Lake House in the Winter

We had a fun weekend up north at the lake house.  We've never been up there during the winter, so we wanted to take the opportunity to go this year.  We took a half day off from work on Thursday and drove up during the daylight.  It turned into quite a long trip when our GPS took us on a scenic route after we told it to take us the "shortest distance" instead of "shortest time"...oops!  Then Hailey said she had to go to the bathroom.  The next exit had only a gas station (which would really be my last choice, but when that's all that's available...) and a motel.  Once we got off at the exit, the signs pointed us west.  What it failed to say was that they were 5 miles down the road!  Not really knowing how far the next exit was, we kept on driving the 5 miles.  Thankfully the gas station bathroom was exceptionally clean (probably because most people wouldn't normally take the time to drive the 5 miles there!).  We had a little over an hour to go after that stop...we were already on the road for at least 5 hours (the normal time it takes to get there).  After a quick stop at Walmart for some milk and breakfast food for the next morning, we arrived at the house around 7:30 pm.

On Friday, we did a little sledding around the property and then Brian & my dad headed over to a different lake to do some ice fishing (they got a tip that the fish were really biting over there) while Hailey, my mom, and I headed into town to do some shopping.  The guys ended up catching quite a lot of blue gill and perch!  We did some more sledding in the afternoon before heading in to watch a snow storm move in (bringing about 5-6 inches of new snow overnight).  It was really awesome watching the snow move its way across the lake.  On Saturday, we did a little more shopping in the morning and then some more sledding in the afternoon.  We didn't get to see much wildlife.  They must have been hibernating or scavenging for food deeper in the woods.  One of my parents' neighbors up there emailed some pictures of a bobcat a couple weeks ago that had been roaming the property and even came up on to our porches.  Unfortunately, he didn't make an appearance while we were there.  We had a great time, though!

Click on the below pictures to make them larger:

 Sledding fun!

 ATV fun!

Nature scenes...bottom right is the fish they caught and the bottom middle is of ice that has shifted up onto the shoreline.

Family photos. 

Watching the snow storm move across the lake.  The top left you are able to see the shore line across the lake.  The picture to the right, it starts to get less clear.  The bottom picture, you are barely able to see anything.

 Trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue!

Here's a video of Hailey sledding down the hill in the backyard.  The path ended up with a little curve in the middle so it was like sliding down a bobsled track!  Listen to Hailey say "Woo Hoo!" at the end.