north shore chronicles {part II}

On day three of our North Shore trip, we loaded the troops up in the van and headed even further north to Grand Marais. We had been warned that even though it was only about 30 miles north of our campground, it was considerably cooler there than where we were staying. Thankfully we heeded the warning and brought along our sweatshirts. Unfortunately, the cold air caused us to forget that the sun was, in fact, still shining, and we neglected to apply sunscreen to our faces. Most of us came through the day unscathed, but poor Wyatt got burned right on one chubby little cheek. To add insult to injury, in the days following it started to peel making it look like he had a patch of dried mucous on his face that his mother kept trying to wipe off. Poor baby.

Our first stop was the beach where my sisters and I finally gave my mom her long overdue Mother's Day gift and we all searched for sea glass.

Wyatt didn't care so much about looking for sea glass.

He was content to just pick up stones and gaze introspectively over the lake. Either that or I snapped this picture right before he decided to see just how frigid the water was causing me to have to trudge back to the van to find him something dry to wear.

Elliot wasn't afraid of the icy water.

He dove right in...

...and rather exuberantly threw his rocks back to where they came from.

Kolby had a method to seeking out the beach's treasure.

Kenna, on the other hand, just wanted to fill her bucket with any stone she could find.

Kyleigh clamied the best find of the day. A heart-shaped piece of sea glass.

Poor Brenna searched and searched and searched and came away with nothing.

All that digging made us hungry. We walked down to Sven and Ole's Pizza for a delicious lunch where the older three kids were ecstatic because they got to have pop (soda or coke for you non-midwesterners) with their pizza. After lunch, it didn't take long for our full-bellied boy to conk out in his stroller. As it turns out, the wisest move at this point would have been for me to take him out of his stroller and put him on my back in his carrier instead. Because where we went next? Not exactly conducive to pushing a stroller. There were certainly some flat areas, but I wound up carrying him in the stroller for much of the treck out to the lighthouse. Not impossible, but not the best way of doing things, either.

Thankfully, we did have the foresight to have Elliot hitch a ride on Aaron's back.

Somehow, Wyatt slept through me picking him up and putting him down all the way out to the end of the pier. (He did wake up on the way back though.)

We even managed to snap a picture of all of our brave little adventurers together.

And look! A family picture! With all of us! Together! In the same photo!

{And this is the part where I interrupt our previously scheduled programming to tell you why I prefer to shoot in full manual mode on my camera. See this picture here? It was shot in auto mode. As was the picture below it. And while they are okay pictures, they just don't look quite the way I like them to look. And seeing as I am not a master photoshopper, I wasn't able to make them look how I wanted them to by editing them, either. And now back to the show.}

I even managed to get in a picture with my mom and sisters.

When we left the lighthouse, we walked to the other end of the "island" we were on. As we were walking, we looked out on the lake and saw a real live pirate ship. See it?

We also saw a cool looking birch tree.

The kids were less fearful about plunging to their deaths on the rocky cliff than I was. I was much happier when they were all back on solid ground.

The beauty of Superior will never cease to take my breath away.