Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Final Blog Update - Back to St. Cloud

I know it has been forever since I have updated the blog and that has been because we have been busy running back and forth between Northome and St. Cloud!  As of October 1st, I am officially back to work in the office full time and we are moved back home.

As we were winding down on our time up north, I realized that I probably never posted pictures of the cabin and bunkhouse/office so here are some pics of the cabin, the bunkhouse/office, the outhouse (with the door open), and the storage shed/work area.




One of the last work efforts up north was to clean up some old wood piles.  Haley, remember helping me to make all of these woods piles a couple of years ago??  Here are before and after pics and it is SO nice to have this mess finally cleaned up!

And, of course, the weather and leaves were absolutely beautiful on our last days:
Our friend, K, finished her last radiation treatments shortly after we moved home but the work load was low enough and she felt good enough to keep up on the resort work.  We miss seeing both K and D on a regular basis but look forward to going up there next weekend and participating in a "farewell" potluck at church.

It was an incredibly complex experience to spend the 5 months living up north and helping at the resort.  There were some truly wonderful moments and some truly difficult moments but we are still thankful to God that we had the opportunity to do this to help our friends.   We have decided that running a resort is not something that we would want to do full time nor will we retire fully to this area.  We will plan to spend summers at our cabin after retirement but will continue to have a main home in a larger metro area like St. Cloud.

Thank you to everyone who followed this blog and who supported us with your thoughts and prayers during this big adventure!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Long time no update...

 I know it has been forever since I posted an update so this will be a long one!!

We had a really nice dinner with my aunt and uncle last time we were in St. Cloud.  It was kind of funny to have them making us dinner in our house!!  It was really special to have an evening to spend with them.  They left us a wonderful basket of goodies as  a thank you for the use of our house.  We were just glad that it worked out for them to stay and have a place to relax while they were in Minnesota.

We had a great dinner and visit with Mary and Jerry on Tuesday evening.  Jerry made a turkey so that Bill could have the carcass as he loves to make soup!  We took Minnow along when we met Bill’s mom and his brother for supper in Princeton on Wednesday night.  We had not seen Lorraine (Bill's Mom) since we moved up north so it was great to catch up with her and Lanny (Bill’s brother) on family news.   

We headed back up north on Thursday night and Mom and Dad came up on Friday afternoon.  I had not gotten to spend any extended one-on-one time with Mom and Dad in a long time and it was great to be able to do that over the weekend.  We went into Blackduck to a fabric shop.   Mom is going to make the banner for the Marriage Encounter Conference next summer and we had fun picking out the fabric for that.  I also found a quilt kit with fall leaves and colors that I loved so I bought it to make this winter.  I am looking forward to working on it with Mom.   Bill and Dad went fishing on Saturday afternoon so Mom and I got to spend a couple of hours just talking and reconnecting.  I have missed doing that and it was great to spend time with Mom.  
We were back in St. Cloud for a couple of days last week and had a bunch of people from our church over on Wednesday evening for dinner.  A friend of ours from church was part of the band (The Receders) that was playing at Lake George that evening so we had a Preceders party at our house!  It was great fun to see everyone and catch up a little.

We headed back up north on Friday and got to take Minnow back with us.  Since I had Friday off work, we decided to meander our way up north and we did that really well!  We picked up Minnow at 9 AM and arrived at the cabin at 5 PM!!  Needless to say, we stopped at a lot of garage sales, second hand shops, etc. on the way.  On Saturday morning, we stopped over at the resort and saw the first bear that was brought in (as bear hunting season opened on Sept 1).   Minnow was not too excited about touching the bear!


Haley (youngest daughter) and her friend, Katha (from Germany) came up on Saturday.  Katha had explained that they make "bread on a stick" rather than roast marshmallows so we gave that a try and it was very good.  Here are some pics of this.  Here is a link to a site with the recipe (http://www.paddlinglight.com/articles/tutorial/how-to-cook-bannock-on-a-stick-campfire-bread/).  We didn't have dried milk and we were not carrying the mix into a camp site so we just added enough milk to make it doughy.
After church on Sunday (where Bill sang again!), we headed over to a friennd's place to ride horses.  Katha had never ridden before and everyone had a blast!  After everyone rode the horses, the kids got to paint the horses.  Haley and Katha had a blast painting Big Bill with USA/Germany messages and hand prints.  

In late afternoon on Sunday, we tried our hand at fishing.  We did not have much luck at the dock at the resort so we dropped Bill off at the cabin and went over to the nearby bridge.  Katha managed to catch a northern and Haley caught a perch so they were both happy with that success!!

In the evening, we made bread on a stick (again!) and smores!  On Monday morning, we did a quick walk through the Lost Forty before Haley and Katha had to head back (as Haley had to work on Monday afternoon).  Bill, Minnow, and I headed for Princeton where we had a fish fry with his family.  We had not seen many of them for quite a while so it was great to see everyone and eat some good food!

We are now back in St. Cloud for a couple of days.  While Bill's birthday is on Thursday, we are celebrating tomorrow night with the kids (as that works best for their schedules).   As things are going well at the resort and with K's radiation, we are starting to transition back to life in St. Cloud.  I will be going back to full time work on October 1st (rather than November 1st) as the resort schedule is fairly light in October and K is able to do more things as time goes on.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Janet & Ashlee Visit and Bill's Singing Debut!!


It was a great week with the kids from Rochester.  The smaller group size and age spread made it less hectic and the evening devotions around the campfire were very moving.  This group had some kids that loved to bake and on various days, they made banana bread, banana muffins, monster cookies, peanut butter cookies, and peach cobbler.  It was heartbreaking to hear some of the kids talk about not having any food in their homes to cook/bake with but it was great that they had the opportunity while they were at camp.  And we did not mind sampling their treats either...they were very good!

Our friend, Janet, and her daughter, Ashlee, came up Friday to celebrate Janet's birthday and hang out with us for the weekend.  We had a great time together!!  Ashlee had never fished before but she brought along her fishing pole and K got her all set up while we got things unpacked at the cabin.  Ashlee fished from the dock and she caught a bunch of perch and even a couple of northerns!  She was so excited and even was able to put on her own minnows by Saturday afternoon.  Bill came down to fish also but Ashlee had the hot spot and caught more fish and bigger fish than he did!  Needless to say, she enjoyed this immensely!  Here is one of the bigger perch and some of the fish caught (by Ashlee and Bill!) on Saturday.



