The Proof Is In The Pictures

Thanks to our neighbor, Sheila, I was able to go with the fam up north to visit my in-laws and not have to worry about Keats (who seems to be doing mostly OK now.)

My in-laws live about 6+ hours north of us, and our kids refer to it as "the big woods" (for obvious reasons.) While our trip wasn't run, run, run, it was still filled with daily activities that kept the kids and adults busy.....fishing, climbing, frog collecting (kids not adults), swimming, sand castle building, rock collecting, off-roading (technically speaking, more on that later), but most importantly, just visiting and enjoying family! It was a most enjoyable and relaxing trip all around, and was long overdue, since we haven't been up there in over 3 years (the kids don't even remember the last trip!) And it also gave me an opportunity to take photos! I took over 300 photos and am sorting through them all now. Here are a couple that I've had a chance to "approve" for publishing (if you want to see it enlarged, just click on it):

Eric stands on the little pier to do some fishin'

Uncle Chris helps Eric out (i.e., he puts on the bait, casts the line, reels it in, and gets "Eric's" fish off the hook.) My child is such a city boy.

My brother-in-law Chris smiles over at Heidi.

And Heidi smiles back. Aren't they a cute couple? (Sorry, couldn't resist; you guys are too cute together! ;-)

Little Man Zach off to show Eric how it's done!

Zachary and Uncle Joe (Heidi's younger brother)

Mike finds a secluded spot for some fishing away from the noisy kids, but not too far away for my telephoto lens :-)

By now you may be wondering why there are no photos of me fishing (or maybe you're not). Well, I really don't do fishing, not my thang, but the real reason there are ZERO photos of me from this trip is that my husband never thinks to grab the camera from me to shoot a few, plus he wants me to "pose". I really dislike posed photos; I'm more into candids because people are more relaxed and natural, unlike posed photos. Anyway, the "proof" that I was there on this vacation is "in the photos" - that there are any. :-)

The lake where we went fishing is on private property; i.e., Heidi's family owns about 1,000 acres of land, complete with many large lakes. The dirt roads were like a labyrinth for us, but Chris and Heidi knew their way around no problem. They took us on many of the roads, plenty of "scenic routes" and interesting things to look at up in the trees. We saw several dear too. It was really incredible for us to be the only people at the lake, to have it all to ourselves! What a treat!

The kids all lined up in the row boat to go out with Chris and Mike to do a little off-shore fishing (as it turned out, it was more like a little off-shore whining N complaining. Glad I stayed on the beach.)

Little Miss with her new fishing pole.....not sure if she caught any fish, but she did manage to hook her brother once in the leg and another time on the nose. Tears were shed over the nose-hooking (not hers, though.) It was downright dangerous being anywhere near my kids while they learned to cast their lines.

Aaron is probably spotting a frog, which were in abundance!

My nephew, Zachary again. He's at that wonderful age where he loves the camera and he made it easy for me to get so many cute photos of him!

Oh no, a posed photo
Eric, Zach, Charlotte, & Aaron at the lake on Sunday night. We went back for some more fishing and a little camp fire.

And that's all the photos I have ready to show for now. Hopefully I'll have a few more to share later this week.