August Photo Dump

Here is a glimpse into August. I will have some more photos coming once I get my BWCA pictures off my camera and uploaded.

Wine and Dine Training

I feel like this season of training I am getting better at cross training - on my off days of running I feel like I am actually still being active and getting in a decent workout while being able to keep up with the running. Some times when training I feel like my cross training or non running days can be fairly lame and limited to dog walks, while yes, I am still doing those I am loving that I am getting in some biking and swimming miles.


August 23: 45 minute bike ride
August 24: 75 Minute run
August 25: Swim
August 26-29: This weeks workouts come in a bit of a non traditional sense. No I am not racking up the miles in terms of running, but I am getting plenty of a work out - I am spending this week up in the BWCA -Boundary Waters Canoe Area - paddling and swimming and portaging canoes (actually a lot of work - but totally worth it). I will definitely post a full report when I get home.


Have you ever been to the BWCA? (I believe EVERYONE should go sometime - it is that awesome)
Do you like canoeing?
Where is your favorite place to canoe?
What races are you training for currently?

House for Sale.

Our house is still for sale. I knew it might take a while and in all honesty I didn't think it would sell quickly, I  knew it would be a while before someone would buy our house - what I didn't anticipate is how taxing it is to consistently have the house spotless and how accommodating we would have to be for people who call and say that they are sitting outside and want to see the house in five minutes. "Sure, I'd love to inhale whatever food is on my plate or take my plate with me - throw some dishes in the dishwasher - grab my dog and get out of my house for an hour while you walk through and then proceed to chit chat with your Realtor in my yard."

It will sell. I know it will. I am also beginning to believe it will sell in January in the dead of winter so that we have to move in the midst of ice, snow, and probably a blizzard. Okay, so currently I just have a sour taste in my mouth for all this house showing stuff and the house not selling. Not to mention a couple people have posted how their house went on the market and sold less than a week later (color me jealous). I also have watched a couple of great houses sell while waiting for ours to get a good offer so we can get onto something else. Blah.

I actually don't dread the actual packing up of stuff and moving it process (thanks seminary for training me well) (also I say this now when I don't actually have to pack stuff). I look forward to finding places for everything to go and to sorting through all my stuff and donating and pitching stuff we don't need.

Have you ever sold a house?
How do you feel about moving?

Summer 1 at Camp Vanasek

We. Have. Survived. (Almost)

Summer is almost over. While I hate to wish summer goodbye this summer was nuts! A midst everything else going on this summer I co-directed a camp with a friend of mine.

Several things we learned this summer while working at camp:

• Some people are amazing - some people clean up after themselves, are polite, have great manners, and are generally fun to work with
• Some people require extra grace - by yelling at me or trying to triangulate me against my friend you aren't earning any brownie points and I feel no obligation to do what you want 
• New management means things are different - yes we know things were different in the past - yes we know change is hard - deal with it - don't yell at us - most of the changes come from the board of directors 
• people don't read contracts - if you are contracted from a certain time to a certain time we mean it - we probably have a group coming in after you and we want to be able to clean up from the previous group before you arrive - we have reasons for the times we contracted you for - we aren't trying to ruin your life and screw with your vacation
• youtube.com has "how to" videos for everything
• how to fix a leaky sink
• how to check a sewage system
• how to rewire things
• Thank God for youtube and our friends who actually are professionals and fix what we mess up
• we have the world's best friends and family who help us when we are in over our heads
• we always knew this but this summer reconfirmed it
• We love seeing the joy on people's faces when they experience camp with their friends and family
• there is something amazing about watching a group home swim without having to worry about others 
• there is something amazing about watching kids learn to fish
• there is something amazing (and hilarious) about teaching kids to canoe
• there is something sacred about families disconnect from electronics and spend time together

Do you have a favorite summer camp?

Where does your family go to spend time together?

Wine and Dine Training

I want to go buy a ton of new running clothes as of lately. I feel like everywhere I look I have seen a ton of fun workout clothes. Seriously, I don't need any of it. I have 10,000 race shirts to run in and plenty of my favorite shorts to run in. I. Don't. Need. It. It does seem however that a ton of fun colors and patterns are coming out these days. I. Will. Resist. We are paying down student loan debt and want it gone asap. Will. Resist. Fun. Running. Clothes.



