A Grandma Lungwitz B-Day Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Weekend means cottage weekend. Since we have a new found love of casino buffets we of course stopped for lunch in Turtle Lake. Where else could we eat for $9.00 for all three of us?

McDonald's? Suffice it to say that is not option.

In Ladysmith we did the old switcheroo. Meadow enjoyed seeing the big, old steam train.

Meadow was super excited to use her fishing pole up at the cottage. She "practiced" in the car.

I got a belated birthday present:  a Wisconsin fishing license.

Meadow got to try out her fishing pole on the dock with a real worm and bobber.

Mr. Mike and I went fishing. I lost a new lure (typical me) and we didn't even catch a dang fish.

We had frozen pizza for dinner when the guys got back.

Then Blake showed up. We worked on our crafts this weekend. I did some crocheting while Blake worked on HAND SEWING his walls for his yurt.

We all thought he was a bit nuts. I guess it's a good life skill.

The other night Meadow's voice kept getting more hoarse. Yesterday morning she woke up coughing, but seemed fine otherwise. This morning she woke up bright and early at 6:45am with a low fever. She had a lot of playdates this week so who knows where she picked it up. It seems to be a trend to be sick at the cottage.

I whipped up my famous hash for breakfast. I think I should make a photo book of all the photos of my hash.

Grandpa agreed to watch Meadow while we went to a few rummage sales.

 Our first stop featured some cool bikes. There was a matching "girls" bike to the blue Schwinn, but someone bought it right when we arrived.

We eyed up this tandem. It was very tempting, but we were too cheap for the $200 price.

We ended up getting this Schwinn Suburban for only $30. On the way up I was saying it would be nice to have a bike we could keep at the cottage so we didn't have to transport our bikes back and forth. Although, I'm thinking of taking this one home and bringing my current bike up here.

This seems like the perfect cottage cruiser, but whatever you want babe.

After Scott rode the bike back to the cottage, we changed cars in case we found something else that wouldn't fit in our car and headed out for more sales.

Sweet mail box!

One "sale" ended up being a Hunt and Gather type store.

She means it was a vintage shop in a barn.

They had some cool stuff, but nothing worth buying.

We are currently on the hunt for a commercial Hobart whisk attachment.

This long driveway brought us down to a garage filled with antiques.

In the end we bought some books for Meadow and Scott got a new hat.

The last few stops were a bit disappointing.

When we made it back my mom had arrived and was eating queso dip.

She was eating half a, freaking, jar by lonesome.

Blake and I then installed my mom's rain chain that we made her for her birthday. Of course it stopped raining once we hooked it up.

Meadow ran around with her fishing pole. I think her attention span is too short to fish with a worm and bobber.

Then I gave my mom her Mother's Day gift.

She got beverage holders for the fire. One was a wine glass holder.

I was pretty excited about the new bike and constantly went on mini bike rides. It rides a little bumpy so we will have to take it home next time we are up to get it looked at.

We brought our kayaks up, to leave here, since we have a canoe now. We hadn't used them since our paddle down Minnehaha Creek. They were still covered in mucky water.

"Now what guys, now what?"

We could just watch Blake build a sand castle.

For the second out of the four times that we went to the grocery store this weekend Scott and I picked up dinner fixings.

While perusing the knitting books at the library I found a book that had a pattern for making a pinata. It would be so awesome to have one that was reusable.

Dog Lake is a beautiful place.

For dinner we all ate hamburgers. G.G. stuffed hers with mushrooms and swiss.

I'm not sure what's going on here, but I do know that I saw, like, five wolf spiders on our dock.

Meadow put the cottage magnifying glass to good use.

It became Meadow's new favorite toy.

With a break in the clouds we got in a quick boat ride before the next storm hit.

Now she was just being goofy.

"Meadow, does my nose look big?"

The clouds were starting to get ominous in the distance.

It seemed like a good idea to head back.

The night was perfect for fishing. Meadow even had a couple of nibbles, but no bites.

I caught myself a walleye. Apparently the Three Lakes Chain of Lakes is filled with small Walleye. I guess that's why we always go pike and panfish.

Brooke made a rhubarb simple syrup earlier in the night. I mixed it with your typical whiskey ginger.

For Grandma Lungwitz's birthday I made Nueske's bacon and lots and lots of waffles.

Oh, yeah, my Grandma came along for the weekend. My dad kind of forced her into coming and I'm glad he did. It also happened to be her birthday.

We all were. She's a hoot.

Another day of fishing.

Mr. Mike tried to make it seem like caught a big one. It was just a baby muskie (or pike).

Blake ended up catching all the big guys.

It was a perfect day to fish even if most of us were coming up empty.

Another big guy for Blacob.

While the guys went fishing, Meadow and I went on a little bike ride together.

After hours of fishing it was time for beer and queso dip.

Can't stop, won't stop. This is the style of bike I have been wanting for years. Too bad I can't take it home until we bring up our bike rack.

Meadow got some rides in throughout the weekend.

She always wanted to quit early to swing instead.

"This is where Nolan sits."

"Papa, when are we ever going to fix the Airstream up and live on the road?" 

Ok, she didn't say that, but we really ought to.

Then all the women did their nails, including Meadow who insisted on doing it her self.

I'd say she did a pretty good job.

Grandma didn't have preference on dinner. Mr. Mike made some shish kabob.

It was delicious.

Meadow wanted to know if it was time for cake.

Today was my grandma's 86th birthday. I told her I would make any dessert she wanted and she chose pineapple upside down cake. Her mom had always made this dessert. Believe it or not I had never made one before and it was so easy.

Grandma was amused by the tea candle Blake put on the cake.

We apparently didn't have any birthday candles.

Back to more fishing. This time I came along to assist Meadow.

I managed to catch a little perch with newfound favorite fishing technique: jigging.

Everyone else stuck to worms and bobbers.

She pretends to fish all the time and was pretty excited about having her own fishing pole. But actually catching a fish scares her.

Another one of Three Lake's famous tiny walleye and it was off to bed.

The next morning, after a bacon, egg and hash breakfast we had to say goodbye to the cottage. I had to do a quick shoot back in Eau Claire.