Christmas Week at Horseshoe Lake

We spent our first extended time at the cabin between Christmas and New Year's.

It took a while to settle into the pace of cabin life -- relaxing, playing games, living in relatively close quarters with each other, generally slowing down from the super fast-paced semester that we had just survived.

We took with us our two cats and the new addition to the family, Maggie's hamster, Peanut.




I think what continually surprises me about the lake is how much it changes, even on a daily basis.

The first day we arrived, the lake was covered with snow.

We weren't sure about the quality of the ice (or how you'd even know how thick it is), but we could observe that snowmobiles had been out on the lake (both by their tracks and later, by actually seeing and hearing them zooming about). So we decided to try cross-country skiing on it.


As it turned out, there was about a foot of ice underneath six inches of snow and slush, which was scary because the slush gave the illusion that there was no ice underneath.

We met the neighbors, or at least the kids and grandkids of the neighbors, and made fast-friends. They were gallivanting around the ice and walking over to the island and ice fishing, giving us the go-ahead: the ice was safe!!

But a day or so later, it rained and the snow melted completely, followed by an utterly frigid day that made the lake practically an ice rink.

Sheila took us in to the town of Barron for lunch and for a little hike on one of the days to shake a little cabin fever.

It was gorgeous.




We still don't have a tv up there (to, apparently, everyone's shock) and what is funny about it is that the kids don't seem to care at all. We put together the newest Lego Hogwarts, played Clue and Dominoes and hide-and-seek. Oh, and lots of snuggling and reading, too!

Gaga and Papou visited, Cath and Bella visited and Tom and Joe visited!


The biggest food-related hit was that I learned to make bagels!





The bagels were followed closely by the homemade ice cream we made with the little ball that Santa brought Johnny.


Here are a few more pictures. On the rainy day we crossed the lake and explored the island!

Snowstorm at Horseshoe

For those of you not privy to the FIFTH biggest snowstorm in Minneapolis history, here are a few pictures. We were, thankfully, stuck at the cabin with our first guests!

A Post-Thanksgiving Surprise!

So.... All of the planets aligned and we were able to close, bring a truckload of junk, and carpet the place all in the three days before Thanksgiving with the goal of surprising the kids that Friday.

WHEW!

We conned them into the car with promise of bagels and a road trip. Copying some friends of ours that go on "circle drives" to look at lakes, we austensibly wanted to see holiday decorations.

At some point, John realized that we had headed quite far in one direction and that it was, apparently, NOT a circle drive, and inquired as to my sense of direction and if I was lost.

We had a great weekend setting the place up and playing games and exploring (inside and out) and drinking cocoa. We're not planning on having television there, so that introduced some challenges for us (particularly at 6:30 a.m.), but in the long run, it'll be well worth it.

Ours! (and the bank's. . . )

We closed yesterday.

It was a whirlwind of logistics as we are trying to surprise the kids on Friday. We wanted to have a Uhaul full of stuff from our Minneapolis home and have it there for us on Friday so that we could move it in and actually have a place to sleep that night.

Oh, and get it re-carpeted in the mean time while it is empty.

I met Sheila up there with the truck and she followed behind having had to attend a meeting in the morning.

Without her, I took a wrong turn and ended up at someone else's place.

Oh and did I mention the ice storm?

Anyway, I must've been nervous because at the walk-through the sellers and their Realtor asked if I was okay.

Having never performed a walk-through before, I was definitely nervous.

But it went swell and we signed our life away and here it is! The cabin in winter.