Vacation -Day 13 -Rhinelander, WI

We went to the Rhinelander logging museum. The kids had lots of fun looking at things and playing inside the trains. They even had a cool miniature train set of the town.

Rebekah did not like being up on the bunk.

The museum had a whole section on the Civilian_Conservation_Corps or CCC. That was neat to learn about and neat to have Deanna with us to see. Her father came to Chandler, OK with the CCC. It was there that he met and fell in love with a young lady named Flora Mae. The rest is history!

That afternoon Clay took the ladies out in the row boat while I had some quiet time in the cabin by myself :)

We tried to go to the Water Ski show on Boom Lake that night. It was cancelled due to the rain. However, I did get another loon siting.

Vacation -Day 12 -Rhinelander, WI

The cabins that we were staying in had a pontoon that you could rent for the day. So we did.

Kyle and Tallin

Rebekah driving the boat with Clay. Caleb enjoying the sun.

Clay's mom, Deanna joined us the night before. This is a great shot of her and Emma. 

Then you see Ethan in the background. I cracked up when I saw that. So perfect!

I continued my search for loons while on the pontoon. We lucked out finding a small family of loons. I'm a little fascinated by loons. When I was in high school I worked in a store called Northern_Reflections. It's a Canadian clothing company (they no longer have stores in the US). Their logo was a loon. We had all kinds of loon decorations in the store. While I was at work they played music that was similar to Yanni mixed with loon calls. Being in southern California I had no idea what a loon was. But lots of people who shopped there did. So it's kind of exciting for this California beach girl to see loons in real life.

Clay and the kids jumped off the boat into the lake.

Clay took the kids on a fishing trip with the kids. Emma caught 4 fish and released them. Rebekah caught her very first fish. It swallowed the hook so we couldn't but it back. Look how proud she is.

That evening Nana took us out for a "couples' cruise" while Grandma put the kids to bed. I didn't get a picture of it, but we were surprised by three bright stars in a triangle just over the horizon. It looked liked a mystic portal waiting to suck us to another world or dimension. We later found out its was Mars_Saturn_and_Spica. I like my version better. Either way, we enjoyed a peaceful sunset on the lake.

Vacation -Day 11- Rhinelander, WI

About an hour outside of Rhinelander is a town called Minocqua. It is known as the "Island City" because a portion of the town is on an actual island. There are so many lakes there -10% of the total area of the town is water. We go to Minocqua for breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty. All you can eat lumberjack style breakfast. Emma and Michelle even got a slice of cake for their birthdays.

After our hearty breakfast we went to Holiday Acres for some family fun. We started off with the "slower" two-seater go karts.

The bigger "kids" went on the faster go karts.

Next we all went for a round of mini golf. 

Right after I took this picture of Emma she got stung by a bee. The bee landed on her finger while she was watching the others take their turn. She felt it land and shook her hand and OUCH!! Very traumatic experience for my sensitive girl. Luckily I had a first aid kit in the van. 

Rebekah was anxiously awaiting all day for a pony ride!

All that was just our morning. When we got back to our cabins in Rhinelander it was time to break out the jet skis. The Kings brought them. Everyone had a great time!

Emma and Shaylin

Clay and Spencer

Tallin, Rebekah, and Clay

They tied the tube to the 3-seater jet ski. Emma volunteered to ride backwards as the flagger.

You will notice that there are no photos of me on a jet ski. Mainly I didn't trust kids with our new camera near the water. Clay did take me out on one of the jet skis. And he dumped me in the water twice. The first time he stopped suddenly because his hat was about to fly off. He flipped the jet ski over. After that I wore the hat on my arm like an arm band. The second time we hit some wakes and he slowed down too fast. All I really know is that I flew off the side tumbling into the water. Clay  then landed on top of me. When I surfaced I realized that the hat was no longer on my arm. We looked for it, but it was long gone sinking to the bottom of the lake.