Rick's brother Brad and wife Julie recently purchased a cabin on the same lake as ours, (near Park Rapids MN). Their cabin can be open all year, unlike ours which is seasonal. We have had our cabin for 6 years and have never seen it in the winter. It's always been a dream of mine to be up on the lake during the winter. That dream came true last weekend as we were invited to join Brad & Julie at their cabin. 

We couldn't stay at our cabin but we did visit it, walked around a bit and left before we froze to death, as temperatures dropped into the single-digits

A photo of our cabin from the road

The other dream was to be there when it was snowing, that dream came true too! 

We had 4-5 inches of snow overnight, It was beautiful

Pine trees flocked with freash fallen snow

Brad & Julie

The day before the snow came we went for a walk in a sweet nature preserve near the cabin.

We came across this track, which made us feel a little uncomfortable,

Back at the cabin I "googled" tracks and came up with this photo that looks a lot like the one we saw.

A cabin neighbor text'd me while we were there to warn me to be careful.

 There had been a recent bear and bobcat sighting near the area we were walking...yikes

The sun was reflecting on the trees in the background, such a pretty time of day.

Looking thru the trees I snapped this one

Our little up north get away was just what we ALL needed after a busy and emotional couple of weeks.

 Julie lost her mom suddenly then 3 days later Brad & Rick lost their mom. 

We enjoyed each others company, we relaxed, played games, watched a Christmas movie, went to town, went out to eat once and talked....A lot!  

It felt good to reset and spend time with family in a place we all love.

On our drive home I pulled over to take this photo.

Sundogs and -11 degrees. My iPhone camera did not do it justice, but you get the idea.

Bonus photo's

Sunrise, if you look hard you can see the lake smoke...so pretty

An eagle on the ice just outside our cabin. He saw me and decided to take off.