Minocqua--Part Two

Saturday morning, Tom made a great breakfast for all of us and then we headed into town to play at the park and check out the craft fair. This is where we acquired Queenie Dora the Goldfish. After playing at the park, we headed to the Minocqua shops where we (again) visited a candy store and toy store. We got lunch at Culver's and then headed back to the Cottage.




The girls wanted to try fishing again. So Pat relaxed in the house while the rest of us went out for a ride in the boat.



Nothing was biting again until.....




Little Miss Lily caught almost the biggest fish in the whole lake!! And with her little 3-foot fishing pole to boot! It was quite exciting! It measured about 23 inches. And that was the ONLY thing we caught in the 45 minutes we were out there. Andrew, Tom and I were not quite satisfied with the fishing, so we dropped the girls off with Pat and then switched bait to actually try and catch Northerns. Both Andrew and I got a couple baby Northerns and Tom was just casting and casting and then he caught the BIG ONE!




His fish was about 28 inches long. He said that was one of the biggest he'd seen come out of the lake. It was a lot of fun to watch it too. After that, Andrew got one more little fish and then that was it. We headed in and then went to Augie's for dinner.



We built one more campfire that night and made some more S'mores (ha! some more...S'mores. I just got that!--Yes, I'm blonde).



Sunday morning, we woke up and had a yummy breakfast a la Chef Tom again. Then, the girls, Andrew and I headed out for a little hike in the Lakeland High School Ecological Laboratory. They had great little paths and some with boardwalks. We probably would have stayed there longer but we sort of forgot we were in the North Woods and that mosquitoes do in fact exist. And we had no bug spray. So we were pretty much getting eaten alive. Ella was really into it though. I love how much she is into the great outdoors with the campfires and the hiking and animals (see below). After we got back to the Cottage, we realized we had a few ticks hanging around on our clothes. We quickly did a head check and all changed. ICK!

After the hike, we packed up the car and headed out. Both the girls took a nice nap in the car and we were all excited to be home again. We had a really great time up North! It was nice to get away from the big city for a bit and enjoy nature (especially now that there is fancy coffee and WiFi within walking distance! Okay, we don't want to be THAT far away from they city). :-)




While we were in Minocqua, we came across several animal varieties. A dragonfly on the birdbath, a chipmunk hanging out around the firewood, a toad visited us two nights around the campfire, a deer peeking at us in the woods, giant fish, goldfish, oh my!




Stay tuned for a Father's Day post and our new summer routine!

Minocqua 2008--Part One

We drove up with the girls to the "little red house" (as the girls call it--otherwise known as the Cottage by the rest of Andrew's family), late Wednesday, June 4th. Ella was super excited about sleeping in the "roof". Really, she meant the loft. There are four twin beds up there. She and Andrew slept up there and were joined by Tom and Pat the next day. Lily and I shared the bedroom downstairs.



In the morning on June 5th, we walked over to the new coffee shop (Little Creek Coffee Company) right around the corner from the Cottage. Yeah! Coffee AND free WiFi. :-) It was a really cute coffee shop in a log cabin type building with a nice outdoor patio overlooking Little Muskie Lake. They had a computer for use, as well as a television tuned to CNN, some books, including children's books, and games. After that, Andrew and the girls fished from the dock a bit. The fishing was largely unsuccessful. Lily almost caught a good size Northern on her little fishing pole, but it actually bit through the line and swallowed the bait and hook and then swam away. In the afternoon, we visited a few shops in Minocqua and then headed back to the Cottage. Tom and Pat arrived not too long after. For dinner, we made pudgie pie pizzas out of bread and pizza toppings over the campfire. The girls, especially Ella, LOVED this! We also made S'mores for dessert.





