We went to Lake Arrowhead for 5 days at the beginning of October-it was a great fall getaway and nice to do something special with our family since the past few months have been such a whirlwind of transition. We arrived on Saturday, October 3rd around 5:00. Our kids are good travelers in the sense that they don't normally cry or complain a whole lot but they are definitely not the best in the bathroom traveling department. We left from the airshow and by the time we got about 30 minutes north, both Joseph and Ella had to pee (thankfully we had to stop at my parents anyways so that worked out ok) but then no longer than 20 minutes back on the road Ella had to stop again. We made one other stop about 30 minutes from Lake Arrowhead so we had three stops for 2 hour trip which ended up taking close to 3 hours. On the positive side, at least we didn't have any accidents!
We checked out the condo, put on some warmer clothes and then went to the village to get something to eat and to go to the grocery store to stock up the condo for the next few days.
We were right in the middle of the forest-such a nice view to wake up to!
Ella has started calling Julia "baby" more often than "Ju ju" and I can just hear her in this picture, "Baby, come here."
Seriously, the worst at trying to get a picture of all three!
Our cabin was cute-a little outdated but really clean and was a good amount of space for 4 nights. The fireplace definitely gave it a nice fall, cabin-y feeling!
So beautiful!!
The village area is really cute and right on the lake but it did seem really deserted. For a Saturday night there was hardly anyone out walking around and a lot of stores were closed-it was kind of bizarre. We ate at a restaurant where our table was made out of an old boat so that was neat and had a great view of the lake.
On Sunday it rained almost all day and these crazies loved every second of it playing in it. There is a lot of talk of San Diego getting a lot of rain this "winter" so I asked Rich to bring back the rain boots last week since we are still living off of only the clothes that we packed when we came in August. Joseph and Ella wore them the entire 4 days we were there-we only had rain on Sunday but the trails were pretty muddy the following days so it worked out well.
Soaked!
There was an indoor pool which was perfect for the rain on Sunday. We spent the afternoon there and Joseph and Ella spent most of the time sliding down the pole pretending it was a slide.
The clubhouse had a little area with a toy kitchen that the kids played at after the pool and we visited two other times as well.
On Sunday night we had bbq and Julia was loving the corn on the cob!
They had a lot of fun just playing with all of the "new" things that the condo offered-from the kitchen utensils to the couches with the cushions off. Hours of entertainment!
The best part about the trip was the trail behind our cabin! It was perfect and we hiked on it every day, some days twice a day. I would take the kids out in the morning when Rich would get a little bit of work done and then we all went out a few afternoons.
One of the trails connected to a deserted street that lead us back to the cabin so we opted to take this back one day.
On Monday afternoon we attempted to take a boat ride but once getting there we found out that they cancelled the last ride for the day, but we found a playground to play on, bought delicious candy apples and enjoyed the views!
Back on the trail on Tuesday morning.
Ella was saying that something was stinky!
Julia is passed out in the front...you can see her little hat!
On Tuesday afternoon we made it on the boat! I can't get over how big Julia looks in these pictures! Everyone liked the boat ride, although it is quite a tourist trap! Lake Arrowhead is a private lake so they don't have any boat rentals so if you don't own a home/boat on the lake then this is the only way to get on it...so we paid $50.00 (for all of us) for an hour ride with the Captain sharing information about the lake (which Rich believes was mostly made up...he's such a skeptic!) I spent most of the boat ride chasing Julia up and down the stairs at the back of the boat so missed most of the information-every time I would try to sit with Julia she would start grunting/moaning very loudly and pointing to the stairs so that is where we headed to avoid upsetting the other paying customers! Oh well!
The $50 was well worth it though when the Captain invited Joseph and Ella to drive the boat. Both kids loved it and Ella had the whole boat in laughter when she took gave the steering wheel a pretty good spin!
We roamed around the village for awhile after and enjoyed the beautiful afternoon.
While the girls were napping, Joseph was working hard on an obstacle course.
Once the girls woke up we went back on the trail to show Daddy the bridge that we had found that morning.
We took one final hike on Wednesday morning before we headed down the mountain where we found some giant pinecones. It was such a fun little getaway and we look forward to visiting Lake Arrowhead again!
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