Accommodations Review: 2 Bedroom VRBO Bungalow in Farwell, Minnesota

We booked this quaint 2 bedroom bungalow on vrbo.com, which turned out to be a great choice for us!

I'll get right into the pros and cons of the place to keep it short and sweet.

Pros

• We LOVED Lake Blackwell. Their little system of docks was really perfect for our family. We spent most of our mornings out letting the kids fish while we sat back and relaxed. It was so serene! The lake is really quiet most of the time, and the views are outstanding!
  
• The grounds were very well maintained, and extremely tranquil. I mean, we had 3 kids under the age of 5, so nothing is ever very tranquil (keeping it real), but aside from the mosquitoes that come with having this kind of wooded area near a lake in the northern half of Minnesota, we could have spent hours out there, not even on the lake. I cannot say enough about how gorgeous the gardens around the house were! It was like a little piece of heaven, honestly! It is the thing dreams are made of :) Fantastic, fantastic job on the grounds, Glenaris and Barry!!
  
  
• The hot tub :) Oh boy was that nice after a busy day chasing kiddos around and keeping them out of trouble. After putting the kids to bed (but before they fell asleep), we sat in there every night. It was really nice to have that feature!
• The amenities at the lake: Kayaks (for adults AND kids), fishing boat, canoe, little beach for the kids, fishing gear, and all the great seating down there. Aside from some needed deck repairs (which really ought to be addressed), this was a major favorite from the trip. We spent a lot of family time down on the docks. The kids had a BLAST fishing off the dock, and every time they stuck their rods in, they pulled up a sunny (they each caught a tiny walleye, and our oldest caught a small perch once too). Nothing big off the dock, but perfect for an almost-3 year old and a 4 year old. They woke up wanting to fish and went to bed wanting to fish. GREAT memories for them!
  
• The gnomes all over the property gave us a fun little diversion during one of the mornings, going on a gnome hunt with the kids. They were entertained for a little while anyway.
  
• The teepee was really cool, even if it didn't keep the kids' interest for long. We had a little musical interlude after our gnome hunt with the drums and rattles one morning. Some of the guests stay overnight in there, I guess, although It doesn't look like it'd be very comfortable. It was very well put together, though, and on a deck, so I doubt there'd be a huge bug problem. However, you're smack dab in the woods, so getting there you might get a little bit up.
  
• The little sandbox area was FANTASTIC for my busy little guys who love to play in the sand. They spent hours out there. Make sure to lather them up with bug spray, though! It was so quiet and just gorgeous to sit out on the deck watching them play.
  
• They had a/c in the master bedroom. Very necessary on a warmer night to sleep comfortably.

Cons

• As we expected, the kitchen was really small. I'll expand on this in the full review below.
• The internet was extremely sporadic. It would blip very 10 minutes or so at times (then at other times it would be fine for half an hour). I wouldn't think it would be an issue in general for anyone who DOESN'T have 3 kids under the age of 5, since, you know, it's so gorgeous that you shouldn't need to rely on Bob the Builder or Justin Time to entertain kids, but just getting 5 people out of PJs, fed breakfast and ready for the day, there's a little downtime there. It was really frustrating having to re-establish the connection on the Roku every 10 minutes (or more often).
• The beds were extremely uncomfortable. I'll expand on this below.
• To get to the lake, you have to go down this steep driveway and cross a dirt road. I'll expand on this below as well.
• They made it extremely clear that the stairs leading up to the bungalow were ones you'd have to really be paying attention on, and they were right. We got used to having to pay close attention, so it wasn't something that would have deterred us from booking the place by any means, but anyone with a wobbly toddler who isn't good on their feet might want to think twice, or else be prepared to carry them down the stairs all the time.
  
• I hate to even list this as a "con", because it wasn't really that big a deal or inconvenience, but there was just a single window air-conditioner unit in the bungalow. I doubt you'd even have to use it most of the year, but we're spoiled, and we keep our house at 74, and we felt like we were running the thing constantly, and it was in the master bedroom, and it was LOUD at night. We adjusted, and like I said - I would hardly complain about it, but it might seriously bug you if you don't like the noise. And the second bedroom was quite a bit warmer than the rest of the place, so we felt bad for our kiddos who had to sleep in there.

Bungalow and Grounds Review

This place felt really homey, honestly. We loved the cozy little bungalow, and it was well-furnished. During the day, we felt like it fit our family pretty good, but it would have been a tinge small if we were talking about 4 grown adults versus 2 adults and 3 little kids.

The view from the living room was beautiful, and if you peek through the trees, you could see the lake out there.

