Despite a super cold weekend and a lot going on back in Minneapolis we spent Scott's birthday weekend at the cottage. I immediately got to my project of untangling one of our kites.
I was super grateful that we got to get out of Minneapolis a few times during the worst of the ICE immigration crackdown. During the week I was watching Theo's school each day. His school is something like 60 or 70% immigrants. Up here we could pretend things were normal in the world.
Yeah, I guess you could say it was cold out.
I tried out the throwing boiling water in the air trick.
I wonder how often people get scalded doing this. I'm a bit of a worrier.
You thought this was going to keep us indoors the whole weekend?
No one was out. I have never heard it so quiet up here. I thought I was hearing branches snap but I guess it was sap freezing.
This is how I looked after walking down the street and back.
I guess this would be a good weekend to puzzle.
I can't really remember what Theo and I did all day, but I do remember that we went to the Swamp Witch Inn for fish fry for dinner.
When we arrived there was a big group of snowmobilers just leaving. We had the place to ourselves. There's not many tables inside so I was worried it would be tricky to find a place to eat. 
The kids loved the old school Ms. Pac Man.
Due to the weather they didn't have their full menu but it was still pretty good.
The kids burgers also looked great.
This place is absolutely in the middle of nowhere smack dab in the middle of the Nicollet National Forest. We ought to go here more often.
There was a really old lemon Bundt cake mix in the cupboard that was made. Better than throwing it out.
Today wasn't quite as cold.
Meadow only wears her cat ski mask up north. I guess it's a bit itchy.
Wool will do that for you.
To keep my mind off the news back at home I thought I would snowshoe around the lake. I think that's what got us to go outside. A second bystander had been shot dead by ICE and CBP back home in Minneapolis. It was hard to enjoy the rest of the weekend to say the least.
The sun helped, but it was still really cold. We snowshoed around our half of Dog Lake. The harsh winds had created some amazing patterns in the snow.
We even convinced Theo to ride the Kitty Cat. He's going to be too big for it soon.
I found some batteries and got the Wii Fit up and running.
Soon enough we were back outside.
The super cold snow made for an icy sledding hill.
Theo kept working at the stairs going up the makeshift sled hill.
I love this place.
All of us took in the last bits of sun before heading out for dinner.
I love when Theo takes pics.
Blake has all the 1st place rankings on Wii Fit. Meadow worked hard all day to beat him.
We were too distracted by the news to think about dinner. Scott offered to take everyone out to eat.
Heck, I had a great year freelancing. Why not have some fun! Agave Azul it was.
We could've all been wearing sombreros this whole time?
If we told them it was your birthday.
I made sure to give the Mexican-American staff an extra big tip. Immigrants make our country so great.
Would've been nice to stay up here longer, alas Meadow loves school and Theo loves hockey practice.
I've been selling my photos of our cottage adventures to the Three Lakes chamber and we found out that one of my pics was on a billboard near Rhinelander. So we stopped to see it.
We were hoping it was still the one of our dock with me, Brittany, Theo and Meadow. Still so cool to see his photo on a billboard.
I love this photo of snowmobilers at Pine Isle, so it was pretty cool to see even if it didn't feature the family.
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