We spent Labor Day weekend in the Poconos mountains in Pennsylvania with a whole bunch of friends. We rented a couple houses and spent the weekend relaxing and appreciating the quiet and the fresh air away from the city. It was so much fun.

We spent an afternoon at the lake, swimming, reading, paddle-boating, and laying out.

Here’s one of the houses we stayed in. We spent a lot of time around the house in the evenings playing board games and eating really great food. Everyone pitched in and we had so much yummy food (probably a little too much, yikes)! But we also enjoyed evening walks around the neighborhood and some morning runs in the cool mountain air. It was so beautiful.

We heard the local fire department was putting on a clam bake, so a few of us we went to check it out. They had games, a petting zoo (with a very friendly llama), paintball target shooting, a horseshoe toss, and of course a whole lot of clams! We’re glad we got to experience a little of the local flare.

We spent a lot of time playing games around the house and late into the night. I fell in love with Ticket to Ride (although I didn’t get very good at it, I had a lot of fun)!

A few people in the group had birthdays around Labor Day, so I made a couple cakes and we had a little birthday party on Sunday night.