The Kugler Family Adventures: Summer at the Sugar Shack!

I love summer. I even love the 90+ degree days, and afternoon thundershowers, but this summer is getting ridiculous. The rain is out of hand. Everywhere, rain, rain, rain. We headed up the hill to Granby and Grump's mountain house for the weekend, with the Brantleys. All had high hopes of escaping the rain, but nope. It followed us. We did manage to get part of Saturday without rain. I don't think it ever got out of the 60's! Brrrrrrr. The patio heater was put to good use, as I always want to be outdoors. Even so, we love spending time with Geoff, Christy, Knox (2), and Hunter (5 months), and we made the best of it. We're looking forward to our next outing with them, at the beach. Hopefully much warmer and sunnier!

Payton getting her baby Hunter fix...

Jumping. This boy loves to jump. He even jumps when he says "yes!"

And, here comes the rain :(

Payton sharing her granola bar...top of Sugar

Sweet Hunter

Payton's "selfie"

Major erosion problems in my parent's neighborhood. Major!

Our favorite place to go in the High Country...Grandfather Winery!

The gorgeous Brantley family

Knox and Griffin got along really well

Casey, the resident hound, LOVED playing soccer with the boys. Everyone at the winery stopped to watch them play!

Geoff has special powers. Really special, lol!

Awesome new pavilion at the winery...now we can come, rain or shine :)

Playing with another group of kids

Sunday was miserable. We all decided to get up, clean up, and head out. It was windy, cold, pouring rain, and foggy. Just a crap day. The flooding up there is really bad, and the rain doesn't show any signs of stopping anytime soon. Brian pulled the radar out on Saturday which showed a solid cloud cover from Virginia to Florida. We're going to have a hell of a winter if this weather pattern continues!

Here are a couple of pictures from mid-week...

Griffin slept with his new "Mater" from the movie, "Cars." Although he says "Matah." And "he-ah" for here. This Boston-loving mom just giggles when I hear him say these :)

Last week's camp theme was Princes and Princesses. We are loaded up with crowns, and princessy stuff. Madison and Jacob came over for a swim and dinner. Here, they are winding down watching a movie. And yes, Payton has mostly traded her thumb for her pinky finger. Progress?

A (spooky) princess and her Pinkberry yogurt...YUM!

Payton and Madi ride a rollercoaster ALONE at Carowinds. Although Payton looks terrified, she asked to ride it again, and again.

Since Brian had a sustainability conference at ASU this past week, we decided to head back up the mountain, and give Mother Nature another shot...we had several different groups of friends also visiting the High Country, so it was nice to meet up with them. Also, Granby and Grumps were up with us, so that was a lot of fun (when they weren't cleaning or doing projects :)

Back at our favorite place...Grandfather Winery!

This is Savannah (9 yrs). Her mom, Laura Ann, and I have known each other since the 1st grade! Here, Savvy was trying to explain to Griffin that she met him when he was just a baby.

Hanging with the boys, playing ladder golf, aka, horse-balls.

Mini Me and Mini-Laura Ann!

This is Vince. Laura Ann's 5 year old son. As you can see, he's super-shy.

This is Heather and two of her three kids (Betty Grace and Hank). Heather and LA were sorority sisters at Alabama, and she was in from Virginia visiting LA and her kids.

BUSTED!

Chris Killar, Brian, and Griffin

Chris, Knox (20 mo) and Kyler (4 in August)

Practicing for the beach tournament! She'll be champion, one day. Whitt-Tis, watch out!

Griffin and Casey, playing ball.

Celeste, Steph, and Andy McDaniel, and their precious kids...We went to ASU together, and snowboarded A LOT. Their kids are little groms, and already tearing up the slopes! It was such a nice surprise to run into them! I probably haven't seen them in 8, or more, years!

It was nice to see a beautiful SUNset, after many evenings of clouds and rain!


Do you know what this mountain is called? Nope! Per Payton, it's "Grumpsfather Mountain!" Here's another "Paytonism": she came out of our room with a ton of "lip stuff" on her lips. She said she had "chopped" lips. HA!

The kids found a balloon out on our hike!

Looking for our pet groundhog, who lives in these rocks!

Beech Mountain had a festival over the weekend, called "Bikes, Brews, and Views." Celeste and I went up, during the kid's naps, to "run" a 5K Hash Race. What's that, you ask? Well, we took the lift up the mountain, and there were 3 beer stops on the way down. So, we got off the lift, beer #1 (in a can, cold, but running while drinking? Does NOT appeal!) We took a couple of sips and tossed (alcohol abuse, I know, but I didn't want to spew!) We ran down the mountain, past "Oz," and down the ski slopes, where there were downhill mountain bike races going on. Beer stop #2, we were definitely in the "lead" of the majority of the people, which paid off, since it started to DOWNPOUR on us close to the finish line. There, of course, was a frosty beer waiting there, too, so we didn't mind :) We met up with Celeste's hubby, Chris, and their two boys, Knox and Kyler, then shortly after that, Brian met us with our kids. There were bands playing, 40+ beer vendors from local breweries, where we could taste what we wanted, and there were the downhill & slalom bike races all day, which certainly got more interesting as the rain came down...but thankfully, it stopped for us to enjoy our afternoon!