Ch ch ch changes...

I found this picture on the Crescent Lake Facebook page.  It looks like a painting.  I loved it.  Even more when I realized that our cottage was right below the cloud.  

The leaves are starting to change already in New Hampshire.  Not all of them but enough to make it feel like it's almost fall.  Because it is.  Tomorrow.  The air is cold in the mornings and at night and the warm sun warms up the cottage during the day.  It makes for a beautiful drive to and from the lake.  There are a few leaves changing around the lake as well but the majority are in the low lying areas on our drive where it is swampy and the roots of the trees are wet.  I love fall.  It could possibly be my favorite season.  It is growing on the girls too.  They were oohing and aahing over the colors on our drive to and from NH this weekend.  Rod and I made the trek up and back two times this past week.  

We were up from Thursday to Friday last week.  My mom came and stayed with our youngest and oldest for the night while our middlest was at Nature's Classroom.  They had a great night baking and cooking for Grandma and barely noticed our absence.

Welcome home hug from her little sis!

There was not a lot we wanted to change about Duckhead.  We had a few new pieces of furniture and a few new decorations but the bare bones of the place we loved.  Of course we have made a few changes to make it our own.  We painted the ghastly pink room a more neutral vanilla and last week we painted the living room from green to gray.  Rod was heading up anyway to check on the construction of the room under the house.  We decided in order to use the house in the winter it needed a little more winterizing.  We had Norm build out a room under the house that is big enough to encompass all the pipes and things that can freeze under the house.  He was just finishing up as we arrived.  Rod worked under the house to hammer in hangar nails that some previous worker forgot to add to the addition.  I was nervous all summer that our front porch could collapse if too many people were in that room.  Rod ensured me it wouldn't.  He and Haley added some nails at the beginning of the summer and he finished the job last week.  He also got all the heaters ready to install around the house.  So much for this place already being winterized. The tales of freezing pipes and having to turn off water made us a little leary.  Hopefully all of this works and we can use the place all winter long.

One of the many new heaters. 

Meanwhile I was upstairs painting the living room and making a mess.  The green was fine and goes with our Duckhead colors but I wanted something more neutral.  Since Rod was going up anyway, we had already bought the paint in the spring, and it was starting to get cooler in the house, I decided it was now or wait till the spring.  I wanted a warm gray living room.  I liked the idea of the color not competing with the bright color palette in the kitchen.  Neutral walls let me have more fun with the artwork and pillows too.  When I started painting I worried that the color was too cool.  I love gray but at home I usually paint with more tan or beige colors so this gray seemed very cool.  Especially in contrast to the green I was covering up.  But once I was done painting the whole room I decided that I loved it.  I love the neutral walls.  They help make the scenery of the lake and the green hill and woods out the windows stands out.

The green was fine. 

The gray is better!

This photo shows the contrast between the two colors. 

And this one the mess on the way to getting the job done. 

We also came up for one night over the weekend with the girls and the dogs.  The girls are getting really good at packing up and hopping in the car.  There usually aren't any complaints about the drive either now that they are older.  Although they do seem to fall apart the last ten minutes of the drive home.  Our friends asked if they could stay in the cottage while their son had a golf tournament in nearby Keene.  They hadn't been up this summer so we were excited to come up and share the lake with them, even for just a night.  We went for an afternoon paddle in the boats and did some late summer swimming.

That night we had a delicious bbq dinner complete with a quac off.  Haley against her uncle Rob.  Haley won! 

That night we shared a lot of laughs around the table and the fire while looking at the Milky Way.  We had a lazy Sunday morning just talking and drinking coffee.  We had their daughter on Sunday while their son went to his golf tournament and we took her to our favorite new hot spot, the falls.  Despite the chill in the air the girls opted to jump in.  After they rescued a GIANT bullfrog they had found who accidentally ended up in the huge pool, swirling in an eddy made by the waterfall and trapped for what seemed like forever.  Once he got out of the pool and was resting comfortably on a rock they decided it was safe to jump in.

We came back to the cottage to warm up by the fire with a little lunch with our cousins. Later the girls had s'mores and did a little more boating.

mac n cheese and cantaloupe smiles

s'mores and warming up by the fire

Meanwhile Rod and I were cleaning up.  We have been changing sheets, emptying the fridge and cleaning the house each time we leave since we don't know who will be up next.  This adds a bit to the stress of leaving and makes the last few hours a little less enjoyable for Rod and I.  We need to make some changes.  We need to have a calendar in advance so we know who will be here and when.  If we will be the next ones up it would be nice not to have to clean and just enjoy every minute we have there.  Worry less about everything being spotless.  And the funny thing is we know our friends and family won't care.  They'll be looking at the lake and not the dust bunnies.  The perfectionistic cleaning kind of puts a damper on the end of our trips.  And we don't want it to.  We have to lighten up a bit.  We don't want to get burnt out from coming up for these spur of the moment trips.  We love it so much.  We need to remember to relax more and clean less!   Luckily once we get in the car we get to enjoy the long drive home through the NH mountains and the changing landscape.  It's always worth the trip!