Monday, June 22, 2015

Father's Day and Kirkwood Cabin

This past weekend we spent the weekend at my parents cabin in Shell Lake, WI.  It was cool to be with my dad, in his happy place, on Father's Day :)  My dad and I have always shared a special bond as we are so similar in so many ways.  A highlight for both of us was being able to go for a long run together this weekend - we always have such great talks and I truly respect, love, and look up to my dad so much.  I am so grateful God gave him to me, and just as grateful that he is grandpa to our kids.  They always look forward to playing with him and he uses play to teach them such great lessons!  Their favorite thing about Grandpa, however, is his story telling.  They sit wide-eyed as he continues his never ending story about Blackie the Bear - with new episodes each time they see him!

Photo Credit: Kristin :)
We also celebrated Paul, amazing dad to our 3 kiddos!  Summer, Colton, and Larkyn are so blessed to have such a godly, loving, unselfish, hardworking, and humble dad to love on them, pray for them, get the biggest giggles out of them, and be the most important role model in their lives of what a man of God should look and act like.  Paul covers our family in prayer daily - I can't even remember a day he has missed!  That is amazing.  I asked each of them what their favorite thing about Daddy is.  Summer said, "when he cuddles me" (Summer and Daddy have such special moments together before bed each night as he hears all about her day and prays for her) and Colton said, "when he jiggles his ice in his cup" (Daddy does lots of silly things at family dinners :) ).  It has been so much fun for me to watch Paul as he interacts with each kid.  It has been cute to watch him coach Summer's soccer team (and literally have the whole team laughing as he acts like a crab trying to get their ball or dives really silly and pretends to fall down) and enjoy every moment of his father-daughter dance with his princess.  It is fun for me to watch him turn on his boy humor and silly noises and get the best giggles out of Colton.  It is so sweet for me to watch him cuddle with Larkyn, rock her to sleep during church, and watch Larkyn give the biggest smiles to Daddy when he comes home from work.  He is the first (and still only) one whom she will call by name.  Just today, she recognized him in a picture and exclaimed, "Da-Da!"  



The kids made special cards for Daddy and painted a sun shade for his "new" (to him) wheels...

Paul got his new wheels last month but the picture hasn't made it on the blog yet :)


The sun shade is silver on the side that will show to the public ;) but quite colorful on the inside!
I was pretty proud of Colton making these letters all by himself.  If you look closely you can see all the letters for Happy Fathers Day. Colton.

I always love seeing Summer's cards :)

Even though we didn't get to see Paul's dad on Father's Day, I don't want to leave him out of this post!  He raised my amazing husband!  I couldn't ask for a better father-in-law.  He quickly adopted me into the family and made me feel loved and special right away.  The love he has for our kiddos is so evident and he has a special bond with each of the three kids!  I especially love watching him do "guy things" with Colton, like play trucks in the dirt, play trains for ENDLESS hours, set up super longs tracks for cars, run around with the soccer ball, and give rides on the 3-wheeler :).  We are blessed!


Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Dad's in our lives :)!

***

Here are a few pictures from our weekend at the cabin!  It was such a wonderful, relaxing, and WAY TOO SHORT weekend filled with biking, running, boating, fishing, playing in the sand, playing Dominos, and hanging out.  Huge thank you to my mom for all the work she does cooking, cleaning, and hosting all of us!

Larkyn and Mommy cuddles at the beach

Guys grilling

Summer's finished pottery from last weekend

Colton's finished pottery from last weekend

B-E-A-Utiful sunsets

Fishing!


S'mores

Cuddles with Grandpa




Uncle Eric volunteered to "clean up" the kids after S'mores...

I think they liked Uncle Eric's version of cleaning up...;)

 I wish I had more pictures of the fun beach time and swimming/jumping off the boat.  I was so proud of both S and C being so brave and swimming in the deep water off the pontoon boat!  The whole weekend was so much fun and we all look forward to when we can go up to the Kirkwood Cabin again. :)



1 comments:

Jill said...

Lovely post, Kel. I know it's a highlight for Dad to go for a run with you, especially at the cabin. We loved having everyone up for the weekend. I usually take more pictures, but I was so busy having fun I missed a lot of fun events. We'll have those "pictures" in our memories. :)

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