We also went to the Lost Forty on Saturday morning as everyone who visits us gets to experience this part of the area!  We always love to take this walk and see the huge red and white pines.

On Saturday evening, we went over to have Ashlee see horses.  Our friend was not around so we didn't get to ride but Bill did get to see his favorite horse, Big Bill, again.  Supposedly there is a picture of Bill on Big Bill that I am still trying to get for posting!  We all enjoyed seeing and petting the horses.  After we got back, we had a campfire and smores.  I had never made smores with the giant thick chocolate bars but I have to tell you that although it does not melt as much, it is pretty darn good to have that much more chocolate in the smore!  We enjoyed hanging out and visiting while we had the smores and watched the fire.

There have been lots of butterflies flying around and while we were hanging out at the cabin, we saw this butterfly on the hummingbird feeder.  I was amazed it stayed long enough and let me get close enough to get a decent picture.


Janet and Ashlee got to see and hear Bill's singing debut at church today!!  He sang "Blessed be Your name" at our church up here this morning and did a great job!  While he has played guitar and bass many times, he had never sung before in public so he was pretty darn nervous.  However, he did a wonderful job and is already signed up to do another song next week and maybe lead all the singing for a service in a few weeks.   He has been talking about doing this for several years and  I am glad and proud that he took this opportunity to step outside his comfort zone and give this a try.

It was a really nice day today, so we spent this afternoon driving around and looking for places for Bill to take pictures of butterflies and me to read books!  He found a couple of spots and we stopped in and checked out Little American Falls (up by Effie) again and were surprised that the falls were quite a bit lower (since the lakes are still really high).

We are headed back to St. Cloud tomorrow to say good bye to my aunt and uncle as they are heading back to Kentucky on Tuesday and we have an all day strategic planning meeting for church on Tuesday.  It is a slow week at the resort and K is able to do so much more that so we may hang around a couple of days so that we get to spend some time with our family and friends.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

My hard times are a comin'

I have come to realize that while K struggled to let go of her work and tasks and let me take them on, I am now struggling to let go of them and give them back!!  I am a "doer" and I have discovered that it is difficult for me to stop "doing" for K and ler her to take back the things that she is able to do.  For those of you who know me well, this is probably not a surprise!   However, since I have never been in this sort of situation before, this is a growth challenge for me and it will be an interesting next couple of weeks.  I told K that she will need to be direct about what she wants to do and make it clear that I need to back off and let her do the work/tasks.  I have also asked her to be patient as I adjust to this new role.  Wow...God provides some very interesting growth experiences on this path!

Just my random thoughts for today.  Off to the resort to make a spaghetti supper for the youth camp group!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Youth Camp and New Life Plans

Thanks to my sister, Susan, for sending the blonde brownie recipe as I needed to make bars for a memorial service on Saturday.  It is always interesting to bake in a stove that does not have a temperature setting!  As you can see in the pic below, Bill continues to love to cook with cast iron!!
The memorial service was for a guy from our church up here that died of cancer.  It was a very nice service and the potluck afterwards brought back memories.  I had not seen a jello salad with carrots for quite some time and had some calico beans that were out of this world.  I am working on getting that recipe and will try to remember to share it.

On Saturday afternoon, we headed into Bemidji to do some shopping and stop at the Beltrami County Fair.  I simply love the people watching at county fairs!  Bill and I were both impressed that you would win Redneck Bingo easier at the Benton County Fair than at this one!  And, yes, I guess that does make us sound like snobs, doesn't it?  Of course, we did have to partake in some fair food.  I particularly enjoyed the Chocolate Dipped Cheesecake on a Stick and Bill enjoyed the Onion Rings.  We listened to a family group (Mom, Did, 3 girls, 2 boys) do some gospel and bluegrass music.  It was amazing the number of instruments that they could play between all of the family members!! 

We also checked out the horse barn since Bill helped with the horse rides last week with the kids camp and fell in love with Big Bill (and not even because of his name!).   Big Bill is a big old friendly Belgian horse that Bill got to lead around for the kid camps.  We saw some monstrous Percheron horses at the fair that barely fit in the stalls.  Simply amazing animals.

There was a glorious full moon on the way home but unfortunately my camera batteries were dead and then I forgot to take it along to the resort yesterday. I am hoping to get a good picture tonight while we are over at the resort. 

The current group is from Rochester and has recruited Bill to help sing songs around the campfire.  The group is only 15 kids and 5 adults so it is much less hectic than last week's group.  These kids are also older...junior and senior high I would guess.  We had a great devotion and sharing time last night with K telling her story and how God has helped her through this whole ordeal with cancer.  We talked about being able to ask and accept help from God and others and how really difficult this can be as we like to think that we can do things on our own!  K has experienced leg pain with the past 2 chemos and is very thankful that there is only one more to get through.  She starts radiation on Monday, August 29, and has to drive 55 miles one way for a 15 minute treatment and she will need to make this trip every day for 5 weeks.  Please continue to keep her and D in your prayers as they start the final leg of this treatment journey.

We have been busy checking out options for catering training for Bill.  Yes, it is time to stop being a telephone man and follow his heart! :-)  Since he really already knows how to cook pretty darn good for large (and small) groups, we are considering an on line option.  We would appreciate any input from those who have done on line courses.  We know that you only get out of it what you put into it (like any class) and that you need to be dedicated to moving forward in the courses.  Any other words of wisdom or experience to share?  He will also be looking for anyone in catering who could use an assistnace to get some direct experience (when we get back to St. Cloud) so please let us know if anyone has suggestions or ideas.   Keep us in your prayers as we work on this transition in our lives! 

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Kid's Camp update

Wow...it was a busy week with about 38 kids (including junior counselors) and 10 counselors at the resort from Sunday to today from a church in the twin cities.  We had kids and counselors packed into all 7 cabins and were bursting at the seams...but what a great experience!

