Higgins Lake trip

This past Monday, I took the girls 'up north' for a few days' vacation with a friend and her kiddos. Our friend Shari's parents have a cottage near Higgins Lake, so we had a nice place to stay, cook, shower, etc. Plus, they have a pontoon boat and took us out on the lake every day!



Here's Jessi driving with Papa Bauer.



Here's Katie tubing with friends Rylen and Evan.



Megan got a long turn to drive the boat. She could actually see over the dash and steer places on purpose!



This is Megan, Evan, and Katie in the tube. Megan wasn't so fond of it. Katie stayed in the tube nearly the whole time we were on the lake!

Here are the kids playing at the North Higgins Lake State Park beach. We anchored the pontoon boat just to the side of the swimming area, where it was waist deep, and walked into shore to enjoy the beach. The kids built dozens of sand castles, drip castles, and swimming pools. We also enjoyed the state park's flush toilets - since Jessi refused to pee in the lake! Hee hee! The quirks of a potty-trained kid...

The Bauers had this contraption they called a water scooter, a little self-propelled dealy. The kids loved it! They could just hold on and float all over the place! Here's Katie trying it out.

The kids floated around on these mats, using the scooter to float all around. We stayed at the beach from about 10am-5pm every day. We had a cooler each for food and for drinks. We reapplied sunscreen but the girls still got a little burned, esp Katie.

Here are all five kiddos, winding down before bedtime, watching Ice Age 3. The garage at the cottage was set-up as a kind of mother-in-law suite, with a futon couch, a huge flatscreen TV with DVD player and Wii, a bathroom with a shower, tables for scrapbooking (Shari & her mom worked on their scrapbooks), two fridges, and two bunk beds. A huge screen covered the garage door, so there were no bugs at all. We slept out in the garage and had everything we needed!

Megan and I got another turn to drive. Katie is tubing behind us.

This is what it looked like every day when we drove back to the dock...Jessi and Megan passed out on me! It was so cute! Katie is actually awake, her eyes are just closed in this pic.




Here's a pic from today, with Megan on the tagalong behind Chris. She was really scared of it at first, since it doesn't have training wheels. But as soon as she took just one little spin around the block, she LOVED it! We did a ton of biking tonight, and as soon as we got home, she asked if we can go on a bike ride every single night!