Aug 10 - 16: Our Lake Visit, Part 1

We spent a lovely week and a half at Otter Tail Lake in Minnesota with Kent's family.  The lake cabin has been in Kent's family for almost 4 decades (I think) and Kent spent time there every year as he was growing up.  He goes through withdrawal if he can't get there each year!  We tried to make sure to cram as many activities as we could into our time there.  In the interest of time (I'm working on this blog entry over Labor Day Weekend), I'm going to focus on some of the hundreds of photos that we took rather than "talking".

Overall note: Elin loves, loves the water and always wanted to climb down the stairs into the lake.  She really just wanted to get her toes in the water!  Erik had lots of fun, but we had to force him onto all the watercraft while he cried and fussed.  After we started out, he would calm down and then have a great time.

A beautiful day at the lake:

We had lots of fun at the lake and tried to be outdoors & playing early in the morning and then staying out as long as possible.

We went for boat rides:

Auntie Natalie let Erik "drive" the pontoon.  He was most interested in the horn button!!

We played in the water:

We went for kayak rides:

Oops! Elin fell asleep during her kayak ride!

We rode (drove?) the Jet-Ski:

Kent wind-surfed (he was very lucky that the lake had bad weather when we first got there and sent him lots of wind):

We paddle-boarded, though neither Kent nor I took any pictures of these events.  Grandma Mary has promised to email me her pictures when she can download her camera to the computer.

We fished (and yes, I went out on one of the fishing trips and managed to catch a fish using a baby-sized rod).  Erik & Grandpa also fished from the dock at the house:

We flew kites (the kites are on fishing poles!):

We went for walks, bike rides & stroller rides:

Erik has a bad habit of not looking forward when riding his bike.  If we didn't hold on, he hit every yard...on both sides of the street!!

Erik & Grandma decided to switch places!

We drove the tractor:

For Elin to drive the tractor, Kent had to push down the accelerator with one hand while steering with the other.  Very hard to do!!!

Erik learned how to shuck corn:

We played with Uncle George & Aunt Marsha's dog, Tucker.  Both kids loved Tucker, who was very patient with them:

This is Kent...Erik and I slept three nights in the tent.  It was fun to camp with him.  We watched videos on the IPAD before bed and it was kind of a treat for him I guess as we don't normally do that.  We didn't get rained on although it did sprinkle as we went to bed the third night.  Things went pretty well although the first night I woke up at some point and looked at Erik's sleeping bag and he wasn't there!  I hadn't given much thought to the risk of him escaping from the tent but I did panic slightly.  After a quick scan of the tent I located him about 4 feet from his sleeping bag behind my head!  He was just laying on the plastic of the tent.  I slowly moved him back to his blankets and covered him up.  He didn't wake up.  Each of the other nights he would launch off in another direction and I'd pull him back.  The other nights he got to sleep on the bottom bunk in Grandma and Grandpa's room so he had a good time sleeping in different places.

The first night in a tent

Wake up Time!