On Friday, June 6th, we got up and ate breakfast family-style at a place called Paul Bunyan's. Mmmm...great doughnuts there besides everything else. :-) After breakfast, we headed over to Torpy Park where the girls (and everyone else) played in the sand and actually splashed in the water a bit. I can't believe they weren't freezing to death, but they sure had fun. We noticed people setting up for something in the park and inquired about it. They were having a craft fair the next day, so we decided we'd come back and the kids could play at the park too. We headed back to the Cottage. Lily relaxed with Grand Pat while the rest of us attempted to go fishing in the boat. Unfortunately, we didn't catch ANYTHING! I think all of the little pan fish were scared into the middle of the lake. They were hiding somewhere because nothing was biting.





After abandoning fishing, we took a drive to Eagle River. We stopped at Soda Pop's store to see all the "old fashioned" bottled pop they had and purchased a few to sample. They had everything organized by flavor. Many of the flavors we tried were really good! And not as sweet as many of the flavored sodas you can buy at the grocery store. We also visited a candy store, ice cream place, and a toy store. The girls were pretty much in seventh heaven.



After Eagle River, we had an early dinner at Monical's and then Andrew, Ella, Lily and I headed to a new little mini golf course just east of the Cottage. We were the only ones there, so it was a ton of fun. The girls could roam around and play as many holes as they wanted (we just kept skipping 18 until we were ready to go home). We didn't have to worry about bothering anyone or moving the girls along. It was great!

Ella, our little pyromaniac, wanted a campfire every night. And well who doesn't like campfires anyway? So we started one up and made pudgie pie desserts. We had apple pie filling, cherry pie filling, chocolate and marsh mellows to put between pieces of bread and cook over the campfire. Everyone created fun concoctions with the different ingredients.

And that was the end of Day 2. :-)

From Zero to Two in a Week

Do I have you puzzled over my headline for this post? Well, it refers to the number of pets in our household. Ella is so thrilled. She says, "Mom, first we had no pets and now we have two! Holy cow! I'm excited by that!" Very cute indeed.

What she is referring to is first, our latest addition to the family, presenting Queenie Dora the Goldfish.

Admiring Queenie Dora before we got her fish "jar".

This was soooo not my idea! Just in case anyone was wondering. :-) We went up north in Wisconsin last weekend with Andrew's parents (more on that in another post) and there was a craft fair. At the fair, they had a few kiddie things one of which was a whole table of small little fish bowls each containing a goldfish. The object of the game: toss a ping pong ball into the small opening of a goldfish bowl, if you can actually do it, you win a goldfish. While Tom, Lily and I were playing at the park, off Ella, Pat and Andrew went to look at the fair. About 15 minutes later, we run into the three of them and Ella is carrying a goldfish in a ziploc bag! I look at Andrew like, "What did you do?!" He simply read my look and said, "There was no way she was going to win! And she didn't, the guy just gave her one anyway." OH great. So we're four hours from home, no fish bowl, not even a container really deep enough to put the fish in. I told Andrew, "This is so on you. You are in charge of it." We trot over to Walmart and find fish food and improvise a large jar (with a lid for bringing the fish home in the car, Tom poked some holes in the top of it) for a fish bowl. Viola! Instant pet.

Ella and Lily were thrilled and are sharing the fish. We gave them both ownership in they each gave the fish a name; Queenie from Ella and Dora from Lily, thus Queenie Dora. We were highly skeptical that the fish would actually survive the weekend, let alone a week. But she's still swimming around and has happily figured out when I drop the food in, she should swim to the top to eat it. Andrew is so in charge of cleaning the bowl.

Making fish faces.

So now, you're wondering hmmm....what could the second pet be? Well, my mom and Dave did decide to come stay with us for a bit after all. Cedar Rapids was planning on turning off the water in various areas and they said that the highest points in the city would be first. So, that would be where they live. Also, Dave's surgery was postponed indefinitely for now. My step-uncle Dennis (he's a doctor), spoke with Dave's cardiologist to see if there were any other options other than the surgery. They are going to try some monitored cardiac rehab at the moment to see if they can redirect the blood flow and not have to do anything for the time being. So they figured since the surgery was no longer looming over their heads, they could head up here for a while until things calmed down a bit in Cedar Rapids. Oh right, the pet...Well, they couldn't leave the cat at home for a week, most of the shelters/kennels were full with rescued animals, and they didn't want to bother any friends with looking in on the kitty. So, Lucy is now living at our house for the week as well. The girls love it! The cat not so much. They chased her all around the basement and up and down the stairs several times. Whoo hooo! A way to tire the kids out!