The "master" bedroom was a nice size, and it had a big closet and empty drawers. If they added a nice thick memory foam thing on top of the bed, I would have no complaints. I really don't think I'm an extremely picky person as far as beds are concerned. But after one horrible night of sleep (in which I was honestly tempted to run to Walmart in the middle of the night, my back was so sore), we picked up a queen size memory foam mattress pad to make the rest of vacation bearable. It helped tremendously! I was still sore each night, but not to the point where I was out of my mind and couldn't sleep. I know I'm getting to be an old lady at 34, and I'm sure a part of it has to do with having had 3 kids in the past 5 years, but that bed was HARD. And we have a very firm bed at home.

For the second room...the "bed" was a futon mattress, so you can imagine how uncomfortable that was. It didn't help that my poor kiddos had to share the bed, and our middle guy is a huge thrasher. I'm shocked they were as well-behaved as they were considering how poorly they slept while there.

Our kids weren't overly fond of it either and kept climbing into our bed, and I know we're spoiled at home, but we don't even like that when we're dealing with our extremely comfy (albeit firm) king size bed. So an uncomfortable queen size bed made for rough sleeping for all of us. The room was really small, so we only used it when it was bedtime or nap time. It would be a huge improvement to just throw a queen size (or even just a double) bed in there. I'm not sure what the point of a futon in the room is. It's not like anyone would just go hang out in there by any means. It'd be significantly nicer sleeping too!

The bathroom was probably the worst part of the bungalow, although I DID love the sink. The owner told me they had plans to renovate it at some point, but it was definitely in rough shape overall, and they are aware of that. With a little kid who isn't fond at ALL of showers, a tub would've been a huge plus, especially when being in the lake daily required a shower each night, but I'm not sure how they would fit that in.

The kitchen was really small. Like...If you had people sitting around the table to eat, you couldn't open the fridge small. It worked for us for a week, however, and it was well-stocked (although we brought our skillet and waffle maker for breakfasts). They have a Keurig out, which was a great touch! They also had a traditional coffee maker in the cabinet, and a decent supply of spices. You don't want to run the coffee maker, a skillet, a baby monitor and the microwave at the same time, however, or you might blow a fuse ;)

The outside areas were wonderful here! We didn't make enough use of them, honestly. Sometimes with little kids in tow, you feel like keeping them contained is more important haha But I'm kicking myself that we didn't dine outside, as this was really a great area!

The hot tub was a NICE touch! It was easy to use, which we did every night to keep the bungalow quiet while the big boys drifted off to sleep for about 20 minutes.

Down by the Water

As I mentioned in the "cons" section, you have to go down the steep driveway and across a gravel road to get to the lake. It was fine, really, but it was hard to tell that just from looking at the pictures of the place on the vrbo site. We were made aware of this before booking, but it would've been nice to just let the kids run out to the dock and fish while watching them in the morning, but it was nerve-wrecking when they would wake up and want to start running down the driveway in their pjs to fish before we had even gotten a chance to go to the bathroom.

I felt like we did a lot of yelling at the kids in the mornings, as man - I would be hardly awake, and they'd be out the door heading down the driveway. As you can see here, Cashel at least was trying to instruct Kendrick to stop at the bottom to help me out haha

Glenaris and Barry really did a great job with this spot! You really wouldn't need to bring much of anything, although we wished we had remembered our own life jackets, as Mark needed one a bit bigger. However, I do have to say that some of the boards could use some replacing, and a couple of the docks should probably be secured better. Considering they have full-time jobs beyond this place, it seems like they've certainly got their hands full, but they do at least seem aware of what needs to be done. They were extremely friendly and helpful whenever we needed anything.

The guys took the fishing boat out a couple times and LOVED it!

Brainerd Vacation 2014: Part 3

This is the final post of a 3-part series highlighting our week on South Long Lake at The Lazy Loon near Brainerd, Minnesota in late May/early June 2014. Click here for Part 1 and click here for Part 2.

Tuesday

We started out the morning with a big breakfast, ready to explore the little town of Nisswa on Tuesday.

We had heard so much about it, and about how fun it was, but honestly, it wasn't really all that much fun for us with two little guys in tow. They did have a pretty cool park, which was nice, but other than that, Nisswa was kind of a bust for us.

However, I think it WOULD be a total blast going there with some girlfriends (or even just with Mark) and having a relaxing morning sipping a cup of coffee at the little coffee shops and browsing through the antique shoppes and other little shops. We just weren't really feeling it with two little boys in tow in little shops full of breakables and narrow aisles.

