Sun, Sand, & Sanity

O it was lovely....lets just say I was able to read a book under a tree and watch the pelicans fly overhead and sip on a cider while listening to the water lap against the beach. BRAIN BREAK CENTRAL! Ya it was good for all of us. It was a bit of a long haul for Alistair in getting there as it was about a 12 hr door to door trip with the flight and drive combined but once we got there it was so super nice. Jason's Mom and family have a 160 acer island 1/3 of the way up on the East side of Lake Winnipeg. Its gorgeous. The last town is Pine Falls and then you keep driving for another 1 1/2 hours. Gorgeous! Brian's grandfather who was Metis bought the island in 1906 but first he had to give up his native status to do so. He bought it for $10.

Just being on the water was good for the brain

One of Jason's absolute favorite things to do is go pickerel fishing or just fishing in general. So several times we went out to the channel and through in a hook. The funny thing is the very first cast I made was not exactly ideal and I started to real in and VOILA Julie caught a fish! I rarely have the patience to catch the poor things but today was my lucky day as I literally had been fishing 2 minutes! Jason was delighted as we were the only ones into eatting late that evening so we had a good big feed of it.

The weather was absolutley amazing the whole time we were there. Even when we had a 2 hr interval of dark low heavy thunder clouds roll in it was still amazing. Family across the water called to warn us that golf ball sized hail were coming but we only got a few marbles. However, the clouds were so intense we were actually ducking! We even came up with a game plan if a tornado decided to touch down as the sky was that bizzare...no joke!
When we do make it out to Loon Straits (the area where the island is) we generally try to go around the annual golf tournament. Its not your average golf tournament though as the golf balls are baseballs and the clubs are well.....

This was my team. Uncle Lester, Alistair's Auntie Shyan and myself. Lester ended up being one off of the biggest cheaters (aka winners) and I was one off of the most honest players (aka loser). Its always really good times and no we don't play 18 holes but we do play nine!

The local transportation comes in all forms......

(Jason & BJ were moving the couch to the small cabing)

and getting back from the beach

I have to add the next couple of pictures as Brain, Jason's stepdad had this beard for the past 30 years. The only time Anna had seen him without it was when they very first met! He figured the kids needed to see his cheeks! To my surprise the guy didn't have any tan lines on his face....

We tried out several looks before he went and had it all trimmed off. Good times!

It was so obvious how much Nana enjoyed having the little man about. It was great for him to be held by so many other people and just get out of our monotonus routine that we tend to get in while at home.

Nana entertaining Alistair with her musical talents

And Alistair even had his own mini violin to try out although he was not too interested!

Trying on Auntie Shyans sunglasses! : D

We celebrated our FIFTH Anniversary (WOW time flies), and Alistair and Auntie Shyans Bday

and we also all got in a ton of relaxation time......

Dad & Alistair in the gazebo watching the lake.

Auntie Shyan, Angus (the cat) & Alistair mellowing out in the 30 degree weather

Anna and her boys

Well pictures are worth a thousand words....BRAIN BREAK!