Vacation's all I ever wanted....

vacation's havin' to get away.....

and there is no better place than Minnesota! We are enjoying a week by the lake.

After much anticipation we have finally arrived. We left early Saturday morning and we made it 16.2 miles (about 15 minutes) before the dreaded question was first uttered "Are we there yet?" Not bad. The journey continued for another 11 hours and took us through Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. Beautiful sites!

In the Pool

We saw Eagles on the drive up. Magnificent!! The kids couldn't wait to swim and fish. The resort we stay at is called Sunset Cove Resort . It is a great family run resort right on the banks of Cass Lake in a fabulous little cove. We can swim in the indoor pool on cold rainy days and catch fish off of the docks on the nice days.

On the dock

This is a wonderful area of the country with the Chippewa National Forest, Lost Forty and Itasca State park just short jaunts away. If you didn't know, Itasca is home to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. It begins as a beautiful little stream you could wade across. A must see on your bucket list.

The wild life is fantastic too. Each night I have heard the call of the common loon. For an Iowa girl it is anything but common. We have a woodpecker feeding her young next door and an oriole tending her young in the birch tree in front of our cabin. It is awesome to look up at the wonder of a nest she has created. Heron, pelican, goose, finch, chipmunk, each day is a new wonder to behold. I will share a few photos with you and call it a night :

Pelican's ~ 3 feet off shore!

Oriole's nest

Heron

Canada Geese with 6 chicks!

How Cozi are you?

Ok, so it has been a little bit since I started this crazy blog. I have had a little trouble remembering my log in/password...duh! And since you aren't supposed to write them down for "security" reasons...well, you get the picture. This morning I had the pleasure of taking the time to reset my password since my oldest is off to school, my middle guy just left for his first morning of Kindergarten Round-up and I have no extra little monkeys in my pseudo day care. So it is just the little guy, the dogs and me. A little quiet, a little weird, but very calm. I think I like it! Have you heard of Cozi? I just found it ( well, it was on my new computer). It is a FREE program that is designed to keep you organized. And it is soooo easy! Easier than remembering your password! So far I love it. I can enter all of our commitments on the calendar~ which is color coded and can be pulled up for the whole family or each individual member. It will also send reminders to your phone, email or both. There is also a section for lists~grocery, to-do, etc. This too can be sent to your phone. When I am not using it is goes into "collage" mode and does a picture display of all of the digital photos I have yet to do anything with. Very cool. I am hoping with a little effort I will use the early part of summer to get more organized and that will free up time to play the rest of the summer. How do you stay organized?