New Hat, New Paint Job, and A Cemetery

What do these things have in common? All a part of the first leg of our mini-vacation. Only in our delightfully weird family could all of these things converge and spell fun. We kennelled Tobilicious at a local kennel(Which turned out well I am happy to say.) and set off for our yearly trek to Aurora where we stepped back in time to 1955. We have a quaint little cabin that we always rent and we just think it is super cool. There are barrel seats around a very old barrel card table and it has served us well for many years. We love the pool and supporting a Ma-Pa establishment. We can walk to the local "trading post" for souvenirs and we can drive to the dairy bar for treats. We rented a slip for our boat so we can just hop in and go.

We enjoyed our stay yet again this year but were disappointed to find that the things we added to the ecclectic mix of kitchen goods did not remain there ( a cookie sheet, and a paring knife). This year we bought 4 forks to make 7 forks as three was just not enough for us. The establishment has gone down hill a bit and the broken barrel chair paired up with a bit too much algae in the pool had us up the road to make reservations at a new stop for next year. Still a family owned business(homeschool family!) and also a good bit of local lore to go with it. Tell ya all about it next year!

The pink cowgirl hat with "diamonds" came from the "trading post". Lilly just loves it. Nathanael, one of her most favorite friends, gave her the cowboy itch at his birthday party and it hasn't faded a bit. The other girls did not find a must-have souvenir this year. Erika got the usual horehound candy and Kayla shared my pecan log and divinity.

The next pic shows our slip with our freshly painted red boat. Hubby did that while we were at co-op on Wednesday. It looks great. The great thing about an old boat is that it is so easy to improve it. We slowly improve it a little each year. New carpet and seats, now a new paint job, some new hardware earlier this summer. When we get a bimini top, we might get a little snobby. The bad thing about an old boat is there is always a little something that needs a repair-like the power trim motor that waited until the very last minute of our stay to go out. After we towed in the rowing team coach, swam a little and pulled our boat out for the end of the mini-trip, the power-trim motor sounded a little funny. Hubby made a point of not doing anything with it until we got home and he could handle the news better. Yep, it made a final death noise. It is fairly inexpensive(in boat speak) though and hubby can repair it himself which is always nice. I love my Mr. fix-it. He still makes me swoon.

The cemetery? A couple of years ago while we were out boating we came across an island with a cemetery on it. We just cruised by it without exploring. Hubby, being the history buff that he is, has been going a little crazy thinking about that cemetery. This trip we made a point of going there to allow his curiosity to be satisfied. It has created new questions for him to explore. New names and a new monument company to research that he had never heard of. A good little history mystery to get him through the cold months.

We came home to a completely green pool. I pulled the plug and we will deal with that by pulling it down to end the swim season. This is the third time our pool has greened out on us. I don't understand as we have kept up our chlorine and swam in it. This is our third round of water as we chose to empty, clean and start over rather than chemical it to death. We may invest in a better filter next year? Still trying to decide.

Leg two of our trip, coming up. For now though, there is a great band playing at the park today and we are going for a listen. I hope I can survive all the democrap that will accompany the entertainment.