Door County 2011

Andrew & I were both lucky enough to get Monday off of work so we made use of our bonus day and went up to Door County for our annual tour.  We knew we were going pretty early and probably wouldn't see many fall colors.  We started by driving up Highway 57 on the east side of the peninsula and we were actually surprised by the amount of color that had already appeared.  There were some great photo ops, but we didn't have time to stop as the kiddos were getting hungry...

While we were on our way up Andrew and I were discussing where we wanted to eat.  I don't know how he came up with the idea, but he mentioned the "restaurant with the goat on the roof" to me.  I had never been there before and I figured the kids would dig it, so we headed up to Sister Bay to eat at Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant. 

We pointed out the goat on the roof to Mads when we got to the restaurant and she thought it was pretty neat, although she didn't quite understand why he was on the roof!  :)

 Nathan and Mads both got one of these cinnamon-sugar toast-like thingys when they sat down.  They pretty much inhaled them!

 Mads had fun coloring on her placemat.  The placemat had a new joke written on it, too, so she has added it to her joke repertoire!  :)

 After leaving the restaurant we headed a little bit more north.  We stumbled upon a sign for a scenic overlook and decided to go check it out.  We got some pretty sweet pictures!

After leaving the overlook we headed south on Highway 57.  We stopped in Fish Creek to make our annual stop at the Fudgery!  Yum!

I stopped to take some pictures of Mads and this is what I got.  Cracks me up!  It looks like she's modeling her coat!  :)

 "Ah yes, well it's light and breezy..."

After leaving Fish Creek we went to the Frank Murphy County park to take pictures on the beach.  Mads wasn't showing off her best smiles, but we were able to get a few keepers!

 Nathan was pretty excited about the waves coming in:

Heading back up the little sand dune to the van!

We had so much fun.  This is the fourth year we've taken a drive up Door County.  Here are a few of our memories from the past years:

The pictures that started it all:

Mads in 2008:

Mads in 2009:

Mads and Nate in 2010:

What a fun tradition!