We got a great recommendation from one of the Mamas there to check out a little coffee shop/cafe a little ways down the road, that was apparently very kid-friendly, but it was an additional 15 miles away, and we just weren't feeling it, so we made our way back towards Brainerd and stopped for Lunch at Ernie's on Gull Lake on our way back.

It was a GREAT success, and we enjoyed sitting outside enjoying the gorgeous day and watching all the action on the lake. It was nice that it was a Tuesday, so it wasn't super busy there. The food was great, the service was great, and the boys weren't having meltdowns, so we were pleased :)

Afterwards, Cashel and I went to check out the docks, and then we headed back to the car, where the boys promptly passed out for a long afternoon nap. While they were napping, Mark decided to take the jet ski out fishing, and he caught an awesome northern!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BVVKXEhxiyg/VChUCXU_lNI/AAAAAAAAPBw/KJdYs3zKkBs/s840-no/2014-06-03%2B06%2BKendrick%2BExploring.jpg
To be honest, this is about the last "good" part of our vacation. After Cashel woke up, he went outside to play, and when he came in for supper, I noticed a huge bug bite on the back of his leg, and we spent most of the rest of the trip worried about him.

He was acting completely normal, and it wasn't growing in size or anything, but I stupidly posted about it on Facebook and everyone was urging me to rush him to the ER (which we didn't). We had no idea what the bite really was (we didn't find any remnants of a tick, and it didn't have the bullseye; We thought it might have been a spider, but there aren't normally any poisonous ones in our part of the country), so we were a little paranoid about letting the boys back outside for fear they might get bit by something worse.

Our neighbors were so sweet and tried to ease our fears, having seen bites like that before and saying nothing would come of it (and they were right, thankfully!)

That night, Cashel didn't sleep too well (which we found out right after we got home was because he STILL had that nasty double ear infection - poor guy!), so the next couple days were a bit of a downer. I almost took him in to a clinic the next morning to check on his bite, but then realized that he had zero symptoms, he was acting completely normal, and the bite had gone way down in size and swelling overnight. So, of course, we were a little paranoid the rest of the trip.

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Wednesday

Wednesday felt like a total waste of a day, to be honest. With Cashel having been up in the night, we were exhausted, and with him having the bug bite, we were too paranoid to go outside anymore, for fear that even though we didn't think Cashel got bit by a tick, one of us could still. We mostly just hung out inside until the boys were going insane being cooped up inside. We realized how ridiculous we were being, and that they could just as easily get hurt inside. I didn't take many pictures this day, and I don't really recall what we did beyond trying to get the place back in order, get some laundry done, and get a few things packed up to leave the next day.

I do know that we decided to put the jet ski away, so we loaded it up, and got some McDonald's at Cashel's request.

Our sweet neighbors took us out on a nice ride on their pontoon that evening, and we finally got to see where all the Loons were hiding out on the other side of the lake. The ride ended badly, however, when Cashel started frantically trying to jump out of the boat. (Once again, poor kid with a DOUBLE ear infection we knew nothing of about. Add in the wind, and that must have hurt like a banshee!) He did fine for the first 3/4 of the ride because we were going with the wind, not into it. Thankfully, we made it back without incident.

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Thursday

We had reached the end of our trip, and while we were sad to say goodbye to the Lazy Loon, we were also anxious to get Cashel home and to the doctor to check out both his ears and bug bite. We spent most of the morning loading our things up and getting things back in order.

The morning came early again, with Cashel up around 3am again, this time complaining about his ears. We had been so confused, as he had JUST finished an antibiotic for a double ear infection a week before the trip, but apparently it hadn't done its job properly. We snuggled a LOT this morning, and Mama had a boatload of coffee.

While Mark was getting the tube put away and the deck cleaned up a bit, he and Cashel discovered a frog, and Cashel was enamored!

We took off around noon just in time for naps, and then made a beeline home to capture the most of naptime.

We stopped in Saint Cloud for Chinese on the way home, and we made it home just in time for Cashel's doctor's appointment.

We will always think so fondly of this trip. We had so many wonderful memories together as a family, and I hope all our future family vacations are as fun and memorable as this one. :)

Brainerd Vacation 2014: Part 2

This is the second post of a 3-part series highlighting our week on South Long Lake at The Lazy Loon near Brainerd, Minnesota in late May/early June 2014. Click here for Part 1 and click here for Part 3.