The activities for the week included:
  • Fishing...lots and lots of fishing on boats and off the dock.  A local company donates a fishing rod for each kid and many of them have never fished before.  Only the grace of God manages to keep the flying hooks away from everyone!
  • Tubing.  They got to take turns tubing behind a boat.
  • Horse back riding and painting.  There is a local horse farm that specializes in horses that work well with kids.  The kids take turns riding the horses and then they get to paint the horses!
  • Swimming. We went to a nearby lake with a beach and had a blast swimming, skipping rocks, and making sand castles.
  • Archery.  The local DNR provides bows, arrows, and targets and the kids get to try their hand at archery.  Again, only God's grace and careful supervision keep this activity safe!  There is a lot of yelling "All bows on the ground" so that no one gets hurts while they pick up their arrows from the targets.
  • Nature walk.  The kids go to the Lost Forty and get to experience the majesty of virgin timber.
  • Crafts.  Making and decorating pigs (from rocks), journals, bracelets.
What a great way to allow these kids to experience God's majasty in nature!  About half of the group had been up camping last year so they were helpful with the kids that were new this year.  The theme for this year was "Jesus to the rescue" and they had daily word themes and lessons.  We did marshmallows and/or smores around a campfire each night along with daily lessons and devotions. 

The resort provided breakfast on Monday morning (eggs, sausage, and pancakes), a spaghetti dinner on Tuesday night, and a fish fry on Wednesday night (and they just caught enough fish to feed everyone!!).  Needless to say, Bill was in his glory cooking for a large group and the food was good!!

The group left this morning so we get to do all of the clean up and get ready for another group to come in on Sunday.  This group is about half the size of the first group but it is still a lot of cleaning and organizing!

K is on her second to last chemo treatment today and is excited that the end of this treatment is in sight!  She has appointments today to get things organized for the 5 weeks of radiation which will start around September 1st (have to wait until 2 weeks after chemo finishes).   The camps are tough as there is so much to do and so many people but she is holding up well.

Off to clean up and get ready to do the next camp!!

Friday, August 5, 2011

Bouncing between St. Cloud and Up North

No luck going fishing on Monday morning for Matt and Diana but they did run over and visit the Lost Forty and a friend who lives nearby.  What are the chances that one of their friends end up about 10 miles away from our cabin...weird!  Bill and I went over to the resort and tried to pick raspberries.  Unfortunately, it appeared birds and bears had gotten there ahead of us so we didn't get very many...bummer for us...good for the birds and bears!  Since we had a late breakfast, we had a late lunch fish fry...Yum, Yum!!  Matt and Diana headed back to St. Cloud by late afternoon.  It was great to have time to hang out with them!

So, last weekend I figured out that I had totally messed up our schedule as I thought the inner city kid camps started this week and ran for 2 weeks.  Well, turns out they start next week and run for 2 weeks.  Since Bill was planning to come back to St. Cloud the week of August 15 to do some printing, we suddenly had to re-arrange our schedule.  Bill was going to head back without me but since I was pretty much caught up at the resort, I thought I would head along down and enjoy a visit with Minnow (grand daughter, AKA Ja'Leyah).  Unfortunately, it turned out that she is still in Chicago with her dad due to the storms that delayed flights...bummer!

We headed for St. Cloud on Tuesday in the late afternoon and stopped at Bites in Pine River (http://bitesgrill.com/).  I had the TBA sandwich (Turkey, Bacon, and Avocado on multigrain bread) and Bill had the Italian Meat Loaf sandwich (open faced with marinara and mozzarella).  Both were excellent and we would definitely recommend this restaurant.  Very nice atmosphere although it was a little loud when we walked in as there was a very large group of older people who all talked very loud.  Things quieted down once that group left and we really enjoyed the experience. 

You know, as much as I blog about food, maybe Bill and I should just become food critics...visit different restaurants and do write ups!!

Anyway, Bill did his giclee printing and I worked from home on Wednesday.  I ran some errands in the afternoon including delivering a small "congratulations, you're a grandma" jewelry gift to my sister, Mary.  She has been requesting grandchildren for Christmas for several years so she is pretty excited that her son and daughter in law have announced that they are pregnant.  Congratulations, Lane and Nikki!!

We met some friends, Mike and Char, and went with them to the Summertime By George event(http://summertimebygeorge.com/).  I know that I have plugged this several times but here goes again as it is really cool that something like this is going on in St. Cloud.  The music by Willie West was excellent!!  He is an older blues and soul singer from New Orleans who has played with many famous artists and he did an awesome job!  In addition, the food was great.  I recommend trying the chicken kabobs from a wonderful couple from Ghana and Bill had an awesome burger melt at a stand from Cold Spring.  Obviously, we are not very good at noticing the names of the vendors!!  Besides food, there are also other vendors and Bill got cucumbers to make refrigerator pickles and I got a couple of pairs of earrings to match some cool fused glass necklaces that Chelsey had given to me!  There is something for everyone...splash pad for the kids, wine/beer garden for those who want a cool beverage, etc.  As always, I ran into plenty of friends and family and enjoyed visiting with everyone.

On Thursday, my aunt and uncle (Jan and Damian) arrived from Kentucky in the afternoon.  It was great to see them and to be able to give them a tour of the house and help them to get settled in.  They are not sure how long they are staying but Damian did seem pretty sure that they would be gone before we are scheduled to come back in October!!  :-)

We stopped at the Bridge Tavern in Crosby on our way back up (http://www.bridgetavernmn.com/) as the place always seems to be busy.  I have to say that I was not impressed with the atmosphere or the food.  It is a older bar which needs some upkeep and the food was okay but not excellent.  We will cross that one off of our list of restaurants to try.  Appeared to be a busy biker bar if that is what you are into!

So here we are back up north and we don't plan to have another trip to St. Cloud until the week of August 29th.  We are busy getting ready for the kids next week.  Bill, D, and K put up the tents in the morning.  I made up beds in 4 cabins this afternoon, will clean and make up beds in 2 tomorrow and do the last one on Sunday (as the kids arrive on Sunday afternoon).  We helped serve one breakfast to the first group last year and are looking forward to more interaction this year. 

This afternoon, Bill managed to resurrect the deep fryer that was pulled out of storage after about 30 years!  He is a truly incredible man of many talents and this is just one more thing to add to his list of accomplishments.  Tomorrow, we are planning to have deep fried zucchini and sliders on the flat top (which he also got going and cleaned up earlier).

Life is good!!