Lucy is still getting used to her surroundings and has not discovered Queenie Dora yet. I'll let you know our pet count again next week. We may be back to zero. :-) More posts coming.....

Flood Images

I just felt the need to post some of the pictures I found on the newspaper website. I really am so preoccupied about thinking about Cedar Rapids, I can't get anything done. It's so devastating. I don't know how they'll even begin to recover. And the river has NOT crested yet. They thought it would crest at 24.5 feet today but it looks like it might be 26.5 feet by tomorrow.

Edited to add: Now, I read it is supposed to crest at around 32 feet!!!

Above: An image of City Hall and the Courthouse

Above: Look how far up the water is to the stoplights and street signs!

Above: This is the intersection where Dave's office building is. Luckily he works on the 8th floor so his office should be fine. But I can't even imagine what it will be like for him to go to work once the water recedes.

The library building is the low rectangular one in the center of this picture. It's the city's main branch and only has two floors. Most of the books were housed on the first floor with the children's section on the second floor. Library staff were working around the clock so I believe they must have saved at least a good portion of the books. But the building doesn't look like it will be very salvageable. I spent many many hours here growing up! And the building in the lower left corner with the cylinder, is the Science Station, a children's museum. The cylinder is an IMAX theater.


This is the the National Czech and Slovak Museum. The staff and volunteers were able to get the valuable artifacts and library stuff loaded onto a semi-trailer to keep it safe. This was the site where my 10th High School Reunion was held in 2005. Sort of puts in perspective why museums and libraries have disaster plans in place. I remember being annoyed at having to go through emergency drills when I worked at the Autry. I wouldn't be annoyed anymore if I still worked in a museum.


This is one of the two hospitals. I believe I read something about them starting to evacuate patients. Good thing Dave's surgery was cancelled. Hope everyone else there is going to be okay.

St. Wenceslaus is the church I went to preschool at.

Here is another updated article from the Gazette with more information on what's going on there.

Cedar Rapids Floods

I've been meaning to update the blog with a few different posts. I will get to those eventually in the next couple days. I just had to post about the flooding that my hometown, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is dealing with right now. I am just in awe of the pictures and cannot even imagine what it must be like there.


For those unfamiliar with Cedar Rapids, this picture shows the downtown. The building on the right is the Courthouse and sits on an island in the middle of the Cedar River. There are several street bridges that cross the river at various points to get from the east side of the city to the west side. ALL of the bridges have water over them. You can't get across the city anymore. The entrance/exit ramps to the Interstate are closed. This is worse than the floods of 1993. (Sidenote: I was on a school trip to France in 1993 and the Iowa floods made the news there, in FRANCE!)

For more images of the flooding you can visit this newspaper website: The Cedar Rapids Gazette. Fortunately, my mom and Dave live on the highest point in the city so their house is in no danger of being flooded. But many, many people have already been evacuated and lost their homes, including Jim Grahlman, one of my mom's regular golfing buddies. His house is just a few blocks from Ellis Park and there is water half way up the front windows of the house. They lost everything.

The city is telling everyone to conserve water and that water may be shut off in the very near future. My mom has filled the bathtub up with water to boil for drinking in the event they shut down the city's water. It's just unfathomable to me. I told my mom to come up here and stay with us, but they aren't even sure if they can get through Waterloo to make it up here. They would have to go way out of their way, which they would be willing to do to get here, except for the fact of my other piece of news.

