Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July!  To celebrate we joined an already large group of people and went canoeing down the St. Croix river!  This was made a bit interesting as the Minnesota government is shutdown and therefore all State Parks were closed.  So instead of parking in the state park, we parked at a nearby RV campground and they bused us all in!  The good thing is, the bus had air-conditioning once it was moving :)

Our group rented 29 canoes and a few kayaks.  We had both our kids in ours.  We weren’t totally sure how the girls were going to do, so we brought lots of food to occupy them (works in church…)  The first little while was hard because Samantha had it in her head that she was going to paddle and then Clara was just not happy sitting down or having a life jacket on.  *beware: there are Caucasians in these pictures!*

 

I finally switched with Samantha so I was sitting in the middle with Clara and she was on the front with the paddle.  This arrangement made it harder on Stephen as he was doing all the paddling (with Samantha usually hindering rather than helping), but better for all of our sanity.

 

After a while we came to a sandbar, well what usually is a sandbar.  The water is really high this year and our friends were telling us that where there was a foot of water kids used to make sand castles (and the canoes didn’t float away).  Samantha and Clara loved the water.  Some people in our group may or may not have gone cliff jumping… until the cops (either feds or from the Wisconsin side) showed up. 

 

The trip took longer than we anticipated (there was one more stop for some people to eat lunch) and we got to the end point around 3pm.  Clara had totally missed her nap and she fell asleep against my leg for the last little bit in the canoe.  I managed to lay her down so she wouldn’t hit her head.

 

A bus brought us back to where our cars were parked and we headed home for a quick change and went to our friend’s BBQ.  I was very grateful for the food and the “4th of July” feeling it brought.  I was not a great guest, as I was really tired from the day in the sun and I mostly floated around from group to group not saying much and didn’t even participate in the fun games the hostess had planned!  Clara and Samantha loved having the kids around.  Samantha hadn’t gotten out of her suit and she played in the kiddie pool and sprinklers whiel Clara hung out inside playing with all the toys.  We had a big success our first try at homemade ice-cream!  We inherited an ice-cream maker (from the 80’s) from Stephen’s folks.  I found a cookies and cream recipe I wanted to try, and with the help of our friend, Jared (he’s used ice-cream makers before), it turned out great! 

We decided against fireworks for the evening and were out by 10pm.