Saturday

Saturday started early for Kendrick and I as we enjoyed some snuggle time, then some jumperoo time for Kendrick while Mama enjoyed a yummy cup of coffee and some journaling. It didn't take too long before Daddy and Cashel joined us, and we enjoyed some yummy Belgian waffles for breakfast :)

With it being as wet as it was, we spent the morning inside with the boys just playing, crawling around (with Kendrick), watching movies (Ratatouille) and a little Saturday morning cartoons for Cashel and really, just passing the time until Mark's Dad and family arrived shortly after noon.

The boys once again napped well for us, and when they woke up everyone had arrived and it had dried off outside from the passing storms overnight, so we hit the dock and did a little fishing. It didn't take long for Kent to catch a little rock bass, and Cashel was just intrigued, but a little scared too.

We mostly caught a lot of weeds while we were at the cabin, but I caught another little rock bass and actually TOUCHED it, which very well may be the first time I've ever actually touched a fish that hadn't already been filleted.

It was nice to have a little more flexibility with them around, not having to constantly keep my eye on Kendrick. Aunt Jess was more than happy to watch after our little guy :)

Cashel and Mark were both eager to hit the water a little more :)

Before we knew it, it was time to start supper, so I headed in to throw the teriyaki chicken on the grill, and we had some yummy chicken teriyaki sandwiches with various salads.

Kendrick tried strawberries for the first time and went a little nuts haha :)

We just sat around visiting the rest of the evening for the most part, and stayed up late talking after the boys went to bed.

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Sunday was an early morning for Kendrick and Cashel and I, but everyone else slept in a bit before breakfast. We enjoyed the cinnamon rolls that Dad and Pam so graciously picked up at our house on the way up the day prior and some yummy coffee.

We had initially planned to try to hit up Paul Bunyanland, and we snapped this really great picture outside of the place, but when we got in and realized it was going to cost us approximately $80 for all of us to get in, we decided it probably wasn't really worth it with the ages the kids were at. Plus, it was a pretty humid day, so it hardly seemed worth it.

We ended up just going back to the house, which, thankfully, was only about a mile from Paul Bunyanland and were thankful that we were able to get outside, as the grass and deck had dried off.

Kendrick was VERY interested in showing off his new standing skills :)

Cashel seemed far more interested in catching algae and rocks than he was in catching fish, but he did end up catching a little rock bass while I was in getting Kendrick down for his nap, even with his mildly unorthodox fishing techniques.

After Kendrick got up from his nap, I decided to take Cashel and Jess out tubing for their first time ever, while Grandpa and Grandma watched Kendrick.

Cashel just absolutely LOVED exploring, although it was unfortunate that it was SO mosquitoey out front, so we didn't spend much time out there.

We decided to go out for supper this night, but it took a long time to find a place open for supper on Sunday evening. (Or, rather, to find one of the places on the "must eats" list I had compiled.) We ended up stumbling across Rafferty's out of the blue, and boy are we glad we did! The atmosphere was fun, they had plenty of seating available, and the pizza was SO GOOD!

The rest of the night was more of the same: The boys went down to bed fairly early, and we sat around visiting and watching for the loon again :)

It was an earlier night for everyone, as we were worn out from a long day together.

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Monday everyone seemed to be up a little earlier, and we had more cinnamon rolls for breakfast and some had cereal. Dad, Pam and Jess were headed home that afternoon, so they were busy getting their things together and loaded up, and we were getting ourselves and the boys ready for a fun lunch date with all of us along with Mark's Great Uncle Don and Great Aunt Carol. We snapped a few photos together before taking off :)

We decided on Grizzly's, and it was a GREAT choice. Cashel did great for a little while, but then he got distracted and wanted to wander, so we took him around to check out the fish and animals lining the walls as well as the great big grizzly near the entrance.

After we finished visiting at Grizzly's, Don and Carol invited us back to their home to visit for a short while. We didn't have long to stay, as we had two ticking little time bombs on our hand, very much past their nap times. We had a nice time catching up with everyone, but it was definitely nap time by the time we got going. We had to make a quick stop at Walmart for me to pick up another phone, since mine pulled a failed trapeze stunt the day before we left. We settled in back at the cabin, although Kendrick didn't stay asleep long, so we didn't get much down time. However, we got enough time for Mark to take a nap and for me to do a little more fishing by myself.

When the boys woke up, we spent some fun time cuddling and playing in the living room before getting the grill ready for supper. We had enjoyed our time with company, but it was nice to have a little more quiet time together as a family. The boys were wiped out from being so busy the past few days and went to bed easily and early, so Mark and I stayed up, watched some TV, tidied up a bit and watched for the loon again.