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.

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!

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!

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!!

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!!

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!

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!

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!

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!