Melnarik Week

We had a great week having my sister, Christina, hubby Chet and girls Catie & Becky out. There wasn't that much trampoline time - but lots of water/dock sitting. It was great to fine-tune the art of doing as little as possible.

Here is our lovely pet eagle. It is always such a joy to watch the eagle up at the lake. I've never seen more than one at a time, but we have seen a couple nests. This afternoon we got a great show of this one flying around. It kept sweeping up and down the shoreline going down for fish. It was awesome.



With Slade taking off all the previous week for his family to come out he went back to Minneapolis for three days of work before getting back for a a four day weekend. Here is Seby loving up his Uncle Chet. He was really missing his daddy and loved having another daddy around to cuddle with.



Here we are calling Slade to see when he might arrive. Everyone just had to say hello to him on speakerphone.



Sadly in Minneapolis this evening was when the bridge collapse happened. Luckily it wasn't a route that Slade, Cody & friend Ryan had to take to get to the lake. They actually were all on 94 crossing the river south of this collapse. Slade called me right away when he heard to radio news coverage. I was able to use the handy-dandy internet on my treo to google what had happened.

Here is Zane sitting in a "new" club house off the deck. Seby overheard us talking about this place and chirps in "that is where Liam and I pee." Yikes. A new club house no more!



Here are Catie & Zane playing a "dinosaur" game in the water. We have a bag of plastic dinosaurs and they played a game of hiding them in the water and then finding them. They kept a count of how many they had and did an amazing job of finding all of the them.





I bought two mermaid toys at our church's holiday fair last year. I intended to mail them to the girls for christmas, but never did. Luckily I brought them to the lake and gave them now. The girls had a great time playing with them. Ironically they weren't a water toy, but they visited the water with Becky here on the dock.



Seby & Graham had a great time playing an underwater game at the lake this afternoon. They would go underwater and speak, trying to figure out what the other person was saying.




We gave Seby some Astrix books for his birthday and everyone got into reading them. Here is Zane reading one. He hadn't been interested in reading them before - but this trip he really got into reading them. Slade grew up reading these books and loves reading them to the boys - thank goodness because I can't stand reading them.



Seby is playing with his new helicopter he got from his b-day. GrandAnn had given him a fancy "shooter" fishing pole that broke quickly. We returned it to Target and he picked this helicopter instead. Luckily this hasn't broken at all.


Here is Slade pulling Catie, Becky & Chet on the tube. Catie was in command of how fast the boat went, needless to say it was a slow tubing ride.



Zane was able to get Auntie Chris to tell him lots of made up stories during our week.



Minnow catching was a big hit with the kids. Here is Seby holding one of his finds.





More Astrix reading.



Seby enjoying Astix while warming in the sun after a swim.



A favorite of Slade "rock fishing" - here he and Chet clear more rocks from our swimming area. It sure is nice to go out in the water and not trip on rocks. Just the soft sand. Thank you rock fishers!



I just had to document my new usage of having the internet on my treo. I was reading a book review from the New York Times and just had to order it. I think Alex is right that it goes against my rules of no electronics up at the lake. We will have to figure out if we really need to have the availability to it while up there. It sure came in handy when we were trying to learn about the Minneapolis bridge collapse.



Here Catie, Seby & Zane are comparing favorite rocks that they have found.


Christina cleaning up the bathroom they used while up at the lake. She did a more detailed job that it has seen. Thank you!!



More Astrix reading



This is really the best picuture I have of our group pic. Maybe Chrissy has a better one?



Chet started to grow some long sideburns while here and Slade was joking about he is getting ready to buy a big motorcycle - here they are all "riding" their big hogs!



Mei Mei and Puppy Puppy (Catie was calling me Mei Mei - which is chinese for little sister and I was calling her my puppy puppy)



Chet, someone was looking for you and Chrissy after you left.



These are the only pics I have of Ryan being up at the lake.





Zane on the boat while we tube Cody & Ryan.