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Wood Carving, Friends, and Family

On Saturday morning, we headed over to Blackduck to the 28th Annual Woodcarvers Festival.  We met my friend, Pam, there and enjoyed both the woodcarving part and the arts and crafts part of the festival.  Pam has been carving for about 17 years and we are lucky enough to have 2 of her carvings in our cabin (an eagle and a fish) as she is truly a talented carver!  Of course, we had to start out with fry bread because it is a great morning snack!  Bill is excited that we could make our own if we can get the deep fryer going at the resort.  If so, I will need to find lots of neighbors to share with as I could eat a lot of fry bread and that would make my clothes shrink!!

Pam bought a couple of pieces of wood for carving and Bill bought a knife blank (where he will have to carve the handle for the knife) and a book on how to carve a woodspirit in a hiking stick.  He wants to give that a try!  Now I just need to get Pam and my brother-in-law, John, up here yet this fall for a carving weekend to get him started!  Any other carving friends out there that would like to participate?  :-)  Bill also listened to a presentation on preparing wood for carving and found out the basswood that he has won't be any good as basswood must be cut down in the winter and cut up before the sap flows...who know that wood could be so picky? 

We went over to the resort so that we could visit with K and D and Bill could start grilling the ribs for dinner.  While we were there, a couple pulled in and asked if they had a room for the night.  It turns out the couple is from Italy and so it was very interesting to talk to them and get their story.  The wife loves the Mississippi river and so last year they flew into New Orleans and followed the river up to Memphis.  This year they flew into Chicago and are coming to the source of the Mississippi (in Itasca State Park) and following it down to Memphis.  They are retired and planning to take 3 weeks for the trip.  We had good discussion around loons (there was a family of them in the bay), wild rice, ice fishing, and other Northern Minnesota topics. What a wonderful sense of adventure to just rent a car and drive and see where they end up each night!

Matt and Diana (son and girlfriend) arrived about 8 PM on Saturday night and we had a wonderful supper of sweet corn, ribs, hash browns, and smores.  It was great to be able to spend time around the fire with them (until the mosquitoes drove us indoors).

This morning, Bill went to play guitar at church while Pam and I went to the Lost Forty.  No matter how many times I go through there, I continue to be in awe of God's creation!!  How can you not always enjoy seeing trees that large and majestic!  For those of you may have missed earlier references to the Lost Forty, you can find info here:  http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsm9_016469.pdf.  On the way back, there was an elderly gentleman sitting on a motorized wheelchair at the road turning into our area.  We stopped to see if he needed any help.  Turns out that his wheelchair had quit on him and his walkie talkie had too much static to explain to his wife where he was stuck.  Luckily, Pam was able to figure out how to disengage the brake so that we could push his wheelchair off the main road.  He appeared to be a stroke victim (with braces on his arm and leg) and he indicated that he needed side boards to get up into a truck.  We went and swapped Pam's truck for ours and managed to get his wheelchair turned around and positioned with the door open for him to get in.  It was a slow process and Pam ended up having to give him a push while I pulled from the inside.  We told him that we would bring his wheelchair on the trailer after Bill got home from church and Pam followed me to his house (in case we were both needed to get him out of the truck).  His wife was calmly painting and indicated that she had gotten part of his message but couldn't find him by the bridge (as he was down a road past the bridge) so she had come back home!  She went and got another motorized wheelchair and helped to get him moved from the truck to that.  I was amazed that this couple was still able to function on their own with his severe disability.  After lunch (Bill's yummy mac and cheese!), we went to take back the wheelchair but they had already come over and changed the fuse and gotten it home.  It was a God thing that we happened to come along right after his chair broke down or he could have been sitting there for quite some time in the heat and the bugs.

Pam headed back home after lunch and Bill took Matt and Diana fishing while I got to relax and read a book!  I started a fire and hung out and wrote up instructions and info for my aunt and uncle (Jan and Damian) from Kentucky who will be living in our house for several weeks while they visit with family.  This is another God thing as they really wanted to have an extended stay in the area this summer and it is hard to stay with anyone for a long time and also hard to keep moving.  It worked out great that we have a house sitting empty that they can use for as long as they want...well, we do expect to be back by late October!! :-)

Bill, Matt, and Diana caught enough sunnies for a fish fry for lunch tomorrow.  We grilled burgers on the fire although I had gone a little overboard on the fire and Bill just about fried off his hand while grilling!  However, it was a great fire for smores!!!   I think that they may go fishing again tomorrow morning to see if they can add to the lunch fish stash.

Friday, July 29, 2011

St. Cloud Trip Recollections

We had a fabulous time in St.Cloud this week!!  I enjoyed seeing all of my coworkers and friends at work on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Did you ever do something and think "I will get back to that" and then forget?  I brought in dilly bars on Wednesday afternoon and dropped one off at a co-workers desk and thought, I will check back before I go to my meeting and put that in the fridge in case she is not back.  Yeah, right!  When I got back to her desk several hours later, she had not been there and the dilly bar was an ice cream puddle on her desk!  Luckily, it did not run out of the bag when I threw it out...guess I better write myself a note next time!!

We got to hang out with Haley for dinner on Tuesday night and tour the "House of Ten" which is what I call her rental house as she is living with 9 other students near SCSU.  I had toured before but Bill had not seen the house.  Other than a few beer bottles (did you really expect me to skip mentioning that, Haley?), the house is very nice! 

We had dinner with Matt and Diana (son and his girlfriend) on Wednesday at the House of Pizza.  This is one of our favorite restaurants so it was great to eat there and have time to talk with the kids!  Afterwards,we went to listen to Transit Authority at Lake George.  Luckily, it had cooled off a little and it wasn't miserable at the park.  We ran into a bunch of friends from church and a couple stopped over after the concert.  Really nice chance to catch up with them!

We stayed in town on Thursday and finished up shopping for the inner city kids retreats that start at the resort on August 8th.  Boy, that is a lot of pop tarts, cereal, spaghetti, etc! 

We also were able to go to the Salvation Army and volunteer again!! We have so missed doing this and it was wonderful to see all of the friends that we have made there.  Bill really enjoyed getting back into the large batch cooking mode and did a great job (of course!) on jambalya.  I tried my hand at using a couple of bundt cake mixes (not in a bundt pan) but they were a little thin and the oven was a little hot so they were crispy on the edges and gooey in the middle but, what the heck, they were still chocolate with peanuts and chocolate chips in them!  It might also have helped that we served them with mint fudge ice cream...added a nice touch.  The food shelf is VERY LOW on supplies so anything that any of you can do to support them at this time would be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.  Drop off any extra produce that you have from your garden or pick up some food basics when you are shopping and drop them off or send them a check to support this very valuable service to our community.  Okay, I will get off my soapbox now...but our passions do lie with meeting the basic food and housing needs of our community.

