A Little Lake Love

It's podcast Tuesday! A whole passel of stories await you, and pretty much ohhhhhhhh, 100% of them are at my expense. :)

 Listen here...

I bet you never thought it would happen, but it's here! The end of our vacation! We planned the entire timing of our vacation around the weekend Ryan's family would be at the lake cottage, so we could finish off our time away from home with them!

So Friday morning (the second Friday morning of our vacation!) we left Allerton in central Illinois and headed toward the lake in northern Indiana.

We picked a town along the route and stopped for breakfast. It was this little hometown diner, and the serving sizes far surpassed anything we expected. We barely finished half before caving and asking for boxes.

We got stuck in the worst traffic jam of our trip that morning and ended up bailing down the shoulder to an early exit to try to find an alternate route. Then we got caught up in south Chicago traffic...oh it was crazy! Our three hours and some change drive turned into over five hours. We were so glad to see that lake!!

All the rest of Ryan's family had already arrived by the time we did, so they were busy doing their own thing. We went out for a quick boat ride (just the two of us) and it was glorious.

Then it was time for coffee by the lake. Also glorious. Also windy.

We watched the kiddos play...

Had dinner with the fam and played some games...

 (Above: Luke didn't realize I was taking the picture in that moment. He wasn't really sad. And as for Ryan's expression below...not sure if he was losing the game or what!)

We stayed up late and got up early Saturday morning to sneak down by the water to watch the sunrise:

Sneaked a peek at the new baby:

Went for a morning boat ride:

We walked around town for a while, since there was a festival underway. We came back and had lunch with the kids. And then we went back to town to the coffee shop. It exhausted Ryan.

Ryan's sister wanted to team up with us to cook dinner that night, so Ryan and I made a breakfast casserole and our brother-in-law made pancakes. (I was still eating off that pancake from the day before!)

After dinner, we packed up the car and drove home. We were so ready to be back in our own place! It had been a very fun trip, but we craved home.

And ice cream as one last treat:

What a beautiful, beautiful sight!

Thanks for riding along on our vacation with us! :) Hope you had fun!