Family...Fun...Excitement at Cedar Rapids Lodge!

     Summer at Cedar Rapids Lodge has been awesome!  The weather is beautiful, the fish are biting, but the most important part of our summer is that Grandpa the Great has been here for most of it!

 

We're blessed to have him...and our grandkids love him!  He mows, he chats with the guests, he's the king of crossword puzzles...and he even catches a fish once in awhile!

We just finished a very busy 2 weeks, but such a fun time with lots of relatives here...grandson Calvin had a carpetball tournament and it was a huge success!

 

Baby George got caught practicing before the tournament!

 

Eli celebrates his first win in the preliminaries!

 

Henry works his magic on his ball toss!

 

Eli can't look when his brother is competing!

 

Love this picture!  Shaking hands after their match!

And...the winner is...Anna!  She got a milkshake and she was so excited!

We had the annual "Margie's Fish Fry" on Thursday night...my aunt fries the fish(with a little help) and we all meet for dinner.  Debbie always orders a cake and this year we celebrated 3 new guests in the family...

 

Charlotte...George...Piper...now their vacation memories start and Piper was only 2 weeks old!  It was baby heaven at the resort with all of them here for 2 weeks!

Earlier in the week, my cousin and her daughters helped the kids tie dye their own t-shirts...

 

And now I have a new photo for the 2015 brochure!!  We might have to make this a new kids' activity...if my cousins will come every week and help with the craft!

Now it's August 1st...the weather is beautiful...we still have some wonderful families coming in August and September to vacation with us!  While we keep busy with all the resort activity, we are drawing up plans to build a lake home for our "retirement"....with absolutely no plan to quit our day jobs!!  Here's the progress so far...

 

The landscape is being shaped for a home with a walkout basement...and you can see the beautiful sunset from this view too!

 

We took Steve's Dad over last night to see the work so far...I love this picture of Steve walking with his Dad up the incline where the house will sit....very soon!

 

In the meantime...we continue our summer season, providing vacations for all the great families who will come yet this year...and plan new projects around the resort for the 2015 season!

And....we never tire of this view each and every evening!