Minocqua 2008--Part One

We drove up with the girls to the "little red house" (as the girls call it--otherwise known as the Cottage by the rest of Andrew's family), late Wednesday, June 4th. Ella was super excited about sleeping in the "roof". Really, she meant the loft. There are four twin beds up there. She and Andrew slept up there and were joined by Tom and Pat the next day. Lily and I shared the bedroom downstairs.



In the morning on June 5th, we walked over to the new coffee shop (Little Creek Coffee Company) right around the corner from the Cottage. Yeah! Coffee AND free WiFi. :-) It was a really cute coffee shop in a log cabin type building with a nice outdoor patio overlooking Little Muskie Lake. They had a computer for use, as well as a television tuned to CNN, some books, including children's books, and games. After that, Andrew and the girls fished from the dock a bit. The fishing was largely unsuccessful. Lily almost caught a good size Northern on her little fishing pole, but it actually bit through the line and swallowed the bait and hook and then swam away. In the afternoon, we visited a few shops in Minocqua and then headed back to the Cottage. Tom and Pat arrived not too long after. For dinner, we made pudgie pie pizzas out of bread and pizza toppings over the campfire. The girls, especially Ella, LOVED this! We also made S'mores for dessert.





On Friday, June 6th, we got up and ate breakfast family-style at a place called Paul Bunyan's. Mmmm...great doughnuts there besides everything else. :-) After breakfast, we headed over to Torpy Park where the girls (and everyone else) played in the sand and actually splashed in the water a bit. I can't believe they weren't freezing to death, but they sure had fun. We noticed people setting up for something in the park and inquired about it. They were having a craft fair the next day, so we decided we'd come back and the kids could play at the park too. We headed back to the Cottage. Lily relaxed with Grand Pat while the rest of us attempted to go fishing in the boat. Unfortunately, we didn't catch ANYTHING! I think all of the little pan fish were scared into the middle of the lake. They were hiding somewhere because nothing was biting.





After abandoning fishing, we took a drive to Eagle River. We stopped at Soda Pop's store to see all the "old fashioned" bottled pop they had and purchased a few to sample. They had everything organized by flavor. Many of the flavors we tried were really good! And not as sweet as many of the flavored sodas you can buy at the grocery store. We also visited a candy store, ice cream place, and a toy store. The girls were pretty much in seventh heaven.



After Eagle River, we had an early dinner at Monical's and then Andrew, Ella, Lily and I headed to a new little mini golf course just east of the Cottage. We were the only ones there, so it was a ton of fun. The girls could roam around and play as many holes as they wanted (we just kept skipping 18 until we were ready to go home). We didn't have to worry about bothering anyone or moving the girls along. It was great!

Ella, our little pyromaniac, wanted a campfire every night. And well who doesn't like campfires anyway? So we started one up and made pudgie pie desserts. We had apple pie filling, cherry pie filling, chocolate and marsh mellows to put between pieces of bread and cook over the campfire. Everyone created fun concoctions with the different ingredients.

And that was the end of Day 2. :-)