Weekend Away

We had a wonderful time in the Finger Lakes Region of New York this weekend.

Our 'unrelated relatives' have lived in that area for 3 years now.  We have seen them down here where we live but we had never been able to get up to their place until this weekend!

We had an awesome time.

 We girls went to Skaneateles on Saturday for a few hours.  

 We enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful lake.

 We popped into a few of their favorite stores as well.  I found to really awesome tea cups, which I'll show you tomorrow!

 Jen is studying cosmetology and was willing to give Kyle a hair cut.  She'd never done a kid haircut and she did a great job!  Look at all that hair!

 Goofy face - handsome boy!

We spent some late nights talking, we actually did a ton of talking this weekend, it was so fun to share our lives and catch up with them.  We went to church on Saturday evening.  They are going to a really nice, growing church in Cortland, called Believer's Chapel.  We enjoyed it a lot!  Afterward we came home and ate and the kids had a nerf war and we talked some more!

Sunday morning was pancakes with their own maple syrup!  They have their own syrup business on their property!  You can find it at Westbrook Farm Maple and Hardwoods.

Then we went for a walk on their beautiful property.

 Do you see that blue tubing way back behind Tim and our friend Don?

 Here's more

 and here

The tubing runs over acres and acres and into bigger black tubing, and then down to where they process the syrup.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup.  Our favorite is their dark amber.  It has such awesome flavor!  You can see photos on their Facebook page here!

It was a beautiful weekend and we are so thankful to have had this time with Don and Jennifer and their family.  Rachel said it well, 'they are unrelated relatives.' Don and Jen taught our girls to ride horses, and that is how we met.  That was about 12 years ago now.  We've been great friends ever since, and we are grateful to be known and to be loved for who we are.  That's the best kind of friendship.