Kittens From The Dark Side: Family Week At The Cabin!

I know, it's NOVEMBER and I am posting about our summer week at the cabin . . . not seasonally appropriate, but I haven't had the time to catch up on all the fun things that have been happening around here!

We put the pontoon in the water and rode it back to the cabin!

Look at my dad, modeling this "lake chic" look with hat, t-shirt, shorts, and shoes. He's looking dapper!

I got a girlie sitting on me right away (looooooove!)

The lake was looking beautiful.

It smelled great, too, of course!

I could hardly wait to get IN THE WATER!

And then we did, very soon afterward.
Mark drove us in the pontoon over near the beach, where on the first afternoon, we found a buoy with floating platforms! We assumed they were installed by the city or parks department, but we discovered they were privately owned because the next day they had been removed! We sure had fun on them, though (oops!)

We played in the water almost every day - perfection!

Mark and Jillian had brought a new stand-up paddleboard, so we all tried that out and enjoyed it.

Look! I did it! It does require more balance than I expected, but it's not impossible at all.

The sun started to set a bit too early for our liking, since we were still having fun in the water!

But it was gorgeous and the sun setting didn't mean that the fun was finished.

In the morning, the girls were eager to make tasty smoothie creations!

I brought a book of kids' recipes so they could be used as templates.

Cora and I did a game where we raced to pick up marbles with our toes. We both have monkey toes (Cora has the advantage of youth and I have the advantage of experience!)

We played Ransom notes!

Greg cleaned windows.

Esme braided my hair!

If you look closely, there is a small braid as one of the 3 main braid strands.

Cora found tiny little flowers.

Greg inflated our new inflatable kayak!

Now that the girls are older, they are too big to comfortably ride in our kayaks with us. We probably won't all go out at the same time, but there should be an adult with them still at all times. Greg and I have 2 kayaks at home, but we hadn't figured out how to transport them yet, so we simply bought a less-expensive one at WalMart. It worked well!

Pelican:

Mark also used the stand-up paddleboard for sunning himself.

One morning, we did some origami from books I bought the girls years ago.

A penguin and a sailing ship:

More smoothies (and the recipes the girls developed!)

We also celebrated our birthdays all together, of course!

Cora and Jillian put the whipped cream between the layers and frosted the lovely cake that my Mom and Dad had made.

And there we are!

The girls had made the men a treasure map!

There was a larger map and a smaller map, cut into small pieces.

What wonderful, creative girls!

There was more time in the water.

We also played more fun games.

As always, there was a lot of laughter.

And we did some kayaking!

Esme bravely decided to get pulled behind Greg by being tied onto his kayak.

This photo turned out funny!

I used the inflatable kayak and it worked fine!

We went up the river that feeds the lake. There were surprisingly few bugs.

A photo where the camera is inside my kayak!

Mark looking cool:

The water never looks exactly the same.

I played a silly song for the girls, and Cora got really into it. She wanted to illustrate the whole song and made paper puppets, which she creatively did!

We went thrifting a bit in town one afternoon. Cora found this and we sent it to Grandma.

The boys played in the lake some more.

One of the shops in town is the old bank and it has a big vault in the basement!

The cabin is in Sauk Centre - look at this clever display!

Here's a shirt with our lake on it!

Jillian pointing out where she thinks our cabin is on the lake.

We also picked up some things from WalMart.

Esme is an excellent shopper!

When we got home, it was time for tubing!

And of course, it was time to play with the google eyes we bought at WalMart!

Esme and Cora have collected a beautiful group of items!

More google eyes:

A pontoon ride at sunset

(I'm sitting way in the back because I had reached my limit after lots and lots of physical activity and interaction, and I needed to be quiet for a little while)

We saw loons!

Then we came home and played Dutch Blitz!

The girls are SO GOOD now that it's hard to beat them!

Also, my eyes made things very difficult for me to play a fast-paced, small-details game; that made me sad.

I tried for awhile, though!

More google eyes:

Greg cleaned more windows!

The girls and I played in the water . . .

and gathered ingredients for soup!

Cora and Mark did some jet-skiing.

There was more swimming . . . though for a long time this afternoon, I was the only one in the water because it was a less warm day (and we were all tired!)