My stepdad, Dave was scheduled to have heart bypass surgery tomorrow (Friday the 13!). And believe it or not they have cancelled his surgery and are rescheduling it for possibly Monday due to the flooding and inclement weather! Dave's surgery came up somewhat unexpectedly. As many of you know, he had the mildest of heart attacks last fall (I think it was last fall), and they put a stint in his artery. He went in for a completely routine check-up to see how the stint was working and they discovered it was completely closed up with scar tissue. His heart somehow created a new vein to redirect blood flow which is why he had been feeling completely well.

Dave had been feeling normal, lost weight, and was eating right. So this was a big surprise to everyone. But now, he'll have the surgery and hopefully be fine. At any rate, our thoughts go out to everyone in the flooded areas of the Midwest and in hoping Dave's surgery goes well whenever it does take place.

I ask those of you that read our blog to keep Dave and the people of Cedar Rapids, as well as all the areas in the Midwest affected by flooding, in your thoughts! Thanks!!

Edited to add: cnn.com has a headline story on the flooding here. And here.

Updated Photos

I added a June album to both the old and new photo sites and updated the May album with new photos. For now, I'm updating both photo sites because my mom informed me she is having trouble seeing the new site from her computer. Is anyone else having issues? Or do you like the format of the old site better? I'm open to any feedback. I may just keep the old one. I thought it might be fun to try something new, but I'm not sold on it quite yet. Still playing around with it. :-)

The Crazy Hazy Days of Summer

Okay so it's not officially summer quite yet, and it's not really hazy, but our days seem to be getting crazier. Last year, our summer was absolutely nuts. We were always traveling or having someone visit, one thing going on or another. By August, I was so burned out I just didn't even know what to do with myself. So this year, we have a crazy crazy June planned and half of July, then after that, we plan on being at home (even though we will have stuff going on and people visiting) so hopefully we won't get quite so burned out. I think we're cooped up for so long in the winter, we have to fit a year's worth of fun in the sun into the three months of summer. :-)

Anyhoo, for us, it seems summer started this weekend. We had really beautiful weather all weekend. We spent a good part of Saturday morning getting caught up around the house and running errands. Then Saturday afternoon, Cindy, Shawn, Emilee and Braeden came over for a little water fun and grilling out. We had to postpone taking their family pictures at the Arboretum because poor little Brady fell Memorial Weekend and had some scrapes on his face. But he's all better now! :-) We all had a great time with appetizers on the lawn watching the kids play in the water (the inaugural summer use of the whale pool combined with the slide!) and then came inside for some grilled hamburgers, corn on the cob and relaxing while the kids ran around the house.






Sunday morning, we woke up and got ready for a playdate and picnic at Hyland Park in Bloomington. We met up with the Scott family. The Scotts (who live here in MN) are friends with our friends Jon and Jessica Slusser (from California) and we've been trying to get together with them for about six months or more. We were finally able to! We all had a fun time visiting, watching the kids play and eating a picnic lunch. We were finally able to give Zander his birthday gift from last February! Here are two pictures of Ella and Zander:



And as if all of that wasn't enough fun for one weekend, we had the Anderson family over Sunday evening for more whale/outside fun and make-your-own-pizzas. We got the blender out and mixed up some margaritas to enjoy outside and Andrew blended up some Diet Sprite and ice for the kids and threw in a little lime garnish for them. They all loved it! We had a great time with them and the best part is all the kids got along pretty well and the adults got to just hang out and chat in the kitchen!





(In order from top, then left to right): Ella waiting for the Andersons
to arrive; Isabelle, Hope, Claire, Lily, Ella, all the kids playing, and
all the kids eating their pizzas and Go-gurt.

We all had so much fun the entire weekend! And the fun just keeps coming. We had Jody and Arie over for a playdate yesterday. Today is Ella's official last day of school. And tomorrow night we leave to go up to the Cottage (or "the little red house" as Ella refers to it) in Wisconsin with Bubba and Grand Pat.

Check out the last couple posts again, because I was finally able to add pictures to them. (You do know when I say, "I'll post pictures tomorrow" that actually translates to "a week later", right?). :-) I hope to get pictures added to the photo site soon but you know me, so hopefully all of these will tide you over for a bit.

Hope you all are having fun in the sun!