Boating, v.3

The last evening of our stay, my dad decided he could handle driving a pontoon boat. This was decided after careful observation of several other drivers over the course of dinner that evening. (Pictures of Amelia, Kelly, Gemma from said dinner).

The pontoon ride was a huge hit- almost a month later and the kids are STILL taking about it. It might even be their favorite thing ever.

The hi light for each kid was when grandpa allowed them to steer or "drive" the boat for a short time.

William drove for several minutes before turning to is and inquiring:

"How hard would it be for this thing to do a figure 8?"

We had a beautiful sunset and gorgeous weather for an evening cruise of the lake!

3 kids

I have 25 different versions of this picture on my phone. Not one of them has all 3 kids looking at the camera.

Boating, round 2

Somewhere along the line in our week long adventure, William decided he liked using his swim giggles as an accessory. He only took them off for sleeping.

We also have pictures of Amelia "oaring" and William's true feeling about letting his sister have a turn at anything.

Boating

One of the highlights of our resort stay was the water activities. There were boat and other fun water activities such as water bikes, paddle boards and fishing gear that could be rented.

One fine afternoon, we put Gemma down for a nap and grandma Kim and I took the big kids out in a paddle boat.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank whoever was the last adult to take ME paddle boating. The paddle paying was about 1000% more work than I recall it being.

My mom and I took turns paddling and the kids swapped turns as well. There was quite a bit of wind as well as other motor boat traffic that made our adventure a lot of work. When we finally returned to the dock 45 minutes later, I was not certain my legs would carry me to our room, which was up several flights of stairs. My legs did their job just fine, but I did require a nap to recuperate. The next morning, I awoke with a pain in the center part of my lower back. Apparently, I was pushing so hard with my legs to paddle the boat, I created a very sore spot on my back.

The following day, the kids were up for more boating adventures. This time grandma and grandpa took them out in a row boat. The kids were thrilled to be in charge of the para for a short period of time.

Amelia: wow! This oaring is a lot of work! I will probably need a treat when we are done!

The row boat activity took about 8 minutes from start to finish.

Then they decided it might be more fun to canoe. Grandma and grandpa were such good sports, they hopped out of the row boat and practically into the canoe. The canoe adventure was short lived as it apparently isn't much fun to be in a boat when someone (William) insists they ARE holding still when they aren't. The canoe time was approximately 5 minutes.

Despite the brief nature of the trips, the kids loved being on the lake and spent the latter part of our drive home arguing about which boat they would ride in again if given the opportunity and who was the better paddler.

Beach in Minnesota

The resort in Minnesota had a beach- it was kind of a hike to get there, but the kids LOVED IT. I think they would have happily played there for days until they were covered from head to toe in sand. We spent two mornings digging, splashing, shell hunting, castle building, minnow chasing, feet burying, footprint making, and moat filling. The kids were in heaven- even William, who sometimes has trouble with scratchy textures.

More resort

There is a rule that only 3 photos can fit into an email blog post. Since there is no chance of finding the cord, downloading to the computer and composing actual blog posts is not going to happen anytime soon, you are going to be stuck with several more posts worth of resort photos.

After the beach, we usually followed up with some pool time. There were both indoor and outdoor pools here. I confess that we were never hardy enough to try out the outdoor pool, but it did look nice. It was a shady location and with the temperatures in the low 70's, were going to need some sun to keep us warm.

The kids have really improved their swimming skills over the last weeks with time in several hotel/resort locations. William even discovered he could swim on his own across the deep end of the pool. I am especially impressed as we have swim lessons on the books for when we return from our trip. Our last swim lessons were last year!

The last picture is the view of the lake and trees from the passenger seat driving in to the resort area.

Brainerd

On July 1st, we packed up and hit the road for a lake resort near Brainerd, MN. This was a last minute addition to our trip and we were happy to have grandpa, grandma, Megan and Z with us! More people is always more fun!

We stayed at Craguns resort on Gull Lake and enjoyed ourselves very much. I won't say it was relaxing, because there was a lot of running around as there were many places to run around to at this location.

I'm not exactly sure how to describe this, but even if it wasn't relaxing, the lake was very restorative or soothing to my soul. The water laps on the beach, birds call, kayakers float/paddle by and the leaves whisper in the wind. There are also screaming kids running up the beach, the smell of exhaust from the motor boats and someone has to go to the bathroom.

Overall, we had a lovely time.

The first picture depicts a form of Minnesota beach wear that one would don when it is chilly in the morning.

The second shot is out the window upon our arrival.

I attempted to make a pretty picture with writing in the sand. The waves had other ideas!