Back From Vacation!!

Well, we are back from a week at this great Minnesota resort! The name is kind of silly, which is what got my husband's attention in the first place, I suppose, but the resort was wonderful! Below is a view of beautiful Lake Mary. Here in Minnesota, people go "up north" that means either fishing, or camping or to a cabin. It's how most Minnesotans vacation. Day one: (Sunday afternoon, after Mass) Check out the resort, check out the docks, the play ground, the put-put golf, the pool, the lake, the beach, the cabin. Then go get groceries. The kids were not very happy about having to go get groceries, but if they planned on eating on this trip, they had to go with! Now, my husband wanted to make it easy and not bring anything at all, no cooler of ketchup, mustard, pickles, syrup, veggies, salt and pepper, nothing. So we didn't, and the groceries came to $300 (for one week). Our van was pretty packed, we were not sure we'd fit a cooler. In the end we probably would have been able to and will next year. I did manage to sneak in banana and pumpkin breads for breakfast and monster cookies! (I'll post my recipe soon on my cooking blog, they are so good, especially frozen!)These horses were at the resort, for us to take walks to and see. They were SO beautiful!
This is our cabin! It was wonderful, it had air conditioning, a screened in porch and a kitchen bigger than mine! I know some people like camping, and that's great, but I really loved having a cabin to go to and make our home away from home! It was just so nice to have a place to spread out!

These are the brand new pools they just put in. They were nice and warm and the kids had a blast! Yes, those are all our floatie things! (we had more in the cabin) The dragon's name is "Focus". I have no idea why, but that's what the kids have called him for the past 5 years!

The first 2 days we lived at the pool. I love pools, I love the sun! It was so much fun! Then, day 3: I got my period. (is this blog now pg-13?) Yes, we have not gone on vacation in 3 years, yes, 3 years, and my period decides to come, now what are the chances? Well, I am not a tampon kind of woman, so I was quite worried. I get pretty crampy and sick for about 3 days after the first day. Well, God helped me out with this one, Day 4: the temps dropped down to the 60's! Too cold to swim! So we decided to go into town and check out things there! It also gave us a chance to play games in the cabin!
Ok, I'm a bad homeschooling mom, we did not go to the museum...there were actually 2 museums, the other one being "Maritime Museum" What is Maritime? I have no idea and was not in the least bit interested in this small town's museums...so we did not go. I think we still had fun. Maybe some year we will go. I know my friend Sarah, (the great homeschooling mom that she is) would have hit every museum if she were here...oh, well...! We did see Big Ole. Maybe it's his big feet they named our resort after?

I do have to say, this town was beautiful though, it is surrounded by beautiful lakes. (remember I live in MN, the land of 10,000 lakes) There were resorts everywhere. I can't imagine how this town must change in the winter.

Beautiful Noonen Park was one of our stops on our town day. There is a park across the street and this small lake full of ducks to feed and a great path to walk around.

Ducks are always fun to feed!! This might be my new header picture, what do you think?

On the last day we checked out this indoor water park! It was SO much fun, for everyone!! We want to come back sometime on a weekday in the winter! It was a great way to end out vacation. The time went by so fast. The week felt like 2 days, where did the time go?

I was able to read every night and relax. I finally went through all my art books I bought at the MN Catholic Homeschoolers Conference over month ago! I went through all my curriculum catalogs and circled everything I want to get and now just need to go through and write it all down and order in August. It really was a great vacation. Spending time doing fun things together, making great memories.

Home sweet home! Home always looks so good after being away from it. We were ready to come home. We were ready for our own beds.

We came home to do our own fireworks in our driveway!! The kids still love these small fireworks. Our neighbors even joined us! Jedi did ask if next year he could go to the "big" fireworks though...so I guess, our driveway fireworks might have to be exchanged for the "big" ones next year. Since we were gone for the 4th, I have no cool treats like Christine or Margaret to show you, but if I would have been home, we sure would have done those cool jello things!

I hope you all had a blessed 4th of July!