Blogging is Life

Having just spent nearly 3 weeks with my husband off on his trip to Minnesota to look at a future business opportunity for us, I just want to write about a couple things. One is that I am grateful for internet and this blog, because we were both able to keep in touch and even see the others pictures and read the stories. I really appreciate a good thoughtful or funny blog. Blogging can be a good hobby. I think it opens a whole new world. Not only is it something Adam and I like to do, it can be a way to reconnect with old friends, keep in contact with those who are far away, it can be a venting means, it can be an aid to "keep a journal"; it can help a person express themselves. Great things can and have come from blogging.

The second thing I want to write about is although there are many things that could be said (good and bad) about blogging and what people blog about, I just want to thank all those who "Blog-Like-It-Is." I tend to sugar coat things--even in my own pesonal journal. I guess I just want to be forgetful of bad times or I just can't imagine to share something that could potentially be embarrasing to me. But a big thank-you to those who share real life-Iwa, Tara, my husband, Marie...just to name a few, there are more, but you know who you are. As much as I'd love to be a perfect woman/wife/mother...I'm not, and sometimes I just really appreciate reading about your crazy lives too.

BWCA Wilderness Trip

So for the last two weeks I have been driving all over the state of Minnesota, and I do mean all over as I have driven over 1500 miles, looking at resorts and similar businesses. I have really enjoyed my time up here and I love taking pictures of pretty things like this sunset. Well I have also taken time to look at schools, hospitals, proximity to churches, and local attractions. So one day I went and visited 3 state parks. This lighthouse is at one of the state parks and I thought it was a cool lighthouse up on the cliff overlooking Lake Superior.

Last Wednesday I picked up my Dad and we went on a 4 day Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness trip. That means that we spent 4 days paddling through lakes, carrying gear and a canoe from one lake to the next. Well we survived the bugs, the awesome thunderstorm and our canoe disappearing one night. That's right, the morning after we took on a crazy thunderstorm I got up and the canoe was gone. I looked around for a bit and finally spotted it way down the shoreline and across the bay. Took me a while tramping through the woods to make it around to it but we got it back and continued on. So here are some pictures from our trip. Lookout, this is gonna be long, so if you wanna stop here, feel free.


So our first day started out like this, the water was glassy and smooth. We paddled for 12 or 13 miles this day. Not only did we paddle for a dozen miles but we had to portage 5 times. And along the way we saw some cool sights like this Island with its reflection.

This is one of our campsites. I liked the wildflowers that were all over at this spot. One of the funniest things about this trip was my Dad. Every time we would make it to a new spot, he would get out of the canoe, find a bare spot of ground or large rock, lay down and fall asleep. Seriously, he would fall right asleep for a couple of hours, never moving. The first day I thought I might have killed him but when I got close I could hear him snoring.


Of course we did some fishing! We went out fishing one evening and we caught about 50 fish. We caught mostly smallmouth bass, which are my favorite to catch. We also caught some walleye, a dozen northern pike, and a couple of other species. It was so much fun.

My whole life I've heard from my Dad how he hates fishing. Of course he hasn't been fishing for like 35 years and never with me. Well he decided to give it a try. He caught like 15 fish that one evening and even allowed me to take his picture with this walleye. If you know him at all you know how hard it is to get him to take a picture. And I only had to ask once, he didn't even complain about having his picture taken. It was kinda funny when we started though, cause it started raining so hard and he looked back at me and asked "what do we do now?" I told him we keep fishing. He gave me this look like I was an idiotic weirdo, but he kept fishing. By the end, it was me having to tell him it was time to go since the sun had set and we hadn't even had dinner yet!

This is a waterfall that we paddled over to look at. This is why we had to Portage between lakes, most of them are connected, but you can't canoe from one to another sometimes.

This was how the trip ended. Our last night we got to watch the sky turn orange and then pink and then purple. What a great last 4 days. I can't wait to do it again sometime.

sand and water

We went to sharks cove last week and as you can see ady loves to play in the water...
and she loves to drink the water.

Ady loves to play in the sand...

and she loves to eat the sand.
I am starting to wonder if she is sodium deprived...I can't imagine how, but if she is, at least she getting it at the beach.  We tried taking a sunset picture after swimming and playing in the tide-pools, but really we just got in the way of the sun...too bad Dad is not here to take our beautiful sunset pictures for us.  We miss him! Today Ady was pointing to a picture of her Dad on top of the dresser, and she kept saying Dad, Dad, nice, nice, nice Dad.  Then she would lean over and kiss the picture.  I thought it was cute.

Adyson-self portraits

Ady is into taking pictures lately.  She always wants "my turn" on the camera.  Here are some of her latest shots.  If you can't tell by the next picture, she likes to hold the camera by the lens so she tends to get her fingers in the pics alot.  She is so funny cause she hold the camera up to her face and squints her eyes and says "Cheese." I think she is taking after her dad with this fascination in cameras-except she likes to take pictures of people and especially of herself.

The next pics are Mom's portraits of Ady.  I'm feeling good that I got a couple where she actually looked at the camera and smiled.  I wanted to get her hair in the one picture cause it really is getting so long and she is only 2.  According to my mom, I never even had hair until I was 2.  Wonder where she gets it from?  

