Pine Roost.

My dad and stepmom got married April 2001 & every Memorial Day weekend from there on out, we spent at Pine Roost.

What is Pine Roost?

Pine Roost is a group of cabins that my great-grandparents Lyle and Marge and their extended families built when my Grandpa was a boy.  They are on Big Pine Lake, hence the name Pine Roost.

Every Memorial Day weekend like clockwork, we would pack up our truck, hit the open road and that first weekend of the summer each year was spent cleaning up the cabin and making it summer-ready.  We would sweep and mop, Get the cobwebs out of the corner & make sure our bunks were made and ready to be slept in, and filled with sand by the weekend's conclusion.  Once our parents would let us loose after we had asked them for only the 1000th time if we could go play by the lake, we would do just that, but you best have your life jacket on if you went past the sauna, because there was a rule, you either swam out to the high tower and then between our dock and Honey's or you had to have a life jacket on.  This is where I tell you I was too chicken to take this test til I was like 13. #fail

Once we figured out, just like our parents had told us, that the water was indeed still too chilly to swim in, then we'd beg for jet-ski rides.  Matt(& Ryan as he got older!) would ride with my dad and I would ride with Mady and Lynn, there were many arguments on our jet-ski about who was sitting in the middle and who had to have the back.  I usually got stuck in the back because Mady didn't like my long hair in her face, WAH WAH poor Mady. 

Then dusk would fall and we'd have a fire and enjoy s'mores.  Once it got too buggy, then we'd go inside, watch a movie or in the later years, we would play cards, more often than not, Texas Hold 'Em.

Then April 13th, 2008 happened.

We were at a waterpark with my dad's side of the family when my aunt Karin called Lynn, you need to turn on the news, the cabins...they're gone!

Our cabins were a part of a string of arsons that day, and all of the cabins but the ones on the hill were destroyed.

Because we are strong and didn't want the arsonists to win, we re-built.  & as much as I love the new cabins, a part of the history is gone forever.  The summer of 2007 really was the last summer that I got to spend every other weekend up there, because now even though they are re-built, I have a job that requires me to work weekends and life is busy.  I do try and make it up there for at least a couple days each summer though, just to get away from life and my phone and just BE.

I will always hold the weekends up there & the memories made during those weekends very near and dear to my heart.

Because Pine Roost? It's a place where everyone knows your name and they're all glad you came!

linking up for blogtember--tradiitions.