Aloha Army - Magic Vacay 2

After surviving 2020 through the Covid pandemic and multiple rounds of vaccinations, it was time for Aloha army to regroup and plan for their magic vacation #2…

THE PLANNING

As always, the planning was spearheaded by our very own Siva who booked a ski resort cabin on his own before even discussing with the rest of the gang.. this time we decided to use the July 4th long weekend to good use and all agreed to join Siva.

And the logistics of creating WhatsApp group, shared spreadsheet of purchase receipts, food allocations started. I was tasked with finding some good places to visit near by the cabin in the woods.( it is true!!)

THE TRAVEL

The day finally arrived and as per schedule we all started to head towards our dream vacay 2.. being home stuck for more than an year, this was a welcome trip and all of us wanted to really enjoy the time..

3 families and 3 SUVs fully loaded - in hind sight, it was too much 😀.. headed towards the Cabin. Parthi volunteered to grab dinner for the night on a detour to a Taiwanese restaurant - somehow he convinced us into that.. meanwhile I got a few burgers en route as a back up plan.

THE CABIN

Siva reached the cabin first and started doing the cleaning / Sanitizing it - a new habit, courtesy Covid.. 

The cabin looked a lot bigger in the picture and from outside but was compact and cute on the inside. The kids were super excited and so were we..  all of us picked our rooms and settled..

Special Dinner time:

With so much hype about the Taiwanese food, it was time to put it to test.. lo and behold.. the soup was smelling, the bubble teas were bland and the fried tofu rice was okay.. With Aloha army, getting “bulb” is part of life.. this was just one more feather in our cap 😜.. but we were always prepared- so we switched to burgers, parottas and channa masala to save the day (night).

It was game time and while the kids were minding their own ipads/iPhones, we settled for the infamous CATAN..

There was a certain enmity between Siva and Abi as they both built a lot of roads to get those two points.. meanwhile Geetha took advantage of that and came out victorious..

It was a great evening and we all retired to bed as the next day was a planned working day..

DAY 2:

Our plan for day 2 was simple - work until 4:30 pm and spend time outside after that. But weather god had other plans as it rained the entire day.

When you are planning an outing with Siva, there is one thing you can be sure of... "Breakfast options".. There were mega croissants, Toasted breads, omelets and cereals.. After a sumptuous breakfast we all settled on our work while the kids were trying to find ways to spend time..

As the day progressed, the rain god showed us some mercy and we were able to spend some time outside.. we played badminton for few mins and decided to visit a nearby small lake. 

The lake had a great view but it was too cold for us to spend a long time.. After taking the customary groupies and selfies, went back to the cabin. For dinner, we decided to try out Pizzas from one of the local restaurant and it was delicious.

It was game time again and we played something called PHASE 10.. Geetha explained the rules and it began... though the game started slowly, it picked up pace and all of us got hooked to it.. it was past midnight and the crew was still focused on finishing the game... 

Ultimately we had to take a break and get some sleep for our day 3 plans to proceed.

DAY 3:

Day 3 had a great start as we had no rain predicted in the morning and we started to visit a water falls near our area. The drive was pleasant and we reached the

falls within an hour.

  

It was full of rocks and creeks and had a huge drop into the cave.. we took some pictures on the boulders and moved on to see the water falls closer.. this was where the adventure began... the photographer in me wanted a clear view of the falls but it was not possible from the view points as there were trees in the path. so i climbed onto a big rock to set up my tripod- only to realize that there was a huge drop to my left.. after spending a few minutes, finally took the snap that i wanted and we returned to our cabin.

Siva master decided to treat all of us with his style of "Biriyani" for lunch and we provided the necessary help in cutting the vegetables, cleaning the utensils etc.. 

One look at the ingredients and you would know that you were in for a sumptuous and aromatic awesome biriyani..

The ingredients were mixed, salt added, water added, rice mixed into the instant pot.. all we had to do now was wait.. meanwhile Geetha prepared Paneer butter masala to complement Siva's biriyani.

While the lunch was getting ready, we all joined the kids for some bubble bursting and water balloon games.. the idea was to photograph the moment when the bubble bursts.. but we could not get that due to bubbles flying away in the wind.. it was fun and the kids loved playing the water gun and water balloons..

After this small fun time, it was time for lunch and the Biriyani and Paneer butter masala did not come out as we expected (of course we always expect the unexpected), but it was still tasty enough to consume in large quantities. We had eaten so much that it became impossible to move around and we decided to stick around the dining table and continued the Phase 10 game from the previous night.. within minutes, Siva emerged as the winner. 

Then we decided to play another round of CATAN.. this game went on for a couple of hours and we figured that unless we do some physical activity,

we will never be ready for dinner.. so we went out again and played for sometime.. with some serious acrobatic action sequences in between..

And many thanks to weather god, the final event of Day 3 arrived..i.e camp fire. with so much rain predicted, we never anticipated to have a campfire during this trip, but luck was on our side.. It was a great set-up with the fire-pit set in the yard and we were able to start the campfire without any issues.. we had our moments when we tried to replicate some of the dance moves by movie stars and those are certainly good for awesome blooper reels..

We signed of Day 3 in style... and it was time for us to pack .

We started our return journey the next day morning and as predicted, it was raining all throughout. We found a small park on the way to stop for lunch and then got home safely..

Though this trip was not as adventurous as our first one to Florida, we had an amazing time outside of our home and it was indeed refreshing..

So Aloha Army, once more polama??