August 16: 45 minute run
August 17: 5 mile run
                  afternoon water skiing (seriously a work out and my legs and shoulders hurt from it)
August 18: 30 mile bike ride
August 19: 1.5 mile swim at the ymca
August 20: 45 minute run
August 21: 7 mile run
August 22: 1 hour swim

Baked Peaches

I am certain many of you have seen the baked peaches recipe going around pinterest lately. We decided to give them a try because we LOVE peaches. The original recipe calls for one tablespoon of butter (we put a thin slice of butter) and one tablespoon of brown sugar and then bake at 350 degrees until warm.

While vague at best as to how long to bake them and confused by exactly what they should looked like we went for it anyways. We baked ours for probably twelve minutes at 350 degrees. We took them out of the oven and ate them up.

Result: Pinterest success. They are actually really good, it is sort of like eating peach pie but not quite. I definitely wouldn't put the full tablespoon of butter, the thin slice of butter was more than plenty to give the peaches just a little bit of flavor and I don't think I will use as much brown sugar next time.

Twelve minutes at 350 degrees seemed to be plenty to get nice and warm peaches.

I didn't read the instructions fully to see that we also were suppose to sprinkle cinnamon on the peaches, I am sure that would also add to it - I just happened to space it out. Overall, we are marking this one in the books as a victory and to eat again soon. Not to mention they were husband approved.

I love peach season and can't eat enough of them this time of year. It makes me wish I live somewhere warmer where I could have a peach tree or two in my backyard, but for some reason peaches don't love northern Minnesota. Drats.

On with peach consumption......



Have you have any pinterest successes lately?
Have you had any pinterest fails lately?
Want to find me on pinterest? My name is "sthomson"
                                       What is your pinterest name?

Will bike for ice cream

I fear our summer days are numbered - while this week is suppose to be ridiculously hot I don't think we have many more of them. Fall and eventually winter will be here (here is to hoping for a good long fall) will be upon us. Sunday, when the weather was gorgeous, (a bit windy but I can tolerate that) too windy to kayak, and to nice to stay inside and be productive, my husband and I made the trek up and back on the Paul Bunyan trail - it is a 110 mile trail - we rode 15 miles up and 15 miles back. We rode up to Nisswa and had waffle cones at The Chocolate Ox - I LOVE ice cream! It was a beautiful day to ride and we had a WONDERFUL trip!

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?             I seriously think my new favorite flavor of ice cream is "pirate's booty" - I initially had it on our trip up to the Apostle Islands just after our wedding and I just discovered that the Chocolate Ox also had it! It is a chocolate ice cream with m&ms and oreos in it! DELICIOUS!

Mille Lac Pow Wow

This past weekend, Marc and I and a few of our friends, all headed to a near by American Indian Reservation, Mille Lac's reservation to check out their pow wow. It is a beautiful event on the shores of Mille Lac lake and very opening and welcoming to nontribal people. We went over and ate fry bread tacos (sooooooooo goood - I forgot to take a picture, I was too focused on eating the delightfulness). I attempted at getting a few photos to capture the beauty- these pictures don't do justice. [Not to forget it is sort of hard to shoot, the sun is setting, eventually drops, and everyone is moving very rapidly] It was awesome. Anyways. Here are a few pictures that are okay (some are a bit fuzzy in places, but I have short worse and I have shot better - just wanted to give y'all a glimpse into the pow wow.

Mille Lac is the home of the jingle dress

Have you ever been to a pow wow? 

How do you feel about fry bread tacos?

Did you do anything fun this weekend?

Does your area have anything fun celebrations every year?

Oskar

Dear Oskar,
   I am sorry if you have developed a complex about your lack of golden/orange color - I blame the other three golden's who we have forced you to socialize with - if you need therapy, I understand. It's okay to be different. You however have also give the three large golden's a complex about being teacup size. Note, you aren't a lap dog, I know you want to be, I try to be,  and you love to snuggle up, but you may in fact weigh more than my human. My humans seem to like when we snuggle in close and allow them they joy of petting us. I think you have rejoiced at the cooler temps that have made their way through our area. I am sorry I laughed at your first attempts at swimming at the lake with us, I could see it in your eyes how much you longed to be swimming with us, but apparently you are much more of wader - you get just past your chest and not move another inch deeper, however you happily frolicked and chased the balls a midst the shallow water and played with me in the shallows.
    Speaking of water, I am impressed by your ability to drink your own weight in water, seriously, I am impressed. Never did I imagine how much water you could consume, well done wonderbernard, well done. You love the dog park, I am glad we could share such a fabulous place with you. You, like me, have the humans trained to brush me when they sit down outside - it does in fact feel delightful. You are great to have around, I love having four legged friends to play with all day. Congrats on rapidly training the humans in the house, particularly Marc, you nailed how to get him to share his food and save the butts of the bread for you, I am impressed at your speed of training the humans.
     I am saddened you will be leaving us this week, but I am sure your humans have missed you. I shall rejoice in our last couple of days playing together, come back and visit me soon.
Love,
   Dakota

1. 

