Family Vacation to Minnesota!

This summer we took a family vacation with Nick's family to Hackensack, Minnesota. It is about 3 hours north of the twin cities. It is a long trip, but so worth it! I was really worried they kids would get bored, or tired of swimming. However, I was soooo wrong! Our daily routine went as follows: fishing from 7-10 AM (Nick's mom and Cane stayed home while we fished on the boat), breakfast/clean fish (boys only) 10-11 AM, play/swim on the beach 12-3 PM, boating/skiing/tubing from 3-5PM (typically when Cane was napping so I could ski too), Dinner 5-6PM, beach time again 6-8PM, campfire at 8-9, baths and then bed after 9 PM. It was so wonderful, we did this for 7 days in a row, and not once did the kids complain about being bored or wanting to do something else! It only rained one day, so we had craft projects and movies inside that day. Here are some pictures and stories from the trip!






Claire loved the boat, especially the ladder to the boat. However, she was not a fan of trusting her life jacket completely out in the middle of the lake. Cole would jump right off the boat.

The twins loved the tube! Claire would giggle and yell faster, faster! I happen to think we were going pretty fast already, but she is a dare devil on rides at Adventureland, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me she loved the tube!

Cane was not a huge fan of his life jacket, nor deep water.

This was the first day, before he realized why you wear life jackets.

The highlight of the trip for Nick and I was watching Cole attempt skiing. Let me give you a little background. While I may be a swimmer myself, and a swimming teacher, until 2 months ago, my kids would not put their face in the water. Just this summer have my kids finally become more comfortable in the water. So, when my 4 year begged and begged to ski, I finally said yes. It was the only way to get him to stop asking, I never imagined he would have a shot at it! So this is really the only picture I have, I was always helping so I don't have many pictures of him trying. His first try was out in the deep water with me behind him helping him hold his skis up on top of the water. The boat pulled him right out and he skied for probably 10 secs sitting on his skis. The funny part is watching the video and seeing that his eyes were closed the whole time! He then attempted 2 more times from the big boat, both times great tries, but he didn't stay up. His final attempt you see in the picture. We used a smaller boat and our cabin neighbors helped me hold him up in the shallow water and just let the small boat pull him on top. He was actually skiing for about 2 secs before he tipped over. All in all, he did an amazing job! And more importantly he continued trying after he continued to drink lake water each time! However, there may have been a small toy gun as a bribe that helped?

Cane's favorite thing to do was drive the boat!

Watching daddy skiing. No great pictures of me skiing, as I said, I am usually the camera woman.

Our neighbors had this paddle boat that they let the kids use, they thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Showing off a little?

The kids actually wanted to go every morning, even after they realized we fish for a long time!