Staycation

We live in Vacationland.  People drive hours up from the Twin Cities to relax by Lake Superior for the weekend.  Often when we are driving back to Ashland after visiting Eau Claire, there is a long line of cars heading south, after a weekend away.

This summer we wrapped up everything by having our own staycation.  We went to Hayward to see Wilderness Walk (Lilly's kindergarten class went, they gave coupons, and Lilly asked all summer if we could go - we promised her before the end of the summer we would go.  We went the second to last day they were open for the season . . . ). 

The girls had a great time, Greta is certainly not the biggest fan of animals.  My guess is a big part of it is her size - they are all pretty much bigger than her or about her size.  Lilly particularly loved being the "expert" and showing us around.

We also took the inflatable boat out for one last ride before returning it to Tim and Elizabeth.  Our lovely Lake Superior has very inconsistent temperatures. While it technically is never very warm, it can get quite cold, even from one day to the next.  This particular day the water was quite cold, so we didn't do any swimming.  Well, Greta and I didn't do any swimming.  Nick and Lilly both got in - and got right back in the boat.

Old Mother Turtle, which we normally see from up above on the
trail, this time from the water.  

Of course we run into friends of ours, the Coopers

Going through my photos, our next day involved drying out the inflatable and Tim and Elizabeth came over for dinner. 

However, it was egg-speriments and that needs to be a post of its own.  So I will skip ahead to Monday.  We went to Copper Falls in Mellen, WI.  It turns out Nick's parents were also vacationing in the Northwoods, visiting dear friends of theirs from back when they lived by Milwaukee.  They've retired in Mellen, so we all met at Copper Falls to do the hike.  It was a fun, unexpected part of our staycation.

We call Lilly Words.  Any time there are
words around, she has to read them.

Lilly crashed the photo

They bought GIANT ice creams for the girls.

It was a nice little get away on the last official day of summer.  Back to work for Nick (not that he doesn't work all summer) and back to inservice for me.

Of course, soccer was still wrapping up.  Lilly still wasn't a go after the ball and attack kind of player, but she started to make more contact with the ball as the season wrapped up and was a bit more focused.

They even managed to stay a bit spread apart and not do mob ball!

The Sixth Street construction also took forever and a day.  About the middle of July we thought they'd be done any day now, but they didn't finish until September!  We did enjoy riding bikes on the fresh asphault and no traffic.  It was a great way for Greta to practice riding a two wheeled bike.  She didn't quite get there before it was too cold to ride bikes, but she certainly made headway!

IMG_6954 from Megan Robertson on Vimeo.

That's mostly a wrap on the summer!