The Walkers' Trail: Fair Hills 2013

It's that time again... PELICAN LAKE!

Fair Hills 2013 was just as successful and fun as we hoped it would be this year!

Poor little Catey despises when the suitcases are dragged out on to the carpet. This is her way of refusing to let us pack because she knows we are leaving!

We left anyways.... HAPPY travelers. These boys spent 32 hours in the car, and never became upset. We read books, listen to books on tapes, sing and dance (and the big boys get to hop in G and B's car on occasion!). Both cars played the license plate game and 37 different states were represented.

We're envisioning next year's traveling without having to take the pack and play - we'll have so much room!

We had three families help with caring for Catey - this was sent from our neighbor - pretty sure Catey wasn't missing us too much!

We left an evening earlier than usual and arrived at the resort a day later so we could include a visit to Duluth, MN, to visit family. We had never been in all our years up north! We saw this lovely little town on our new route north.

Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Gary moved to Duluth one year ago. Their oldest daughter, my cousin, Kristi, and her family have lived there for 20ish years. Kristi and Brian have two amazing kids, Taylor and Brandon. Here's the group of kids the first night! Taylor left early the next morning for a national church event.

On Saturday, we spent the day relaxing at their beautiful home and on their boat on Lake Superior. It's more like a house on water than a boat we are accustomed to so we just had a blast seeing new sights and simply hanging out with family.

Dad, Reid and Sylvia

Hanging on the front of the boat with my big boys!

Mom is up top with Captain Brian and Dad was briefly our babysitter so I could go explore the boat.

Isn't Kristi all cute and nautical looking in her navy and white? That's why she is the perfect boat owner!

The boys taking their lessons in boat driving.

Hi, babe!

This is Duluth from the Lake. If I turned my head 120 degrees, we were looking at Wisconsin.

Their backyard. Yes, you can see why we were happily able to hang out here for a while. They have three acres, and we just think Minnesota in the summer is hard to beat. We had a few deer visit us when we were outside, too.

This is their summer baseball field and winter ice hockey rink that Brian made in their backyard. So incredibly cool. Trees don't get that tall in Oklahoma too often.

The end/beginning of I-35 is also in Duluth - here we are getting on the start of it!

His name is so appropriate for his personality.

WE MADE IT!

This is the first time in years I haven't taken our "arrival shot" of the resort, but here is the first picture of our time there. Our goal was to arrive in time on Sunday for the golf scramble (my parents and J and I have placed the past several years).

Different teams this year, though, but this team below ended up being the winners!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

(I may have just joined in for the picture and not the golf - I was babysitting Reid at the cabin and came to just watch a few holes!)

The girly team! Mom, Linda, Carrie, Mo, Susie and Pat

4th of July Kids Parade

Our friend, Adam, who lives in South Korea with his family. They visit every year and are some of our Fair Hills friends we enjoy seeing! He took Kyle to play frisbee golf and got him started on Arnold Palmer drinks.

Mr. Pelican and the Walker boys

We had a new cabin this year so we could have three bedrooms (Reid just slept in our room the past two years and we knew that wouldn't work since he is a curious two year old!). Just up the hill from the new place is a comfy hammock we didn't discover until the end of the week.

We took a little break....

Gibson is a friend from Stillwater. His family started coming last year, and wanted to come back again! We now have 4 families from Stillwater up there! Gibson has never golfed so Kyle enjoyed giving him a few pointers.

Animal pancakes

Hobby Horse race

Jason was a spotter for Murray this year (they lost).

The boys in their Hobby Horse shirts.

Fireworks!!!

We had a great breeze this evening so the ~~birds~~ mosquitoes weren't a problem this year on the golf course.

The fireworks are shot across the street from the resort so the view is ahhh-mazing.

Dad and Murray avoiding mosquitoes before realizing they weren't that bad.

Waterslide day!

Jason has typically been "the longest slider" on the waterslide. Grant was the first from our family to go down this year, and he went pretty far (for a kid!), and got up and came over to us and said something like "Well, looks like we're passing it down a generation in the Walker family, Dad!" as he was proud of how far he went. It was really sweet.

Hootenanny!

We were the seat-savers for our group!

Cute boys modeling their very appropriate shirts for the Hoot that I found at LandsEnd this year! If you are wondering why they are appropriate, then I think you should come vacation with us to find out why!!!