Devil's Lake, finally

Although Devil's Lake is only an hour away from us by car, we have never made an effort to go. I knew we needed to before we left Madison, so when we received an invitation from our dear friend/doula/soul mate Analiesa for her wedding reception in August, we found our perfect opportunity. Since we were heading down on a Sunday, we stopped by a UU church in Sauk City, the Free Congregation of Sauk County. It was (and kind of still is) a German Free Society, which was a society that was persecuted in Germany and so the members came to the US for religious freedom. It was a thriving community until the world wars when German persecution became rampant and members were distancing themselves from all things Deutsch. Membership declined dramatically, and the Free Congregation partnered with the UUA in order to stay afloat. It was a pleasant little old building with super kind (mostly old) people.

The kids swam and swam, played in the sand, and then the wedding reception happened. Unfortunately the root beer keg was broken... and a bunch of Mormons couldn't figure out how to fix it. But we stuffed ourselves on brats and vanilla ice cream, and then we made a night of it camping with more old BYU-Berkeley friends, Adriana and Alex and their incredibly adorable baby Oscar.

The selfie of looooooove.

Atticus with a Lego Star Wars dictionary. He is so obsessed with Soren's, we had to find one at the library that he could take everywhere so he didn't ruin the other one.

Blurry, but all I have of Alex and Oscar, walking around, which they did a lot.

We have a future pyromaniac on our hands. He was SO upset when we put the fire out.

This tree cracked and fell RIGHT next to where our tent was when we were packing up and leaving. Scary.

The next day we made breakfast, and we even went on a few hikes. Atticus was SO upset to be "hiking" when in reality it was climbing on rocks and he loves that more than anything. He was wearing his Salt Water sandals, which, for future reference, are not appropriate to climbing over slippery rocks. He barefooted it the rest of the way and had a grand time going up. The going down part... well, let's try to forget about that. We made it, no major injuries, and then spent the rest of the time at the lake and in Parfrey's Glen. We ended our trip at Hubbard's after a frantic search for food in backwoods Wisconsin (must feed kids before they fall asleep at 6 pm!) and a brief stop at a bar promising hot pizza and sandwiches and where our kids couldn't go in (not 21...). But that meatloaf after a day of hiking... wow. Just wow.

He is constantly running around shooting things with his blaster, playing Star Wars.

Waiting in line at the Merrimac Ferry!