We are now back up in the great northwoods and transitioning back into remote work and resort mode.  We are planing a dinner out tonight as Bill got his colonoscopy lab results with NO CANCER!!  Praise and Thank You to God!  In addition, K has all restrictions lifted so she can try doing more around the resort and she is very excited about this and we are hoping that she can join us for the celebration dinner!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Week with Mary & Jerry

We had a great week with my sister, Mary, and her family last week.  On Thursday, Mary and I went floating on the air mattresses again but it was a little windy so we ended up doing a lot  more paddling than just laying there!  Bill and Jerry slow grilled pork loin for supper and it was awesome.  I told Bill that I am suffering from withdrawal from his pulled pork since he has not made any all summer!

On Friday, Mary, Jerry, Bill and I spent the day hanging out together.  Bill and Jerry had to make a convenience store run for milk for breakfast...for some reason, "convenience store" and "12 miles" seem to be a little contradictory but it is more convenient than 25 miles to the nearest grocery store! 

We decided to head to Bemidji and do some exploring of that town.  We stopped in Turtle River and had some totally awesome Reuben Pasties at Turtle River Pasties (http://www.summerkitchensupplies.com/).  They had a wonderfully light crust and the sauce had an interesting horseradish kick to it!   I am still working on getting Bill to make pasties!!

Of course, we had to stop at the chocolate store and get a little dessert before any shopping could occur!  It is really interesting that Bemidji has undertaken an art project to put some kind of art on just about every corner of their downtown.  We found this unique knit tree trunk cover and we thought our niece, Jenna, would get a kick out of this.


Since we like thrift shops, we checked out the Goodwill store and the consignment store next door to Goodwill.  I have to say that Goodwill had done a great job of getting their stores organized and well laid out.  I tease Mary about being a "Northwoods Barbie" and she did bring along the black heels in the picture below (but did not have much opportunity to wear them).  We did find the pink boot shoes that exemplified "Backwoods Barbie" at the consignment store.  We had a good laugh over these and, smart woman that she is, Mary did not buy these!



We had wonderful evenings on Thursday and Friday sitting by the fire and roasting marshmallows, eating smores, and talking smart.  We finally figured out that we might as well do the fire earlier in the evening as we do not stay up late and the mosquitoes are not out yet.  They headed back home on Saturday morning and we miss them!

We cleaned our cabin on Saturday morning and then I cleaned a cabin at the resort in the afternoon.  We went to see a wonderfully talented folk singer, John Perkins, at the Edge Center for the Arts, which is a nice little gallery and theatre in Big Fork (about 30 miles from our cabin).   John is a local artist who puts "the poetry of nature and life put to music".  He did all original music that he wrote around up north themes like Ice Out, Maple Syrup, Hummingbirds, etc.  It was very nice to find this venue and opportunity to enjoy local talent.

Bill played bass at church on Sunday with a family from Tennessee that is related to the pastor.  They have six wonderfully engaging young children with a 7th on the way.  The Dad played guitar and several of the children sang songs.  Starting next week, we will be struggling to find musicians and singers but we will see what God provides.  We had dinner with K and D and D's parents who are up visiting.  They brought Peaches and Cream sweet corn from Iowa and it was awesome to have that along with grilled zuchinni, grilled chicken and copper penny salad.  We had not made copper penny salad (carrots marinated in a tomato sauce), (http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1650,156175-237203,00.html), for a long time!

After supper, we dragged out the flat top grill and deep fryer that have been in storage since the restaurant at the resort was closed about 20 years ago!  D is going to see if he can get them going so that we can use them to make pancakes and fish for the inner city youth groups that are coming the first couple of weeks in August.  Needless to say, Bill was excited about cooking equipment and looks forward to the challenge of getting them cleaned up and going!

Yesterday, we headed home as I have meetings at work today and tomorrow and Bill has some giclee printing to do.  We forgot to notify our neighbors who are watching our house so we owe them an apology for causing some anxiety as we left the garage door partially open (as the floor is wet) while we went out to dinner with Haley.  They also checked our doors and heard the dog inside and wondered what was going on.  It was great to sit and visit with them for a while last night and catch up on the news in the neighborhood.  We miss hanging out with all our neighbors in the evening!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Back in the North Woods

After the hot and humid weather in St. Cloud, it was very nice back up here in the north woods!   I could not believe how much the weather changed during those 185 miles drive up on Sunday!

We had a great time at Lane (nephew) and Nikki's wedding on Saturday!  They wrote their own vows and it was beautiful and touching to hear them speak those loving and tender words to each other.  It was a great chance to spend time with family and do some dancing...what is a wedding reception without the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance??  Here are some pics including one of the cousins and one of the cousins plus significant others.




My sister and her family are up at the resort this week and it was great to have a spaghetti dinner with some of the kids on Sunday night.  They also came over for breakfast on Monday morning.  We particularly liked Derby (Matt's dog) laid out on the floor in this picture in our cabin.

Bill went fishing up the river with Matt and Cam on Monday while Mary and I road tripped to Big Fork to get some supplies.  We got to town about 11:00 and saw a sign that said the liquor store opened at 12:00 so we decided to spend some time having coffee and cheese cake (homemade and wonderful!!) at the Husky Cafe.  We had a good laugh when we got to the store at 12:00 and realized that sign was for the bar part and the liquor store had been open the whole time!  However, we did not regret having spent the time talking and catching up!

It was beautiful outside on Monday afternoon so Mary and I went out on the lake on air mattresses.  What a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours...drifting on the water and talking about nothing and everything!  Someone could have made a lot of money if they had recorded the two of us trying to pull ourselves out of the water!  Since there is not a beach and it is kind of weedy at the shore, we decided to sit sideways on our air mattresses and put our feet on the dock brace and pull ourselves up on the pole.  Mary went first and I was laughing so hard that I had no strength left in my arms and just about fell off my air mattress just holding on to the pole!

Yesterday was a day to stay inside due to the storms that went through and rain that lasted most of the day.  It did end up being a beautiful evening and we were able to eat dinner outside and enjoy the lake view.  Mary and I tried to play Scrabble later in the evening and while I think Mary would have won if we had kept score, we also helped each other so it wasn't much of a competition.  We also decided that we might have played better if we had skipped the gin and tonics we had with supper!!

