Friday, November 30, 2018

Summer Memories at Voyageurs' National Park


It is a grey, wintery day here but I decided I am going to blog about a fun camping trip that we went on this summer. By the way, I do love winter too and today was a great day - I taught some music lessons this morning and this afternoon Mom and I went on our big buying trip of the year. We bought hundreds of pounds of wheat to grind up to make our bread and other baked goods this year and we also visited another bulk food country grocery where we stocked up on things like oatmeal, split peas, salt, almonds, canning lids, flax seeds, cocoa powder, brown rice, etc. My van was quite loaded down! I personally spent around $250 and got around 600 lbs of food. Mom got a similiar amount (though she was buying to also share with my siblings). 


I have been wanting to write a few more posts about decluttering stories and ideas but my brain is a little to tired for that tonight so I think I will just share some pictures and tid-bits from a trip from this summer.

   In July Ken's sister Beth and her family came out to visit Ken's parents and us. That was really fun. We have spent very little time with them since Beth got married. It is hard because they live way out in Oregon and we are in northern MN. But to be perfectly honest Ken and his siblings just haven't placed a high priority on getting together. Our whole family had gone to their wedding (Megan was quite little) and then we flew out west a couple of years later when their oldest was small and then Ken and I were out for a funeral and met their second child but that was 6 years ago and we hadn't seen them since and they had added another child. 

   So the cousins didn't really know each other at all. But thankfully that didn't stop them at all from having fun. Even with a large age difference and not knowing each other they had a blast together. It was such a blessing. We spent some time being around here at either our house or Ken's parents' house or the state park. We also took them to see the headwaters of the Mississippi. But our bigger adventure was going camping at Voyageurs. Ken's dad rented a pontoon boat for us to use up there. That was a fun experience - when our family had gone there before we had used our canoes and it was super windy and a challenge to traverse the lakes. The pontoon made it pretty easy - though not without it's own challenges. 😏
 Washing dishes while camping can be a fun way to work together.
 The kids found some glorious moss covered rocks and Ken, Mara and I went to check them out too. The place we stayed was truly beautiful - my pictures do not do it justice.

 The swimming was great!
 One morning we were planning on doing some exploring in the pontoon but were having some struggles with getting it started (one simple step was being forgotten) and then it drifted a bit and the guys had to jump out to get it out of the weeds and they got to do a little unplanned "swimming".
 Beth and Kelsey after we did get the boat going. Jonathan was getting a turn with the driving which he greatly enjoyed.
 We were having to be careful to stay out of Canadian waters as we didn't have passports. We did our best but with many of the lakes being split down the middle it was a little hard to tell at times.
 This really old building in an area that is not reachable by land very close to the canadian border. This old building had settled in weird ways leaving a very slanted floor. It was in the hotel that people only go to by boat.
 Coffee-pot falls.
 Islands abound. We had to pay close attention to the map so we didn't loose our way.
 Aaron got a turn with driving too much to his delight.
 It was a bit windy and chilly on the boat. We were thankful for rain coats and sweatshirts.
 One of the special treats of this trip was that we went during blueberry season and the campsite we were at had some of the best blueberry picking that I have ever seen. It was a great year for blueberries. Mara and I had such fun picking!! Some of the others picked some too but they weren't quite so dedicated. We were able to bring a bunch home to freeze and we have still been enjoying them!
 They tasted so good!!

 Campfires are fun!
 My beautiful Megan on one of her exploring ventures. The kids would go exploring and then want to show us all that they had found.
 We love the big rocks up in this area of Minnesota.
Aaron, Megan and Kaleb all tried out tubing behind the boat. They thought it was quite fun!

 All in all we had a very fun trip. It was a blessing to get to spend time with extended family and get to know them better and we had beautiful weather and we sure enjoyed seeing a little more of God's beautiful creation.


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