First Cottage Weekend

Getting a late start to the season, we finally made it to the cottage this weekend. It wasn't much of a vacation, admittedly; we spent much of the time sorting through boxes, cleaning and quelling Emeth's enthusiasm for the water, which (of course) he decided he wasn't interested in as soon as we all headed in for a swim.

Despite the weather not being overly hot, the water was surprisingly warm and even Istra seemed to enjoy swimming. She is older and wiser this year and seems to be taking an interest in actually swimming.

We hauled three bikes and the Chariot up north and didn't get out for the rides we would have liked. On Saturday, Tim and I went for a "water run", filling the Chariot with Eme and our drinking water for the weekend. On Sunday, we'd planned to ride to Waubaushene but got started too late under too hot a sun and opted for a leisurely ride to the now defunct Georgian Bay Store and then to the Driftwood Cafe for ice cream.

We returned Sunday night, exhausted, sunburned and mosquito-bitten. Maybe next time will be a little more relaxing.

Note from Tim:

My perspective was somewhat different, as usual. Excepting for the mad clean-up required before we could leave on Sunday (which was intense, much of which was due to the extreme amount of Toys everywhere), and a bit of a rocky start, the weekend was an unusually relaxing for me. I thought we actually didn't do as much work as we usually do on "opening weekend". True, I did have to get most of the big items stored in the cabin out, so it could be used for the fridge and sleeping. The bikes and other luggage had to be unloaded (and then loaded again when we left). I also set up the giant tent (though we never ended up using it), and put up the patio lights. But the trailer, for example, was hardly touched beyond making the beds. While it's true we did no big bike rides, we had two pretty pleasant (i thought) shorter rides: on Saturday we rode with Emeth to fetch water, and on Sunday another leisurely ride as Selena describes. Besides this, a very nice and lengthy swim in the lake (even Selena, who is often more of a "dipper", stayed in for a while).
I admit, I did actively avoid choring relatives a few times, finding a quiet spot to do a bit of reading, while it seemed others were doing work that wasn't absolutely essential; and didn't prepare any meals (the main one of the weekend actually being pizza that was brought to us by Selena's mom who came over on Saturday for a visit). Oh yeah, and I guess I somehow squeezed in time to take a few pictures (though I only had our cheap Canon A720 camera with me). I guess I just didn't notice everyone else slaving away while I had fun and relaxed in the general vicinity? Oh well! Hope you like the pictures.