Beacon Shores, 2011

Sometimes I ask myself why I spend the time and energy to do these blog posts. But then, I realize that if we're wondering what we did to celebrate our anniversary or a birthday a few years back, I just check out some of my old posts, and the memories come flooding back. Guess I'll keep at it, but I've got some catching up to do!

Last summer, when Jenna and I spent a few days at a friend's cabin on the Whitefish Chain, we decided we really needed to return to Beacon Shores, the resort where we spent many family vacations in the past. We stopped at the resort and made a reservation for a 3 bedroom cabin for this summer. The deal was, everyone had to come for at least part of the week. I wasn't sure it was actually going to happen until we all finally arrived on August 6th.

Kyle stayed 'til Monday night, Corey and Maddox until Wednesday morning, and Jenna, Andy, and Charlie stayed for the whole week! It was so much fun to have everyone together for a least part of the time! The weather was great, the food was tasty (although I missed having a dishwasher - ha!), and the fishing was fantastic!

We had a couple of sand monsters. Charlie doesn't look like he's having much fun here, but he loved the sand and the water!

The water toys were fun, too.

And the sunsets were gorgeous!



The kids made tye-dyed t-shirts.

The dye was a little messy.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the finished products, but they were pretty cute.

We spent one evening at a park in Crosslake

The boys had a great time on all the play equipment...

and an even better time eating ice cream in the town square by the Chocolate Ox.

Maddox is such a good helper!

The kiddos also tried out the minnow races. Choosing the best minnow was quite the project.

Mmmmmmm, this one looks good!

Look at it go!

Yeah!

Charlie's turn....

Go, go, go!

This one is a bit bigger!

Chuck and Andy spent a lot of time in the fish house fileting the many fish that they caught.

I tried to spend time with my birthday gift, a Kindle.

Time for a little fishing for Charlie.

Life jacket on.

Check out the live well - nice fishy!

Catch one, Daddy!

Charlie wanted to jump right in! I think he's doing the splits!

Beach time.

Swim, Charlie!

The last day's catch!

Jenna and Andy celebrated their 5th anniversary on Friday, the 12th, so after cleaning all those fish, they got cleaned up and went out for dinner.

Ahhhhhh, cute!

Chuck and I hung around to babysit. Since Charlie had just learned how to climb out of his crib, my goal was to get him to sleep without any tears. I put him in his pj's, strapped him in his carseat, and drove around for about 20 minutes until he was out cold! I then transferred him to the crib. Success!

We played Mexican Dominoes when the kids came home.

We brought along a bottle of champagne to toast the "newlyweds," but the cork was dried up and it shredded into the bottle. Andy and I got real creative and used coffee filters to strain it into wine glasses. Cheers and congratulations!

Time to go...

but we'll be back!
We checked out a few other cabins after people had cleared out on Saturday morning, and we made a reservation for next summer in a bit bigger cabin. If anyone else cares to join us, it would be fun to rent several cabins and have an extended-family vacation!