Minocqua--Part Two

Saturday morning, Tom made a great breakfast for all of us and then we headed into town to play at the park and check out the craft fair. This is where we acquired Queenie Dora the Goldfish. After playing at the park, we headed to the Minocqua shops where we (again) visited a candy store and toy store. We got lunch at Culver's and then headed back to the Cottage.




The girls wanted to try fishing again. So Pat relaxed in the house while the rest of us went out for a ride in the boat.



Nothing was biting again until.....




Little Miss Lily caught almost the biggest fish in the whole lake!! And with her little 3-foot fishing pole to boot! It was quite exciting! It measured about 23 inches. And that was the ONLY thing we caught in the 45 minutes we were out there. Andrew, Tom and I were not quite satisfied with the fishing, so we dropped the girls off with Pat and then switched bait to actually try and catch Northerns. Both Andrew and I got a couple baby Northerns and Tom was just casting and casting and then he caught the BIG ONE!




His fish was about 28 inches long. He said that was one of the biggest he'd seen come out of the lake. It was a lot of fun to watch it too. After that, Andrew got one more little fish and then that was it. We headed in and then went to Augie's for dinner.



We built one more campfire that night and made some more S'mores (ha! some more...S'mores. I just got that!--Yes, I'm blonde).



Sunday morning, we woke up and had a yummy breakfast a la Chef Tom again. Then, the girls, Andrew and I headed out for a little hike in the Lakeland High School Ecological Laboratory. They had great little paths and some with boardwalks. We probably would have stayed there longer but we sort of forgot we were in the North Woods and that mosquitoes do in fact exist. And we had no bug spray. So we were pretty much getting eaten alive. Ella was really into it though. I love how much she is into the great outdoors with the campfires and the hiking and animals (see below). After we got back to the Cottage, we realized we had a few ticks hanging around on our clothes. We quickly did a head check and all changed. ICK!

After the hike, we packed up the car and headed out. Both the girls took a nice nap in the car and we were all excited to be home again. We had a really great time up North! It was nice to get away from the big city for a bit and enjoy nature (especially now that there is fancy coffee and WiFi within walking distance! Okay, we don't want to be THAT far away from they city). :-)




While we were in Minocqua, we came across several animal varieties. A dragonfly on the birdbath, a chipmunk hanging out around the firewood, a toad visited us two nights around the campfire, a deer peeking at us in the woods, giant fish, goldfish, oh my!




Stay tuned for a Father's Day post and our new summer routine!