Lake of the Woods

Last week we went on vacation with Grandpa, Tara and Brian. We traveled up to Lake of the Woods to stay at Cyrus Resort just outside of Baudette. In order to help break up the drive, we left on Friday - stopped to pick berries and then spent the night in Bemidji. We then travelled the rest of the way on Saturday. The kids did pretty well considering how long they were in the car.

We were able to get quite a bit of fishing in during the week. Although we didn't get to go as far out on the lake as we would have liked, we did catch some good sized fish. The weather was pretty good for most of the week. It rained a little bit, but none of the days were a total wash out so we were able to get on the lake pretty much every day. The last day, the boys weren't able to go out of the bay as once you got past the bay the lake was pretty much white due to the wind and the 17 ft boat was not big enough to try and get out in the open water.

Our activities during the week included: fishing, playing games and cards, taking walks, riding the resort's paddleboat, playing pool in the lounge and just hanging out. We also took Tyler golfing at the local course. He had a fun time, even though it started to thunder and rain part way through so we skipped a couple of holes to get finished quicker. One of the days, the kids watched backhoes take down a couple of cabins that were damaged by a fire a few days before we got there. They believe the fire was caused by someone throwing a cigarette on the ground behind one of the cabins. A couple of days later signs went up in front of the remaining cabins requesting that cigarettes not be thrown on the ground.

On the way home we stopped in Brainerd and spent a couple of hours letting the kids stretch their legs by mini golfing and riding go-karts. The boys enjoyed that and Tyler was excited when he got a couple of hole in ones. The course was a pirate theme and the boys loved all of the displays that we walked through while we were golfing. They especially like the cannon firing that caused water to splash up on one of the bridges. They really liked when someone on the bridge didn't know it was going to happen so they jumped.

Below are some of the pictures that we took during the week.


The kids in the car with all of our stuff:

Marisa picking berries:
Tyler and Nicholas with the berries we picked:

Family picture in Bemidji with Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox:

Family picture in front of our cabin:

Nicholas fishing from the dock:

Tyler and one of the smaller fish that he caught off the dock. He caught one big perch while fishing in the boat, but Daddy and Tara didn't get the net fast enough and just before he got it up in the boat, it fell off the line, so Tyler has a "one that got away story to tell:"
Marisa caught one bigger than her!!! Okay, she was sitting in Mom's lap and Mom reeled it in, but she did have her hand on the rod when it struck. She was on Mom's lap again later on and caught another one that was a little smaller than this one. Daddy went fishing later that night with our lucky lure and lost it so we didn't do as well the rest of the week...although we did catch a couple more.
Tyler fishing in the boat - you can get a feel for how big the lake is behind him as you can't see the far side of the lake:

Family picture in the boat:

The boys heading out for a fishing trip:

Sunset over the cabins (picture taken from the dock):
Nicholas and Grandpa on the paddleboat:
Marisa and Daddy on the paddleboat:
Grandpa and Marisa by one of the resort signs. She wanted to take a bunch of walks during the week. Since we walked out to the this sign a number of times, we decided to take a picture:

Grandpa and Marisa on one of our walks:
Backhoe taking down the fire damaged cabins:

Golfing in Brainerd on the way home:
The boys riding go-karts in Brainerd:


We all had a really good time, the kids were good (for the most part) and we are looking forward to another trip next year. Thanks to Grandpa, Tara, and Brian for sharing in the week, we hope you had as much fun as we did.