More camping tales....



This is a picture of us biking. Maddy & Nick completed a 17 mile bike ride - yes, I said 17 miles! They rode around Lake Itasca with Walter and me. They are troopers! (And just because there always has to be a Walter story....) And Maddy even got right back on her bike after Walter ran her off the bike path..... :)






On the biking adventure, we stopped to climb a fire tower. I asked them to look like they were about to jump for this silly picture. I'm not sure if it is pretend or real fear on Nick's face.... You can see from the next picture how high the tower is. When you climb up, it is all metal grating so you can see all the way down through the stairs and to add to the fear, it shakes in the wind a good amount. Both the kids and I were a bit squeamish going all the way to the top, but the view was awesome.

Ahhhh.... vacation..... A time of relaxation, rejuvination - being able to enjoy the slow life with family you love....

Unless you happen to have the misfortune of having to vacation with Walter! :) You know there has to be some adventure and new lessons learned in every camping trip....

So here we were entering the Boundary Waters in Upper Minnesota. A beautiful area of gorgeous lakes and great wildlife. Looks like we are having a great time eh????















Do you notice in that last picture how the waves seem to be bigger???? For those of you that don't get out to enjoy nature much, that means that the wind is picking up. Doesn't look that bad some of you may say, but when you mix strong gusty winds coming at you, waves on a large open lake and (the killer) small children in the front of the canoe (meaning all the weight and rowing strength is in the back of the canoe), it spells disaster! :)

So after enjoying lunch on an island, we headed back to the dock. Walter had Joe and Katie (and the map) and I had Nick and Maddy. The kids and I take off to the other side of the lake going across the wind. With Nick and Maddy's awesome paddling we make it. Shortly after Walter makes it as well. I then verify where we are going and take off. Walter (who can paddle harder than I can) gets ahead of us and then proceeds to head back across the lake we just paddled across. Without the map and cursing him because I have no idea where he is going we start to follow. When we got close enough to shout where on earth is he going (that is the edited version...) I find out that the wind just carried him over there and we needed to keep heading into the wind.

Do you have any idea what happens to a canoe that is lighter in the front and doesn't have any paddling strength up front when heading into a wind??? It spins backwards - over and over and over again - and then when you paddle to turn it the right way again, you find yourself further from your destination since the wind carried you backwards during the whole fiasco... I finally realized the only way we were getting back to the dock was for me to become a drill sergeant and push Maddy and Nick to row their little hearts out. (I won't mention the part about almost tipping the canoe....) They performed admirably! Walter on the other hand went into the reeds of the shore and basically pushed his canoe home.

Ahhhh another enjoyable, relaxing day of vacation with Walter..... I will let Amy tell the rest of the vacation story since she is so good at doing the vacation summaries!

Diving Camp was a success! The girls went for an entire week, staying at the University of Florida dorms. (Mom did stay in Gainesville in case there was a melt down...) They had lots of fun and learned a lot. They were a bit surprised by the "conditions" of dorm rooms - I think they thought it would be like a hotel... :)







But the favorite part by far was getting to eat in the cafeteria - with no Mom telling them what to eat! Maddy was on the all "white food" diet... White bread, turkey, pasta with no sauce, english muffins.... Katie was on the all pizza diet and every now and then had some cereal for breakfast if no pizza was available! :)












No actual diving pictures.... have you ever tried to take a diving picture with a digital camera with a delay???? Not pretty. But Katie is doing well on her inward and even surprised the coach by doing it off the 3-meter board. Maddy is really getting more height on her back dive - working towards the back flip and they both are almost doing a front flip. Both also went off the 5 meter board and I understand that Katie walked up to the 10 meter, but decided against going off! I can't blame her - I don't think I could even go up and look over!