Muskoka {1}

If you've read my blog for a couple of years, you'll know that our usual summer vacation is to head up to Ontario, Canada, to the lake country which is called Muskoka. 

This year was no different. Here are some snapshots of our first couple of days. 

This is a rock in front of our cottage--we've named it Australia. It's within perfect swimming distance of our dock. 

My love bird parents reading at sunset

I think we've had corn every night this week. Dad LOVES it--we go through a dozen ears each night. 

Because we can't bring our pantry with us and we don't want to buy everything in our pantry all over again for a couple weeks and bring it home to our already full pantry, we stick with simple meals with few farm-stand-fresh ingredients.  Ontario is blessed with amazing produce which we consume in vast quantities during our visits.

Lots of time to journal

and enjoy evening boat rides to watch the sun set

I wish you could bottle up evening sunshine. It's so golden, and seems like I could reach out and touch it. 

Australia as viewed from our cottage porch.  That's my Dad, Emily, Lottie, and yours truly.

We have lots of lovely lily pads near our dock, thankfully not close enough that we have to swim through them. 

Did you know water lilies close up for the night?

We've read oodles of books so far. On vacation I bring my favorite books along and re-read them again and again. 

Some of my favorites are: the Anne of Green Gables series and To Have and to Hold. 

I finished Rilla by L.M. Montgomery yesterday and cried throughout the whole thing. Despite having read it at least 5  times I still cry, both happy and sad tears. 

Our lovely cottage and boathouse

Daddy enjoying the hammock on a lovely, cool summer evening. 

Couldn't decide which hammock picture I liked best. 

Poor Emily itched her nose on an evening boat ride. 

That would not have been a problem if she hadn't had been wearing glasses...that promptly flew into the water. Thus, she is using binoculars to see the sunset. 

Hopefully the ducks are making good use of her glasses. 

The evenings are so cool here we have to bundle up, it's just lovely for us!

Me, reading, which is pretty much all I do up here. 

We rented a boat for a week used it for wake-boarding. 

Wakeboarding isn't the most interesting sport to take pictures of, unless you can do tricks, which only Carter can. Consequently, I took pictures of the wipe outs. : )

Em

Lottie upright...

...and coming down

and down....

and under

More coming up later.