouds had another idea and obstructed the pink sky. Whatever. It did make for some major whitewalkers fog. 'Twas still fun to explore the area. 

The rest of the evening was a roller coaster of energy. At first, we were absolutely exhausted from all of the activity of the day and chilled for a bit listening to music. Sharon, bless her little Finnish soul, brought ingredients for my FAVORITE Finnish food - Karelian Pastry - and made some of those bad boys as a snack. It didn't go horribly wrong, but definitely not my best work; I kept getting excessive amounts of flour on the dough. Sharon saved the day though by salvaging my mangled discs of dough.  

After snacking on the pastries, all six of us somehow started doing hot yoga by the fire in this tiny little living room. We were all so hyper and laughing hysterically. Post-yoga and our energy levels took a nosedive. We're talking major drowsy state; I was starting to nod off and it was late in evening. I think we were all contemplating whether to head to bed or not. Then Brent announces, alright, I guess I'll get started on dinner. Insane. The thought of another meal and all the food we had previously was kind of atrocious, but he started cooking the meat and all of us hopped in to help. 

It was honestly one of the weirdest, most efficient meal-making instances I've ever been apart of. Drake was blasting over the speaker, and everyone was moving; someone was chopping the vegetables, tending to the stovetop, clearing off the table, setting out the salsa and cheese, washing dirty dishes, and drying clean dishes. In about 15 minutes, we were all seated at 11 pm in awe of how quickly dinner came together and the fact we were eating another meal. 

Post dinner and our last night in the cabin, we played another round of cards as a last hoorah, where Hunter lost and had to eat two heaping spoonfuls of refried beans. Ew.

The next morning we looked out the window to heavy, wet snowflakes falling from the sky. We hustled to get breakfast made and packed up. Somehow, we had bought WAY too much food and had to eat taco ingredients again, adding in a dozen leftover eggs to make them breakfast burritos. Taco/burrito meals, within 10 hours of each other, what a life. 

One last group photo and we backed out of the driveway, or so we thought. Sharon's car got stuck in snowdrift. We had to push the vehicle out and eventually do the old car mats under the wheels trick before hitting the road. 

The drive back was super easy and we made great time getting back to Seattle in under two hours. It was a super fun weekend, very quick but well worth it. 

Great friends, lucky to have them. I've been friends with most of them for a solid three years now...that's special. It's hard to do sometimes and I'm very fortunate to have a group of likeminded people down for an adventure and the randomest stuff. And sometimes I get mad at people for the dumbest things, but at the end of the day, I'm so happy to have these people filling my life with fun.

It's one thing I take for granted on a daily basis.

Throughout childhood/high school, I had my core best friends who I grew up with. We took almost all the same classes and activities, went to Christmas parties at each other's houses, even the occasional vacation here and there. I was so used to having them as a reliable group of people. Fast forward to the early part of college, not having a core group of friends really threw me off. I struggled with finding where I belonged and what community to be apart of. Later on, I realized the right people will come into your life when the time is right. You can also always bring anyone into your circle because bringing like minded people from various parts of your life together is rad. 

Thanks to these cuties for such a fun time. I'm grateful that they choose to put up with all of this saltwater.