We bought a cabin on Lake Minnetonka after we became empty nesters in 1996. The cabin was built in the 1920s. We boated as a family on the lake for years, never thinking we would find a cabin so close to our Bloomington home. It was a comment by a friend — her mother needed to sell their lake place — that gave us the chance to buy it.

Our new/old cabin was a serious fixer-upper, but the best part was the 50 feet of level lakeshore. We named our cabin "Scrape Aweigh," foretelling that its future might be a building site. So we went to work to make the cabin our own. By early summer it became a destination for our family and friends to gather and create lasting memories.

In 1997, our neighbor five doors away invited us to a Thanksgiving party. That evening the neighbor mentioned possibly moving off the lake to accommodate a growing family. We expressed our interest as a potential buyer since we loved their one-level-living home.

In early 1998, we made the deal of the century! We bought our neighbors' lake place, and they bought our cabin as an investment. We moved permanently (and happily) to Lake Minnetonka after selling in Bloomington. We are retired now, in our 20th year living in the same lakeshore home. We still love the lifestyle. Our old cabin was scraped away years ago, becoming a building site for someone else. We are grateful to have owned that cabin for the fond memories and the opportunity it gave us to live on the lake full time. We are still here making wonderful memories with our grandchildren.

TOM and LYN BERNARD, Orono