Vacation Time!!

We rented a cottage on Cayuga Lake last year with Chris, Melissa and Ethan. It was such a wonderful and relaxing time that we pledged to do it again. When our lives became uncertain this past spring, Chris and Melissa went ahead and rented the cottage with the hopes that we would be able to join them. We scheduled the closings of both houses on the 26/27th of July and the cottage was rented for the 28th. I prayed that the closings would go as planned and I made phone calls every week to keep people on task. We did indeed close as scheduled on both houses. We had many people from Pearce help us load up our U-Haul trucks (2 26' trucks to be exact!) and Ransomville folks helped to unload them on the other end. It was almost a complete dump and run. We put up beds and unloaded a bit of the kitchen before locking up our new house to go on vacation. Now...I don't necessarily recommend this but ya gotta do what ya gotta do!!
We had awesome weather with only a wee thunder shower one night. Here are some pictures of our time.
Here are Josh, Kaleb and Ethan taking a paddle boat ride. There was no shortage of boats, we had a paddle boat, a fishing boat, a ski boat, a kayak and an inflatable raft. We used them all too!

This is no fish tale! The week was filled with lots of fishing and catching! Greg fishes but says he never catches anything so I need to clarify there was catching of fish all week. Here is Kaleb with a small one he caught off the dock.


Then there is the medium sized fish that Josh caught, I think it was a lake trout. This was caught on an early morning outing with Chris on his fishing boat. It was so early in fact, Josh went in his PJ"s. I think the fish came in around 8.5 lbs.

Then there's the BIG ONE! Chris is amazing when it comes to all things fishing and hunting. His head is chock full of information and the boys, Josh especially, just eat it up. Chris thought it would be a fun time to hook a carp. He threw out some canned corn to attract them as they are apparently a shy fish. Josh saw one come close to the dock and threw in his line. That fish emptied his entire line and they had to get in the boat to chase it down. One broken rod later, they had a 24 lb. carp!! They threw it back in since it was only for the fun of the catch on that one.
We had many visits by ducks throughout the week. I think word got out that we were easy and whole families stopped by daily. This one got quite brave and took bread right from Ethan's hand. His nakedness apparently had no effect on him. (Ethan was potty training and spent the better part of the week in his birthday suite!)









I took lots of pictures and in the end realized I have no good ones of Greg or myself. Here is one of Kaleb and I on a kayak trip. we never did get the hang of paddling in tandem but we made it back safely anyway.










Here is Josh tubing. He did try to get up on waterskis several times and made it up once for about 30 seconds. In the end he decided tubing was more his speed.











Kaleb amazes me! He tried last year to get up on skis and made it once for a short bit. This year, the first try, he got up and stayed up for an entire loop around. It took convincing that there were no human-eating fish in the waters and that the seaweed would not swallow him up either, but after that he was a mad skiing machine. It was such a huge accomplishment for him and he skied like a pro.

Greg slept most nights out on the dock and got his fill of naps and resting. He also got to play some volleyball for Chris' team one night. Just what he needed before he hit the ground running at the new church.

I am so grateful for our time there. Hope you enjoyed our photos!
Reminder, you can click on any photo for a larger view.