Big Sand

This year  Russ, Seth, Lydia, Anna, and I all flew to Minneapolis and rented a car to drive to Park Rapids. Nicolas drove up to Minneapolis from Sioux Center and joined us at the hotel on Friday night. Caleb and Mikaela were supposed to join us on Friday night, but their plane blew an engine shortly after take-off in Salt Lake City, and they weren't able to join us until Saturday morning. We all drove to Big Sand together and thoroughly enjoyed being together for the week. The week wasn't without challenges: Russ and I stayed in a bed and breakfast in Dorset as the resort didn't have enough room for all of us, sickness ran through the cabin all week, and we had a decent amount of rain.  Even with all of that, we were able to do all the things we loved--fishing, boating, kayaking, paddle boarding, playing games, eating, and just spending lots of time together.

Beach yoga

Greg and Shantelle also didn't stay at the resort.  They stayed at a hotel in town and lived out of the back of their pickup while at the lake.

Poor Finn can't swim in the lake without getting swimmer's itch

Flickerball

Although it wasn't always convenient to stay off the resort, we did have yummy breakfasts!

After we left Big Sand, we drove back to Minneapolis and met Bryan and Becca at a Twins game (they won!).  We checked into an Airbnb for the rest of the weekend and joined the youth group at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul on Monday for the Reformed Youth Convention.  

Anna flew back home on Sunday to take care of our house and pets since she had "graduated" from the RYS convention.  When she got home she found the cupboard under the sink with the kitchen garbage overrun with maggots.  The best we could come up with is that flies laid eggs in the cat food dishes, and they were cleaned out and thrown in the kitchen garbage while we were gone.  Anna did a great job cleaning up the cupboard, but it wasn't until about 10 days later that we realized several maggots migrated around the kitchen and into the vents.  We felt a little like the Egyptians with the plague of the flies. Thankfully, with some well-placed bug spray, we finally beat the gross infestation!