Wine and Dine Training

Today, as I think about the Wine and Dine Half Marathon and running in general I desperately wish I had friends in town who ran. There are not really any running groups in town and I have tried asking several friends to join me running with no avail. There is a tri group here in town that trains together that my husband dabbles in but the problem there is they are REALLY serious about triathlons, they run Ironmans frequently and one of them has qualified for the Ironman in Kona this fall. They are ridiculously serious and WAY above my training level. I long for a group of people who run together.

I also have realized that if I am going to train well, I need to start getting up in the morning to run and workout. My evenings are consumed by meetings and I just want that chance to hang out with my husband if we have the opportunity. Yes, sometimes we do go for runs together, but he is definitely more focused on learning to swim so that he too can run triathlons, and I am excited for him and want to keep encouraging him to grow in his swimming skills.

Sooooo I have begun my adventures of getting up and workout out in the morning before work. I managed to make it happen this week - we'll see if I can pull off two weeks in a row. It just takes time for me to become accustom to it. Fingers crossed I will make it work.

August 9: 30 minute run with a friend
August 10: rest
August 11: 45 minute swim
                  30 minute run
August 12: 30 minute run
August 13: 60 minute swim
                  45 minute dog walk
August 14: 45 minute run
August 15: 6.5 mile run

History was made.......

Yesterday, Wednesday August 14, come and went. For most people I imagine they woke up in the morning and went about their normal routine oblivious to what was happening in Pittsburgh. Tuesday came and went. For some gathered in Pittsburgh as representatives, as delegates for a nearly 4 million Lutherans (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), to discern what the Holy Spirit is up to today. As they gathered they made decisions about all sorts of thing: they met to talk about how we are going to walk with global ministry partners, talk about our relationship with other denominations, about how to support nontraditional families, and so much more. History was made when it came time to vote for our presiding Bishop.

As we came to the fifth vote and it was apparent that history was going to be made, either we were going to elect Bishop Hanson for his third six year term or a female was going to become presiding bishop for the first time in our church's history. After prayerful discernment of the delegates, with more online viewers than actual assembly attendants watching on, as twitter feeds go wild, and as prayers flooded the heavens Elizabeth Eaton was elected presiding bishop of the ELCA.

I rejoiced and continue to rejoice that the church I serve has not placed a cap on what someone can do based off of gender. I have no, desire at this point in life, to ever be bishop, even a synodical bishop, however, I rejoice that we are not limiting how far the Holy Spirit can be leading someone.

Ever since I was an infant women have been ordained into word and sacrament, I have known nothing else. I have only heard the path that some have paved for those of us who have followed suit, I have heard of the first women who were ordained, I have heard their stories, and I give thanks for them. While I still from time or time will hear a comment about being a female pastor, for the most part I get along without much grief. In all honesty, I get more grief about my age rather than my gender.

Today I pray, I pray for bishop elect Elizabeth Eaton, while we have no idea how her term of service will go I have hope. I have hope for the ways in which God is moving and the ways in which our church is open to change and continually being made new. Thanks be to God for continuing to work in and through all of creation.

While for many this means little, for many this means a lot, history has been made.
Thanks Bishop Hanson for 12 years of faithful service as presiding bishop, for your love of God's people, and your willingness to lead in the midst of hard times in the church. I give God thanks and praise for you (and your family who has shared you with the church).

Garden

This summer we embarked on an adventure in gardening (which beginning out we knew very little about). We (mostly Marc) built a fence around the garden, which has proven to be one of the most beneficial things we have done for the garden (keep my sweet puppy out of said garden). While we knew little of gardens we learned a few things: don't plant stuff so close together, weeds grow overnight, fresh produce is AMAZING! This year our success came in terms of 8 gallon zip lock bags full of raspberries in our freezer plus whatever we ate and we are about to have a TON of watermelon (which when it was all viney I was hoping was pumpkin but alas I will deal with delightful watermelon).

color on this picture is weird but they were tastey

start of watermelon

And a glimpse into dog-a-palooza at my house

Have you had success with gardening?
What have you gotten to grow?
What are your favorite things to grow?
Do you have a green thumb?

That Moment When......

