a weekend in Broken Bow, Oklahoma...

The kids have long wanted to go somewhere all together... and we have tried many times, but getting everyone together at the same time has proved difficult, (if not impossible) with various work and school schedules. But our daughter finally did it... (well, almost... everyone couldn't attend) but 9 of us drove down (or up as the case may be) to Broken Bow, Oklahoma. 

Rented a 4 bedroom house in the woods and spent the weekend hiking in Beaver Bend State Park, visiting some of the local attractions, roasting marshmallows over the fire pit, talking, eating, and just hanging out. 

Oldest granddaughter brought her Burnese Mountain Dog and he also enjoyed the hiking and did a little swimming while in Beaver Bend. He is definitely a sweetheart.

DH and I (at 81) don't do a lot of hiking. We do like to walk and enjoyed the hike... but it wasn't an easy one as a lot of it was uphill and the path was full of stumps, roots, and loose rocks. But we got through it OK. Only problem was that we couldn't enjoy the scenery as we had to 'watch our step' pretty closely... with a few tripups and a stop or two to catch my breath on a fallen log. But we did 6000 steps!(which is certainly more than we usually do at home).

But the company and the food was good, the place was lovely and had several game tables set up inside (which were well used), a big fireplace, and 2 firepits outside as well as a hot tub (didn't use the hot tub as it was pretty cool outside 40-60's).

Only scare we had was Saturday morning around 6 or 7 am, the fire alarm went off!! (causing me to jump out of bed and DH to jump out of the shower) Everyone got up trying to figure out what was going on. What we think happened is that it was pretty cold that early and the heaters turned on (you could smell them) and when they did, the fire alarm went off! DH was laughing saying they almost had a naked man run outside!

Food: Our daughter brought an enchilado casserole, daughter-in-law brought a blueberry/cranberry breakfast casserole, and I brought 3 desserts (peanut butter brownies, lemon squares, and blueberry muffins)... and we had various other things like deli meats and cheeses, chips and dip, etc. And of course there was plenty of sweet tea, coke, beer, etc. (and lots of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers for smores!) 

There was also a lively discussion around the fire pit as to the proper way to 'roast a marshmallow'.  Three of us were for putting that marshmallow directly into the fire and having it burn black (it has to have that special sweet burnt smell and taste). The others were for slowly holding it over the fire till it turned a very light golden color...  

A video around the fire pit:

I really don't know if the video will play here. It may be too long. But if it does, remember to click on the bottom right to get it to enlarge. And then click Esc to get out of it.

That it!

And BTW, we mailed in our ballots last week! Hoping for a miracle so that life here can get back to normal (but not exactly sure what that is since the Pandemic). However, to be honest, it seems like the whole world is having problems, not just us. So maybe it WILL take a miracle... 

Hugs (virtually),

Rian