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!