Today, was full of things that I am going to label "That Moment When...." - while nothing horrible or even major happened it was full of "that moment when" type moments.


That Moment When:

• I wanted to be able to call up my WTS classmates and say "Let's meet at Los Aztecas for lunch and a margarita. It has been a long morning already and I need time with you all."
• I wanted to throw my computer out my office window after I restarted it for the 18th (literally) time today because it wasn't doing what it was suppose to be doing
• I wish and longed for an easier way to pay off debt rather than slowly but surely (it student loan debt and we just want it gone)
• I wanted to be able to call a friend who has been distant as of lately - and it is hard when I have sent countless facebook messages, made many a calls and left messages, and have text frequently - with no response
• I wanted to meet up with friends for dinner or drinks afterwards - just to shoot the breeze and catch up on life 
• distance sucks
• I wanted to go back to summer 2005 and spend time with that group of people
• I wanted to know if/when (it is beginning to feel more like an if at this point) our house will ever sell so that I can try to plan some time to move and I knew if I could dream about other houses or other places to live or if I shouldn't even be looking (I look at houses online about once a week in the pipe dream hope that our house sells)
• I daydream about having a "traditional" job with 8:00am - 5:00pm hours with weekends and major holidays off
• I wished my to-do list was finished
• I wanted the camp I am co-directing to run itself

I did also have several great moments:

• I crossed many a thing off my to-do list
• I booked a flight for my favorite continuing education event and it was only $208 and it is a direct flight and the time of the flights are awesome (I didn't even know amazing flights at a decent price existed anymore)
• I thought I had to write a sermon for this weekend and my colleague is actually doing it (this saves some serious time - I do enjoy preaching it is just a matter of budgeting my time to give it what it deserves)
• I went on a fabulous run tonight with my favorite golden retriever
• I books a group campsite for a group from our church to go camping the first weekend in September
• and I have people who are interested in going 
• this is a first of this type of event for our church
• I got into the mission trip site & the week I was hoping for for next summer 
• it is crazy how early you have to book this crap
• We served our 1,000 pb&j sandwich (sack lunch w/ veggies, sandwich, fruit, and whatever else we put in them) during operation sandwich with the aid of over 450 volunteers
• take that hunger - take that people who said there wasn't a need - take that people who repeatedly told us we will fail - eat up kids!

How is your day going?

Do you ever have "that moment when"?

What was the best thing that happened today?

Senior High Mission Trip

A couple weeks ago I got to take a group of senior high students to Pine Ridge, South Dakota to live, serve, and grow. It was a MARVELOUS trip. I LOVE South Dakota and my heart hopes and prays that someday God will call us back there (don't get me wrong I am LOVING where I am at now but someday I would love to be a South Dakotan again). Below are a myriad of pictures from our trip, I have a ton more but tried to select a "best of" of sorts because who, other than my kids and me, want to look at 1,300 pictures from the week. Most of my kids had never been to SD so we did a whirlwind over view of western South Dakota hitting all the highlights: Wall Drug, Custer State Park, including the wildlife loop, Cooliage look out, Needles Highway, Sulvan Lake, Mt. Rushmore, and the badlands. The kids thought it was wonderful and it was so fun to see their excitement about a place my heart loves. Our time in Wanblee, South Dakota was just as spectacular, we had a blast meeting lots and lots of people, hearing stories of life on the reservation, and loving on people and being loved on by people. If I could take this same group of kids on every trip, I totally would, they were amazing! Life is indeed good. God is indeed great. 

Buffalo we saw on the wildlife loop in Custer State Park

Mt. Rushmore

Badlands
I totally think my kid looks photoshopped in but he totally isn't

it's like herding cats at times
LOVE this group of kids and my fellow adults

soaking in the badlands

painting a house with the help of a kid from the community

38 foot scrap medal cross

inside of the cross

committed to cleanliness

one sweet little girl painted our fingernails

Weekend Meet Up

Hi Mom.
Hi Brother.
Hi Brother's Girlfriend.
Hello Zero, nice to meet you, Dakota can't wait to play with you.

This past weekend I ran down to Minneapolis to meet up with my mom, brother, and brother's girlfriend. Brother's girlfriend got a new sweet puppy, Zero. My mom was in town for a wedding of one of her friend's son. We also happened upon a wonderful farmer's market downtown Minneapolis, which is where I got these beautiful flowers. Here are a few random pictures from the weekend. It was fun to see everyone again.

farmer's market flowers

Zero

soooooooo yummmmmmmmmmmmmmy

Zero

snuggling Zero