Today is muggy and sticky and the thunder is starting to rumble...so much for my plans to spend some more time on the air mattress on the lake again (since things are a little slow at the resort this week)!  Oh, well, life goes on and I am blessed to have family around to visit!!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Test Result Update

The colonoscopy went well today.  They did not find any polyps.  To use a term from one of the members of the Yada Yada Prayer Group...Thank ya, Jesus!! :-)  They are going to biopsy some of the scar tissue from last year's surgery as this appeared to standard operating procedure.  The doctor did not see anything that caused him any concern.  He does recommend another colonoscopy next year and Bill was not very excited to hear that!  We will get final lab results in 2 weeks.

By the way, the Yada Yada Prayer Group is a great book series to consider checking out!

I am now cleaning the house while Bill sleeps off the medication from the test.  One of the big rain storms must have gotten a little water in our basement (appears to be from the window well) and it rusted the bottom of a metal chest that I used to store bedding for the futon.  I am now trying to get rust off the tile floor while I wash all of the blankets.  Not exactly what I was expecting when I started to clean the family room but so it goes...could be worse!!

Thanks to everyone for your support and prayers for Bill.  We are blessed with wonderful friends and family!!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Back in St Cloud for a few days!

Bill and I went fishing at Arrowhead again last Sunday and caught another 32 sunnies.  No record setting sizes but plenty of ones big enough to keep (and quite a few small ones that we threw back).  Looking forward to another fish fry sometime!!

I am working on making a "welcome" sign for the resort.  I have the board painted and worked with K to find letters that were what she wanted.  We couldn't find any that looked rounded and soft enough but I found some that were close with hard edges.  I printed them out and was totally amazed at how much softer the letters looked when I rounded out all of the edges.  Now just need to get the letters traced on the board and get some gold paint!

We headed for St. Cloud on Tuesday afternoon and hit a great "all you can eat meatloaf" meal at Pestello's in Pequot Lakes.  The meal was only like $3.95 before 6 PM and included mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, garlic bread, and meatloaf...pretty darn cheap and still pretty darn tasty!  Bill loves meatloaf so he was pretty happy that we happened to pick this particular day to stop at this restaurant for the first time.  If you are ever near Pequot Lakes, the place is worth checking out. 

When we got home, I went to the grocery store to pick up some of the basic food that we will need for the next couple of days.  When I opened the fridge, I just could not put food in a fridge that was that grubby!  Between not getting to clean it recently (like maybe a little longer than not recently, honestly) and having it used during Hotel Haley days, it definitely needed a cleaning.  So, there I was, cleaning a fridge and freezer until about 10:30 at night.  This cabin cleaning stuff is definitely starting to rub off on my life in general!!

It was great to see everyone at the office on Wednesday.  We had a software release celebration for one of my products and got to enjoy pies from Perkins with the team.  Great to get a chance to visit with everyone and enjoy some great pie options (French Silk, Peanut Butter Chocolate, Carmel Apple, Peach, and Strawberry Mango...yum, yum).

As I am typing this blog, I realize that I spend quite a bit of time talking about what we cook and eat!  Interesting and I think that this may have something to do with meals and socializing being such a major part of my family's interaction model.  Nothing says I love you like good food and good discussion!

We took Minnow to the music at Summertime By George last night and it was great fun to see her dancing around and checking out all of the other people. We enjoyed listening to the Jacob Martin Band (country rock band from Nashville).  We went with a friend from church and our youngest daughter, Haley, also came and hung out with us for a while. 

Bill spent yesterday getting our yard and patio back into shape and I thought perhaps I was at the wrong house when I got home yesterday...just kidding!  However, he did do a great job cleaning up all of the leaves, branches, and weeds on the patio and around all of the flower gardens and the house.  I hate doing that work so I am very appreciative of all of his efforts and work!!

Had a great dinner with a bunch of women from Crossroads church and it was great to see everyone and hang out.  We ate at a new restaurant in town  (see, more food discussion!?) called Dickey's Barbeque Pit (http://www.dickeys.com/default.aspx).  It is a cute little place with good food.  Our group would definitely recommend it!

I don't think Bill will mind if I share that he has a colonoscopy tomorrow and, since he had colon cancer a year ago, he is a little worried about this (and hates the prep stuff...but don't we all?).  Please keep him in your prayers tonight and tomorrow!

I have decided that I do not know how to write short blogs anymore but I will work on that in the future!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Slow week at the resort

I was kind of surprised that this is usually a slow week at the resort since it is 4th of July week but the guests were all long weekend guests.  Once I got the cabins all cleaned, I moved on to painting...and I love to paint!  I did touch up on some trim on the lodge and 1 cabin and painted about a bazillion posts to mark the end of the lawn.  Okay maybe it was only about 30 poles but it took a whole afternoon but it was a gorgeous afternoon to sit on my butt and work!!

Do you ever have those moments when you go...duh, I am definitely stuck in my thinking about something?   K wanted to try going on her own to chemo this week so she asked if she could borrow my personal cell phone (which I never use up here anyway except for occasional texts with kids and friends).  I brought it along to Bible Study on Wednesday night and brought along the charger to keep it plugged in overnight as it sometimes runs down when it is searching for service all the time.  K looked at me and said, "Can't I just turn the phone off overnight?"  Wow, since we do not have a land line in St. Cloud, I NEVER think about turning off my cell phone!!  K had a good laugh over the look on my face as I figured this out and admitted that I had thought really thought about that option!

The Bible Study group was smaller this week but we still had really good discussion about spiritual gifts versus talents and trying to determine what our spiritual gifts might be.  We still have 5 weeks left and will be digging deeper into this but it was interesting to provide and get input on our gifts from the other participants.  I am really looking forward to learning more as this has been a topic that God has pushed to the forefront lately for me.

We had 2 young men come into the resort yesterday evening to request if they could park their vehicle while they canoed the Big Fork River to Craigsville (where they also left a vehicle).  We said yes, as long as they would tell us about the trip when they get back on Sunday.  We have talked about doing a trip like that so it will be interesting to see what these 2 have to say about it (since they are MUCH younger than we are!). 