Minnesota

Kasey wants me to post pics of Minnesota on here for those who aren't on Facebook. I arrived in Minnesota yesterday and spent most of the day traveling. But I did make it to Cabelas and had a great time there. Kasey always tells me that I make shopping miserable because I complain when I have to go. I have found a solution, if we go shopping at Cabelas, I won't complain at all. This morning I went hiking and had a nice relaxing time walking around. I saw some deer but didn't manage to get a picture. Here are some pics from my hike.This first one is just a pond with the sky reflected on it.

This is the Vermillion River. I spent most of my morning hiking along the edge of it. This river flows north, which is opposite to most of the rivers in the U.S. These two just show a couple of scenes from the rivers edge.


Here are the falls, there was quite a bit of water coming over them. They aren't that high but very dangerous due to the amount of water that goes over them. They used to have a professional kayak race through here, but after a couple of years of having several people die going through this section they now make you carry your kayak over the land and around the falls.

Here is the final picture, it is a bunch of lily pads on a bog near the river.

Puke

Ady has had a bit of a rough week the last few days. She has some flu bug and has been puking all over. She doesn't act sick, but a happy smiling kid pukes about the same as a miserable looking kid. Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Ady was playing and I thought she looked kinda funny so I asked her if she was alright. She nodded and I thought she must be pooping. I asked her "are you pooping?" and she didn't respond. Then her face turned a bit green and she unloaded all over the carpet and on one of our chairs. As soon as it was safe to get close enough not to be sprayed I grabbed her and hauled her into the bathroom where I put her in the tub. She was all smiling and chatting as soon as the junk stopped coming out. I began to undress her so she could take a bath and I could get the clothes cleaned up and was dreading having to go back out to the living room to clean up the putrid vile smelling mess. This was definitely one of those days where I was wishing Kasey was home and I was off to work. As soon as I got her diaper off I stepped out of the room to throw the dirty clothing into the laundry. When I came back Ady greeted me and pointed to a large turd that was right in the middle of the tub. I couldn't believe it, she waited till the diaper was off to poop. Her comment, "I tink, I tink." She doesn't put the "s" on most words. Groaning I shook my head in bewilderment and grabbed a bunch of toilet paper. Once I had the bulk of it off the tub and off her I tossed it in the toilet and flushed. I started to turn back to Ady when I realized I hadn't heard the toilet drain. I looked back to see that the toilet was plugged and the water was getting close to the top. I yelled stay to Ady and grabbed the plunger. Needless to say, that by the end of the episode I was feeling way worse for me than I was for Ady. We thought that was the end of the ordeal, until yesterday. We were at the Aloha Swap Meet and taking a break on some grass. Ady was running around a tree, stopped, came up to Kasey, and without warning puked on Kasey. Simultaneously two things could be heard, Kasey saying "are you kidding me!?", and me laughing hysterically. So I went and bought a 3 dollar souvenir t-shirt for Kasey to change into and then we got both of them cleaned up. Wondering if the 5 days between pukes was connected or just a random incident, we then had to deal with Ady puking all over her bedroom last night and then in her bed at 3 am and then came Kasey's favorite. She made a puking sound this morning and I quickly grabbed her and ran her into the bathroom. I made really good time and we got most of it in the toilet. However, Ady usually pukes twice, and sure enough after the puke came out she wanted to hug me and have me tell her it would be okay. Of course, I knew better and tried to turn her back to the toilet for round two, but I was too late, she puked on me. This time it was Kasey saying, "better you than me, hahaha."
Well enough about puke. I leave tomorrow for Minnesota and Utah for the next three weeks. I'll be looking at some resorts that are for sale and going on a BWCAW canoe trip with my Dad, and then flying to Utah for a few days. A couple of cousins were nice enough to agree to come and stay with Kasey and help with Ady while I am gone and we have had fun showing them around the Island before I leave. Here are some photos of a sunset from Laie Point.

Here's Ady and Kasey just enjoying the evening watching the sun go down and the waves roll in.

computer and word things

So we got a new computer recently--an upgrade from our old Apple Laptop...We are now realizing how old the old one was. We got it when we left USU--that is like almost 5 years ago now. It's amazing how slow the old Laptop is now that we have a new faster better one! We can hardly stand how slow the old one is. Funny how it never really bugged us before!

Laptop--That reminds me too of the sign I saw posted out front of our apartment. It read something like "2GH Dell labtop for sale" Yes, labtop--this computer doesn't go on your lap, it goes on your lab--just make sure that you have that specific type of dog breed or it won't work! I just had to laugh. We live in such a culturally diverse area where English is not the native language for many here.

Then that sign made me think of another time I got an email at work from a student from Asia...It kept saying NT Bae... It took me a while to figure out he was referring to the director of his program who everyone calls "Auntie Bae" (in Hawaii if someone is older than you, they are your auntie or uncle no matter blood relation)

Then I remembered when I was barely on my mission, I had written a letter to my mission president in Korean. I thought I had done pretty good and I gave it to my Korean Companion, Ahn Kang Mi, to proofread. We were on the bus and before she could even get half way thru the letter she was hysterically laughing on the floor of the bus because of my broken Korean. I had no idea what was so funny to her. But now, I am understanding a bit and it is funny to me now too--not in a demeaning way...but in a sense that when you learn another language there are inevitable things that are not picked up naturally and they have to be learned. It's just sometimes you have to make the mistake first and then learn from it. I really have to respect all those brave students who have gotten or are getting thier education in a second language. What a challenge to take on!