Hanging with Cousins

Following our time up North, Luke and his family headed home, Heather's husband headed home, and Heather and her kids stayed for another week.

It's hard to follow 5 days on the North Shore with fun and exciting activities around town everyday, but we managed to find plenty of interesting things to do while we had extra cousins in town.

Nana and Papa treated the group to an excellent community theater production of Peter Pan!

We took up a lot of seats.

Captain Hook

Pirate Faces

Waterpark

Luke is getting so comfortable in the water!

The girls have to stick together in this family!

Max & Adam

Sucker time

Eagle Ridge Resort

When we were up North this summer, we stayed at Eagle Ridge resort.  Our family had never stayed in these condos before, but they worked out very well for all of us.  We slept well, had our own kitchen area, easy access to the pool, and activities to do on the grounds.

The boys really wanted to ride the gondola to the opposite side of the mountain.  We agreed, and I was surprised how nervous I felt as the car climbed to the top of the rocky cliff.  I was glad to be on solid ground when it was all over.

A typical Brian wave

The Poplar River down below

Lake Superior in the distance

This grove of trees was fun to play in and around.

This wasn't planned, but the picture cracks me up.

Riding down

After the gondola, we walked over to the Alpine Slide.  Matt chose to observe, but the rest of us had fun riding the chair-lift to the top, and  racing down on our sleds.

Grand Marais

It is taking me forever to get these blogs about our trip up north finished!  You may recall that we went up north with my two sisters, my brother, and their families.  :  )

Several summers in a row while growing up, our family went to Grand Marais to camp for a week with 2-3 other families from our church.  This became our vacation each summer, and we LOVED it.  The kids could climb on and throw rocks for hours.  We'd walk into the cute little town and shop, eat yummy mini-donuts, and walk out to the lighthouse.

Some things don't change.  The 4 of us Smith kids now love to bring our own families to Grand Marais to enjoy the same activities we liked when we were young.

Grand Marais Harbor

The boys are getting big!

Our group pretty much monopolized any area we went to!

Who can stand in Lake Superior the longest?

This never gets old

Creating a sculpture at Artist's Point

Adam's finished product

Climbing the lighthouse

We saw this "priate ship" in the distance.

Ben ~ 12

Matt ~ 10

Adam ~ 6

Luke ~ 2

Canoeing

On our 2nd full day up North, several in the group wanted to attempt canoeing.  The resort offers a free canoe trip with a guide, and we were able to head out in a Voyager, 10-person, canoe.

The river has been high this summer, and the day we went out was the first day the guide had taken a group out in a a few days because of the fast current and unsafe conditions.  This wasn't the most reassuring to our novice group, but we decided to go ahead and give it a try.

The kids were all really excited to get moving.  As we loaded up, the wind really picked up and paddling was quite a chore.  We literally went about 100 yards upstream before being blown into the weeds, at which the point the guide said, "This might not work too well today."  For most of us, those 10 min on the water were enough to get a taste of canoeing, and we were ready to be done and return to the safety of land!

I can only imagine what our guide must have been thinking!

Isaac ready to paddle.

I pulled Max's front tooth out the day before while riding in the car with him!

Going nowhere fast!

A favorite picture of mine of Anna!

Safe and done!

We walked to see the falls after canoeing. It's a good thing Luke's family stayed safe with their life jackets on!

Silly M & M

Later that same day, Brian took Adam and Ben out and the winds had died down and they had a very enjoyable canoe trip.

Cascade River

We woke up our first day in Lutsen to an overcast day, but with comfortable temperatures for hiking.  We ventured 15 min north to Cascade River and Cascade Falls and hiked.  With 10 kids ranging in age from 15-2 and varying amounts of daredevil attitudes, the 5 adults had to keep a close watch and a tight grip as we walked along steep cliffs and raging water.

No matter how many times I've seen this area, I just never grow tired of it!

The safest place for an oblivious two-year old!

Ben was usually running ahead and causing me near heart attacks, so this was a rare family photo.

Cousins!

As it got close to lunch time, we crossed the busy highway and walked down to the shore of Lake Superior.  We could finally relax and let the kids run on the big rocks and skip stones in the water.  The fog was very heavy, which made for some pretty pictures.

Cheesey...but one of the boys asked us to kiss!

My Sisters

Dawsons

My oldest & youngest skipping rocks

As the fog burned off, it turned into a beautiful day!

We could finally start to see out far into the lake

We had a picnic lunch and played here for a long time.

We returned to our condos that evening and decided to take advantage of the "Kids Eat Free" deal at Papa Charlies.  The restaurant couldn't have been more accommodating of our big group.  And yes, all of the kids really did eat for free!  Just as we were placing our orders, Luke, Katy and their boys rolled in from driving literally without stopping!!

We got our own private dining area at Papa Charlies

Cousins playing Ships Across the Ocean while the bill for 21 people was being sorted out.

Charlie & Ben

Luke & Katy went straight from their van to dinner.  After dinner, we all grabbed what we could from their van and helped them move into their condo.

Finally...all 13 cousins for a picture!!