Bill blew out a tire on the car yesterday driving fast (so he says!) around a curve so we made a trip to Grand Rapids this morning to replace all of the tires (which have needed to be replaced for a while but it was just one of those things that you keep putting off).  Note to my sister, Mary - be sure to tell Jerry that we got new tires since he commented on this last time you were up!! :-)

We stopped at the Farmer's Market and what a totally wonderful time of the year to stop!  We stocked up on onions, lettuce, snap peas, beets, and kohlrabi.  The kohlrabi brings back such memories of growing these when we were young!  We would pull them up and hold them by the root while we peeled them with our teeth and ate them.  There is nothing quite like a fresh kohlrabi still warm from the sun with dirt still hanging on the root!

If you are not familiar with kohlrabi, here is some info on them and a pic.  Kohlrabi or knol-khol or German Turnip is a stout, round "tuber" like vegetable of the brassica family; same as that of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collard greens, and brussels sprouts belongs to. This stem vegetable is native to  in Europe.  Scientifically known as Brassica oleracea (Gongylodes Group).

We stopped at Deer River at the "Wild Rice Festival" as there is a lot of wild rice grown and harvested up here.  We checked out the flea market and Bill got binoculars to watch birds and I got a T-shirt that says "This grandma ROCKS!".   There was an option of a wild rice luncheon with wild rice hot dish and lots of side dishes and pies but we decided that we probably did not really need the pie!  We did check out the local Lion's booth and have great hamburgers.  We had a very nice retired couple from Wisconsin join us and had a great time talking with them about their farming life and locations and people we knew in Wisconsin.  I got a fried bread (which probably was not much better for me than the pie we passed up!) that was as big as the paper plate and was still hot and fresh.  It was so big that we shared it with our new friends from Wisconsin as they had not had fried bread in a long time.

We listened to the practice for the country singer contest that is being held this evening.  Some were very good but some needed a little more practice!  However, the people watching was every bit as entertaining as the music!  Wow, I saw enough stretch marks exposed (on women and men!) to last for quite some time!  We also got to see some really adorable little kids running around and dancing.  Watching little kids dance is such a joy as they are totally uninhibited and having a great time!

We stopped at a couple of garage sales on the way home...who can resist garage sales?  Certainly, not Bill and me!!  We had been to one of them yesterday but decided we would stop again.  Yesterday, Bill got a great deal on some files to sharpen his chain saw and on a camping shower bag (where you fill it with water and hang it in a tree to warm up the water).  We will be giving that a try as it would provide us some shower facilities without having to run to the resort.  Today, I mostly got blankets, sheets, and comforters for the resort.  We go through quite a few of those so it is good to have an extra stock on hand. 

Now we are back at the cabin and trying to decide if we are going fishing or just hanging out...touch choice since both seem like good options!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Glorious weekend of relaxation!

I have been kindly ask to skip additional spider pictures and I will try to remember that going forward!!

We have running water in the cabin!!  WooHoo!!  We still need to hook up power to have hot water but just having running water and a drain is a major event.  Doing dishes is much easier (even if we still have to heat up the water at this point).  Next step, of course, is the water heater...planned for this week.

I wanted to give an update on K's treatment since I haven't mentioned that for a while.  She has completed 5 of the 12 chemo treatments and is going amazingly well.  She is not nauseated at all and her arm strength is improving (on the left side where the lymph nodes were removed).  She is in good spirits and looking forward to being through all of this and back to full strength and ability!  She will finish chemo in mid August and we believe that radiation will start in early September and run into October.

I can't remember when I last had 3 days with so much relaxation time!  We helped at the resort on Friday afternoon and took a load of camp fire wood over in the evening (in the rain).  The resort was fairly busy with 4 cabins, 4 campers, and 1 tenting group.  We slept in on Saturday and just lounged around all morning.  There was a birthday party for 2 guests at the resort on Saturday evening and we were invited to the potluck.  We had met some of the party attendees on previous camping trips so it was great to hang out with them and meet new people also.

Bill played bass guitar at church on Sunday morning and the place was packed due to the holiday weekend.  It was great to hear more contemporary music like what we hear back in St. Cloud.  There were 2 songs planned and 1 thrown in at the last minute (due to a request) but you know Bill, he rolled with the last minute request and really enjoyed playing again. 

After lunch we put the air conditioner in the loft window.  That went relatively smoothly and is really nice for cooling down the cabin when the sun is turning it into a hothouse (due to the windows) in the late afternoon.  We went fishing in the evening at Arrowhead lake and found the sunnies!  We ended up taking home about 30 sunnies and I had to push Bill to get off the lake before it got dark (as the fish were still biting)!  Here is a sunset picture from the lake.
Monday was another gloriously relaxing day!  We decided to road trip over to Effie and check out the Little American Falls on the Bigfork River.  If you are ever in Effie, we recommend the Effie Cafe but only if you have a lot of time.  The cook appears to make one order at a time and so the wait is a little long, especially when they were busy on the 4th!  We were there about one hour and ten minutes and about ten minutes of that was spent eating, but the food was worth wait!  While I don't do politics, I thought this was a rather funny political statement located on the edge of Effie.  If you can't see the pic well, the top part of the 2 story outhouse is labeled Politicians while the bottom part is labeled Taxpayers!


Due to all of the rain that we have been getting, the falls were really running and it was a beautiful day to just sit and contemplate life and God's blessings!  There were quite a few steps down (as seen in the first picture) and these were even more daunting on the return trip going UP the stairs!!




When we got back, we went to a party at the house of one of the young women who is in Bible Study with us.  They were having a jam session and Bill really enjoyed playing with the "old guys".  One of them had an old steel guitar from the 1930's and it was cool to see that and to hear him play.  The weather turned nasty in early evening so there was a scramble to get the tents down but we got them down before the storm hit.

Now we are back in our week day routine!  Got 2 cabins cleaned yesterday and we had a fish fry last night with K and D (as he had the day off) and a friend of theirs and our next door neighbor who has a camper on his land until he can build a cabin.  He works for the state and is "on vacation" until further notice!  We had walleye from Red Lake (donated by a resort guest) and the sunnies from Arrowhead.  It was a beautiful evening to sit outside, eat fresh fish (and rhubarb crunch!) and spend time talking with friends.  We are blessed and truly appreciative to God for the many blessings in our lives!

Friday, July 1, 2011

Wow...what a busy week!

