Up North with the Bykowskis

Since Tim, Joan and I retired last June, we decided to spend the first full week of school up north at their cabin this fall.  Paul was invited, too, even though he is still a working man!  This was our only summer vacation this year!

 First day of school and I didn't have to go!  We are ready to head north!

 Golfing at Black Bear south of Hackensack.

 

 We didn't really plan the color coordinated outfits, but, there you are!

 

 Joan - my trusty chauffeur (how DO you spell that?  Oh yeah, spell check will help me!)

 

 On Wednesday the guys went golfing again at a different  course and the girls went SHOPPING in Walker.  This bird lives at the flower shop - isn't he pretty?

 

 Hmmm ... a successful day at the shops!  We also went out to eat at Zona Rona's on a retirement gift certificate from Kathy Ellsworth - our Dean of Students at STME, who has a family cabin near Walker, too.  Thanks, Kathy - it was YUMMY!

 Next, we headed out for a sunset fishing expedition. Will we catch anything this year?

 

                                     

 Here we go - look out fishies, we are on your trail!

 Yep - Paul caught the first sunfish - not bad, but we can do better!

 

 Nnyeh - this thing is going back in the water.  I think I caught him two more times!

 

 Circling the lake we go past Camp Patmos - someday we're going to have the Waterbrooke kids rent this place!  It looks like a great camp location.

OK, Paulee, whatcha got?

 Here comes the sunset - or should I say there goes the sun?

 

                                     
                                     
                                     

 I love taking sunset pictures!

 

                                     
                                              

 I'm getting the net ready - I feel a big one just around the bend!

 

 Here it is - the catch of the day!  A big northern! It's a keeper!

 

 Back home again, the guys go watch a Youtube video on how to fillet a northern - it's full of Y-bones, you know!  I concentrate on more sunset photo ops!

 

 This is NOT a real bird, but he makes a cool silhouette!

 

 Here we go ... I hope they wrote down the directions?

 

 It's getting dark - Paul is very helpful in this filleting process - he holds the flashlight!

 

 YUMMY!  Joan knows just how to fry up some very tasty fish!

 

 Thursday morning we go for a breakfast cruise - searching for loons or eagle phot ops. It's a bit chilly, so we have jackets and coffee to sustain us.

 

 Hmmm ... the loons are hiding - all we saw was this nasty seagull.  Oh, well.

 

 No black and while loons, but we did see this black and white cow???

 

 And, yes, took quite a few shots of the resident eagle in his tree.  We had to circle the lake, though, because he wasn't in his normal perch.

 

 Are you a bit chilled?  Ready to go in now?

 

 Time had to head for the cities on Thursday afternoon for a photo shoot, but we stayed and tried a bit more fishing.  Paul is the substitute captain and we headed out.

 

 The fish were hiding this time - I think Joan caught two babies and we threw them back.

 

 But ... the sunset was really a pretty pink this time!

 

 We played nine holes at Black Bear on the way home - hmmm - he looks red to me?  Oh yeah, this is the women's tee box!  I get a break, lucky me!

 We dropped Joan off in Elk River and headed to the U of M to see the first Gopher Volleyball game using the season tickets that we got from the girls for Christmas.  We won!

 

 Hey there, Goldy, throw a tee shirt my way next time, would ya?

 

This is the Diet Coke Classic tournament, and we won all of our matches on Friday and Saturday.  It is going to be a great season, and best of all, our seats have chair backs on them!

 

It was a fun mini vacation - maybe we'll get in a few more days this fall to see the colors. 

 Retirement is awesome!

Waterbrooke Summer Kid's Activities - Whew!

We tried something new this summer for our Waterbrooke kids.  The upper elementary kids always seem to drop out from VBS and Wacky Wednesdays, saying they are "too old."  So, we did Wacky Wednesdays in the morning in July for ages 3and 1/2 to 4th grade and added Y-not Wednesdays for kids entering Middle School  - 5th-8th graders - in the evenings.  It really was a success, but exhausting as I prepped on Tuesdays, ran everything on Wednesdays, and cleaned up on Thursdays! We did NOT do VBS in August after all that! 

 We had four weeks of Wacky Wednesdays using Go Fish materials.  I had lots of help from teens and Pat, Sandra, Kristin, and Jon teaching.

The four weeks of Y-not Wednesdays also had extra adults involved to help with managing all those middle school boys (and two girls). Thanks to our bus driver Tara, Bruce, Paul, Keppels, Jon,Tina, and Lisa.  We played disc golf at the Crown College course, went to Feed My Starving Children, tried geogaching at Baker Park Reserve (lake auburn campsite are) and then did a Food Pantry Scavenger Hunt.

 

Finally, we wrapped it all up with a campout/fishing trip to Lake Minnetonka for the older kids in August - and had LOTS of help for this!  Sandy and Bruce slept out in tents, Tina and Paul helped out with a cookout, minigolf, and movie, and Bruce Eaton and Wes Foss took us fishing and help cook and eat them!  Check out all the fun we had:

 

 

 Friday night we set up camp, roasted hot dogs, and got organized in the tents.

 We went to play minigolf over by Gale Woods near St. Boni - a place called Big Stone, and the owner is a sculpture artist.  Each hole is unique!

                                                         Hole in 13! Way to go, Austin!

Now this hole looks pretty normal, but check out the next water hole - your ball has to float down the mini river!

                                        Yep - give it a shove if it gets hung up on the rocks!

                We explored all the sculptures after golfing the 13 holes. Join us in a singalong!

             Giddyup!  These horses were made from horse shoes, but they had real

 horses to see as well as goats and ducks!

                                      
The folks at the mini golf provided marshmallows and a fire to roast them!  We had our devotions here before heading back to church to watch a movie.

                                                       Good night, all, sleep tight!

 Breakfast at about 7:15 (yep - I got them up early so we could get the good fishing time!)

 Bruce Eaton has a big pontoon over on Lake Minnetonka and he and Wes know all the best fishing spots!

 Desia (one of our two girls amongst the 11 boys!) caught the first fish - a sunny and it was a keeper!

                                  Jeremiah got the next one ... on our way to catching 62 fish!

 Nicholas and a friend brought along a smaller boat since we couldn't all fit on the pontoon - these three caught about half of the total fish!

                                         We stopped to swim on our way back to the dock.

                         It was sandy but there were a few big rocks to stub your toes on!

                                     Or maybe you just try to balance on the rocks to look taller?

 The kids either played with water guns and slip and slides or helped make lunch.  Caleb washed all the potatoes so they were ready to fry.

 Wes has a cool french fry chopper, and the guys sliced up 5 pounds of potatoes.  We probably could have eaten 10 pounds - yum!

 Andy and Sandy put together the new fish fryer we got just for this occasion at Gander Mountain.

 Wes and Bruce filleted the fish - Nicholas is in training, and did a few, too!  Pretty good for an 11 year old!

                                                      124 fillets, coated and ready to fry!

                                       Wes gave Paul his expertise on using this new fryer.

All I can say is YUMMY!

 

It was an exhausting two days, but made for some great memories for the kids.  I think we'll let somebody else run this show next year - LOL!