Wednesday, July 13, 2011

First Part of our Minnesota Trip

For 5 days/4 nights we stayed at the Big Sandy Lodge in McGregor, Minnesota.



The bad part - it literally rained for 3 straight days with highs in the upper 40s, low 50s. The day we drove up we had a few hours of sun, and the day we left was sunny. So we had about 10 hours of sun total our entire trip! Since our trip was a lake vacation in a tiny town we really had nothing much to do!! Good thing we had lots of family to talk to, drink and eat with, walk back and forth to different rooms (ha ha), etc...
These were taken day 1 after we got there. If only we knew what was ahead of us (rain) we would have forced the kids to do more swimming and less sand digging!
(Elizabeth, Ben, Josh, and Zach)


The water was still freezing cold so the kids mostly went ankle deep.

Carole, Victoria, and Amelia.

Tom and his nephew, Mike. They had a great time all week, consuming lots of beer! :)

That was the gorgeous resort in the background. It was a beautiful place.

Me and Tom



There was a fun water trampoline calling the kid's names...only a few made it all the way there!

Elizabeth was the only little kid who made it out and stayed to jump. She went with Tom and some of her older cousins.

Tom's sister, Linda, came to the beach with yummy drinks! We did a lot of that this trip!

The kids made a fun sand castle, they worked on it forever!

One of the mornings when it was just drizzling the chocolate bear came for a visit. This is a H family tradition. The chocolate bear comes and leaves candy out for the kids to find. They loved it!

Displaying their finds.

The town we stayed in is the same town Tom's family has gone to for years and years. They usually go to Little Round Lake (that's what they call it - I don't know if that is the actual name). The cabins at their old lake were getting a little small and rundown so they started going to this resort instead. We had to go visit the bridge where they go every year. I remember going here with Tom and his family when we were in college. Under the bridge they have written their names throughout the years. The oldest one I saw was from 1997.





Here's Little Round Lake - the H family favorite. I was told it had not changed much.


Ben, Elizabeth, Amelia and Zach. I remember coming here years ago and getting a picture of all the grand kids together on this swing.

The old teeter-totter. This whole place brought back a lot of memories for everyone.

We spent a ton of time here, at the indoor pool at the resort. Thank goodness for the pool!



Here's Ben's reaction to the pool, he thought it was too cold.

Finally, the last day there was a break in the rain - we all ran right out to the beach - even though it was still really cold.





Cousins! Mike, Drew, Claire, Josh, Jim, and Elizabeth

It was such a pretty lake!

Some of the older cousins were the only ones to brave the freezing water.

I caught Ben practicing his name - that's a good B!

The boys were checking out the fish one of the other guys had caught.


We were lucky enough to get a boat ride, too!

We had a campfire and made smores. I did not pack appropriately for the 40' weather so my kids had beach towels to keep them warm!



The gorgeous view.











The morning we had to leave it was gorgeous! 70' and sunny - of course!

We had so much fun with our family, if only the weather would have cooperated!!

It was a great trip!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

First Day of MN Vacation

Our first day of vacation was actually our 16 hour car ride to Minnesota to Tom's brother, Jim's house. The next morning we all went to our first ice hockey game, our nephew Steve was playing! After the game we headed back to Jim's house to prepare for all the family to come over for dinner. Jim lives on a lake so the kids had a great time watching for fish and checking out the boats.
Elizabeth was so excited to see her Aunt Linda!


We decided to try to get an H family photo so we had everyone wear a shade of blue.

We had to get a family photo in front of the lake.


Elizabeth with the few girls in the family! Finally, girls close to her own age! :)

The guys spent a lot of time doing this. :)

And on to the important task of getting a family photo! Unfortunately not all of Tom's family were there for the picture. These are all the men/boys who were in MN. This is just Tom's immediate family - brothers and nephews. Tom's dad was back in TX so we were missing a big part of the picture!The whole family (minus a few of our TX family members). It was so much fun having so much of the family together at once.




Chris, Tom, Tom's brother Jim, and our brother-in-law Mike.


The grandchildren with Carole.


The ladies - you can see we are outnumbered!

My cute kids!

After our photo session the kids changed into swim suits and took a dip into the freezing lake.

You can see my kids quickly getting out!

Ankle deep was about as far as my kids went.

Then we headed out on the boat. The kids wanted a chance to go tubing!

Ben and J.J.

There's Elizabeth and J.J. out for a ride. We went slow enough that no one even had to get wet, we just pulled them straight back in!

Josh and Elizabeth, they're getting brave! Do you see them on their knees, doing "stunts"?!


No jet ski rides, just a photo op!

It was a great first day, and thank goodness because it went quickly downhill! :) More on that to come!