This has been a heck of a busy week!  Our friends from church (Pat & Pam and Brenda & Randy) arrived on Sunday evening and we just had supper and hung around talking.  It was rainy on Monday but we went over to the Lost Forty during a break in the rain.  Here is a spider that was hanging out on a 4" x 4" post on the deck that morning.  Randy also thought it looked good enough to eat for breakfast!  Luckily we don't see many spiders this size and needless to say, this spider is no longer living (I apologize in advance to those of you who may think it is cruel to kill spiders!).



The Lost Forty is an small park about 5 miles from our cabin that still has virgin (never logged) timber so the tree size is amazing (http://www.visitusa.com/minnesota/hiking/lost40trail.htm).  We hiked the trail (about 1 mile) and enjoyed the view.

We stopped at a lake  (Mitt Lake, I think it is called) up the road from the hiking trail to check out the view as we have been there before.  On the second picture, you can see the swing rope that the guys thought they had to get and try.  Luckily, they could not find a stick long enough although they did try and we had some good laughs as they stretched over the water with a stick that was clearly too short!


It started to mist up just as we were getting ready to leave the lake and the while the picture does not do it justice, the mist on the lake was really beautiful.
After leaving the park, we went exploring and ended up driving through at least 4 spots where the road was underwater.  Some were not so deep but there was one where most of us were holding our breath as we could tell the water was rather deep but it is hard to tell exactly how deep.  Pat was driving and he took all the back seat driving and harassment in stride very well!

We played games in the aftermoon and that is when everyone started to get their nicknames.  We were playing LCR (Left Center Right...which is interesting for those of us who are left/right challenged) and Pam kept winning so we started to cheer "No L" whenever it was Bill's turn so that he would not pass any chips to her (as she was on his left).  Pretty soon, her name was Noel!  As we were talking about names and what is short for what, Pam asked "Is Bill short for Robert" which had us all in stitches and Bill became Bob!  We had a fire in the evening and Randy was the master fire starter and tender so he became Sparky.  The bugs, smoke, and cinders loved to gravitate toward Brenda and as she was frequently jumping up and waving her hands around, she became Fire Dancer.  Pat decided to try his hand at wood chopping (which was a new experience for him) so he was named Six Toes due to the concern over the possible loss of toes!!  I am happy to report that he actually did return with all of his toes!  I did not get a name until we were over visiting with K at the resort and she called me Taz (as she thinks I am like a Tazmanian Devil when I get rolling on things).  It was also determined that whatever someone said seemed more authentic and legitimate if you included a number so there were lots of good laughs over the creative inclusion of (often made up) numbers in discussions.

Tuesday was beautiful and we enjoyed just hanging around, eating too much, and talking smart.  We laughed at the fact that we served about 3 desserts at every meal and had snacks in between.  Needless to say, it was not a time to try to lose weight!  We all headed back to St. Cloud in late afternoon and stopped in Nisswa for some hard ice cream (as we had not eaten enough sweets over the past few days, right?).

When we got home on Tuesday evening, I decided I am overboard on cleaning right now as I was mopping my kitchen floor at 9:30 pm.  While the floor certainly needed a cleaning (since it still had some residue left from Hotel Haley), it probably could have waited until Wednesday!!  

It was great to see everyone at the office on Wednesday while Bill was busy doing some art prints and shots in his studio.  We got Minnow (granddaughter) for the evening and took her to the Summertime by George concert at Lake George.  Another friend from church and her daughter went along so it was great to catch up and enjoy the music (Ali Gray Band).  There was good food (not necessarily healthy, but good) and a really nice size crowd.  We love music so were kind of bummed that we have been missing these Wednesday evening events.  You can check out the music schedule for the rest of the summer at http://summertimebygeorge.com/

We headed back up north on Thursday morning.  We were about 15 miles out when I realized that I had left both of my cell phone chargers in the house...that turn around make the trip a little bit longer!  When we got to the cabin, Bill worked on the water system and figured out that he needed some more parts so, since we had only driven 190 miles yesterday, we headed into Bemidji in the evening (another 100 miles round trip)!   It took quite a while to engineer the system in Menard's and, if I may say so myself, I was very patient during this one plus hour event especially since we didn't get out of there until about 10:00 and we still needed to grocery shop after that!  It was about midnight when we finally got back home...short night of sleep!

Bill is making great progress on the water system as he has all of the plumbing done under the sink and will next work on hooking all of that up to the water tank.  We still need to do some wiring in the cabin to get power to the on-demand water heater.  While I am used to the current water situation, I have to admit that I am looking forward to running water and warm water!

Sorry that this blog is so long but it has been a while.  In case I don't get back to blogging until after the weekend, I hope everyone has a blessed and safe holiday weekend!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Water System, Rocks, and Fishing

Here are a couple of pictures of the start of our water system.  We (well, Bill, actually) has gotten the roof on the lean-to and stained the posts, etc, in spite of raining most of the week.  Slow progress...but progress, nevertheless! 

The cable trenching crew showed up on Friday to trench in the permanent cable for phone/internet since our current cable is laying on the ground (as it was installed before the frost was out).  While we had forwarned them, the crew said this was the rockiest trench they had installed in all of Itasca county.  Not sure it is quite that bad, but here pictures of the largest rocks and a few others that they ran into.  So, while we may not have indoor plumbing, we do have permanent fiber cable running to the cabin!


Bill sent to Hill City on Friday to take pictures of a new kind of Lady Slipper (stemless) and he took pictures of the showy Lady Slipper on Thursday afternoon.  I will post the pics as soon as he downloads and emails them to me! 

It felt good to final be able to do some work around the resort on Friday!  Got a couple of cabins cleaned before we went fishing on Dora Lake on Friday night.  We didn't catch anything but a tiny perch (which is unusual as there are usually good sized perch right off the dock at the resort).  Cleaned a couple of more cabins on Saturday while Bill weed whipped and cleaned out fire pits and then we went fishing at Trestle Lake (about 10 miles away).  Bill had a great start with 2 nice bass and a little perch but nothing much after that.  I finally caught a couple of little sunnies just before we left.  In spite of the poor fishing, it was a beatiful evening with a beautiful view of God's hand at work in nature. 





Today we are getting ready for some friends to visit from our church in St. Cloud.  They are staying until Tuesday and we are looking forward to hanging out with them!