Family Vacation Up North (Minnesota)

After sharing family vacation photographs on that last weighty post and thinking I had rambled on and on, with plenty of space for more images when I realized at the end I didn’t have enough room (a girl can only ramble so much before running out of paragraphs on a subject she’s ready to put behind her)….I thought I should share the rest of the images I had intended for that post.  But with less talk this time.  🙂

It was a few days before she came Up North that she asked for this short hair cut.  She said, “Momma.  I don’t care if I look like a boy. I want you to cut my hair over my ears so I don’t have to fool with pony tails and snarls.”  I cut it lower than her ears at first, but was told I didn’t follow instructions very well and that her mind was set on short, short hair.

 The girl child had already been Up North (just a coupla hours South of Canada) for close to two weeks before the rest of us could follow.  She’s had plenty of time to gain her sea legs.  She called me on the first day to tell me that she got up on her first time and that she went around the lake five times, just having a blast. 

I find it interesting that this is the hair cut she asked for and was so similar to the one I had as a child that scarred me for ages as I still recall a little girl in the mall asking her mom why that little boy was wearing a dress.  My child has a confidence I didn’t gain until almost high school in not caring about opinions of others and seeking her own enjoyment.

 It’s tough being the youngling, as she suffers the iniquities of earlier bedtimes, fewer activities and carving her own way when her big brother has always done every first.  Because, well, he’s older and that’s just how it is sometimes.

 While there is a loose bar on the front of the skis, a little rope connecting the read and then the long rope wrapped around the ski bar to make them easier for little people to learn to water ski, it still takes some skill (as her brother realized after several attempts of getting, but not staying, up.

Remember I mentioned the youngling has confidence?  She was dancing like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever on those skis.  She was also singing at the top of her lungs and told her brother the secret to staying up is to belt out, “I Won’t Give Up!“

I love being out on this lake come sunset.  More loons are out as there are fewer people on the water.  They sing their loon songs and it is so peaceful.

 I like listening to the sound of the wheel ratchet around as the boat is raised from or lowered into the water.  It is one of the sounds that instantly makes me think of summer.