A Winter Mini-Vacation At The Cabin

My parents own a lake house on a lovely lake northwest of the Twin Cities that they generously share with us.  We traditionally spend a week there together every July (because we came from out of town, we often spent less than a week with everyone else, but a week is the time scheduled for this wonderful event), but we haven't been there in the winter before!  Mark and Jillian, Cora & Esme go there over the Martin Luther King, Jr holiday, and they invited us to go along.

I'm glad we have assembled some snow gear, because there was a lot of snow fun on this trip!

"This sidewalk is not maintained during the winter months" - sign at the rest stop.

We got there and settled a bit and then went right out to play in the snow!

A Greg-monster caught Esme!

Cora rolled down the hill.

Some snowballs were thrown.

Oh no!  Uncle Greg has been hit!

We walked out onto the lake . . . but I let Jillian go first because I don't want to fall through the ice!

Esme's teeth are all missing, it seems.

And Cora's are under construction.

Then we went sledding down the hill onto the lake.

Esme wrote "Sledding at the lake" on the photo and then she drew a picture of a cat on it.

It's been a while since I've been sledding, so I'm not very skilled, but I love it!

I love having snow in my hair!

Then Jillian and I decided at the same time that we wanted to walk across the lake.  The part we walked across is not extremely wide.  Once again, I let Jillian go first!  This part of the lake is fairly shallow, and there were trucks and ice fishing houses on other, deeper, parts of the lake, so I figured we were safe walking here.  The girls were excited to come along.  It was a bit windy and chilly, but lovely and fresh.

Mark and Greg followed us!

We arrived on the other side!  I've only been to that shore in a kayak before!

Cora drew on this photo.

Here come the men!

I think Cora did this one, too, but I'm not positive.

There we all are!

Esme wanted to walk up the hill, but that land belongs to someone else, so we just walked around in the cattails.  Esme found a huge hunk of snow and wanted to bring it home.  We took turns carrying it.

Mark found a slushy spot and actually fell through the ice a little bit.  I guess maybe that's a part of the lake that is more mobile (there are streams coming into the lake) than other parts.

We trekked back across.  I could see the island in the middle of the lake and the church steeple in town.

Then we laid around in in the snow, appreciating how soft it is and how quiet and peaceful winter can be.  Cora decided she wanted to be buried in snow.

I just wanted to lie there in the lovely snow and look up at the grey sky.

Snow Princess!

Then we went inside and snuggled.  I let the girls draw on photos on my phone and then we watched "Nanny McPhee" (which was very sweet).

The next day we had MORE FUN!

We went snow tubing!

Thankfully, there was a magic carpet to take us back up the hill, because the hill was BIG and we were tired out afterwards as it was!

Greg noticed a cute little water droplet travelling with us on the magic carpet!

It was a glorious day.  It was in the low 30s and not windy at all (except when we were zooming down the hill!)  It was sunny and the sky was blue.

Sometimes we went down the hill independently and sometimes we hooked our tubes together.

Here I go!  You can tell it's a tall, long slope because it takes me so long to get tot he bottom!

Watching that makes me want to go tubing again tomorrow!

We had a wonderful time!

It was definitely a GREAT DAY and a fabulous weekend!