Lucy's First Year Photobook

This past year I have been rather intentional about keeping up on Lucy's first year photobook, she also got a photobook for her baptism. I knew that there was ZERO chance that I would actually be able to keep up with a "real" scrapbook so I have opted to go with Shutterfly {which I adore}, and if I didn't do it as I went there was NO chance it would happen later. Just about every Sunday night I would update her book making this less of a task and it only took a few minutes each night. I FINALLY just got around to proof reading it and all that good stuff AND shutterfly had a phenomenal sale on books making now the time to order.

Click here to view this photo book larger

I have another book already started for her second year. I can't believe my baby is already one and not a baby any more. Hello Toddler Years! {Lord, have mercy}

In addition to this photo book, I also make one for our family each year. This year I have also begun backing up our videos to youtube and burning them to a dvd. I am afraid that something will happen to our phones and camcorder (yes, we actually still have one and use it) - so I like to back that stuff up.

How do you create scrapbooks?
How do you preserve your memories?
Do you make photo books? What program/website do you like to use?

The dog and the man

Seriously, February has been a rough month in our house, It has been obnoxiously cold all month. No exaggeration, we literally only had two days this month that were above 15 degrees. I kid you not. Anyways, my days have been filled with movie watching, book reading, crocheting, and working on stuff around the house. In the midst of it our dog, Dakota, and my husband, Marc, have found a bond on the couch. I hate to admit how many different pictures I have the two of them snuggling on the couch, but here are two of my favorites for your viewing pleasure. Please note that Dakota is UNDER the blanket with Marc in the one that he is laying down and note the position Dakota is laying in in the photo where Marc is sitting up. How on God's green earth is that comfortable, she laid like there for at least 45 minutes. Strange strange dog. This weather is getting to us all.






Please tell me if you are in warmer climates than we are that you are spending every possible minute outside that you can!

Dear mother nature,
   You have proven your force and your ability to create extreme cold. You win. I am over this winter. Please begin sending spring, however, please be careful with how quickly you warm us up, the feet of snow that we have sitting around here makes me nervous, it must melt slowly or else we are in TROUBLE.
Love,
   All of Minnesota

Puerto Vallarta

We are home and I feel like I am going to freeze to death, yes literally, yesterday while driving to work my car thermostat said -32 degrees, not including windchill. RIDICULOUS! Seriously. Either way, my days are now spent remembering Marc & I's marvelous trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last week. The weather was gorgeous, 80s to 90s during the day, sunny as all get out, and BEAUTIFUL. We had a wonderful time sitting by the pool and on the beach, playing in the water, and going on adventures. It was so good for my soul to get out of the frozen north and head south, new rule in our house, we will be leaving the north every winter for a week. It was great to go outside and not have to put on my hats, mittens, boots, winter coat, etc. rather we just went out in shorts and a tank top. Also to add to the wonderful was that I was able to run outside every day in my shorts and tank tops, no treadmills (seriously HATE the treadmill, I get bored sooo fast and now with all these people and their new year resolutions they are hogging up the treadmills, bring on February when people start to fade off their goals, that sounds horrible but true). Here's a few pictures from our stay, there are tons of photos coming over the next week or so. 

HOME Again Home again Jiggity Jig

Ahhhhhhhhh glorious sleep in my own bed. Thankful for vacation but also thankful to be home.


Things on my to-do list asap:

• laundry 
• vacation laundry and whatever laundry I had left before I went on vacation
• pick up all the dog poop in the yard (gross tmi probably)
• I don't want the new owners of our house to have to find nasty poop in their new yard
• upload my pictures to my computer and then to shutterfly
• I ALWAYS fear that something will happen to my memory cards - I would be sad, very very sad
• snuggle my sweet puppy and hang out with Marc
• enjoy the last day off before I have to actually work
• I am in favor of coming back home a day before I actually have to work - coming home and having to work the next day is less than ideal for me, I need some down time to recover from vacation
• go grocery shopping - it appears Marc is a rockstar at eating what we have in the cupboards and fridge without having to buy groceries - he has mad skills in this arena- time to restock on some of the staples: milk, fruit, veggies, cheese
• slowly get my mind back in the game of working
• finish packing up my house - ready or not it is coming

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane

Oh, my bags are packed, I am ready to go.......

Okay, so I can't resist a little John Denver every once in a while.
But it is true, my bags are packed, and I am ready to go. We are on our way back home today. The Mears shuttle will pick us up and take us to the airport and then I am one direct flight away from MSP, where I will take another shuttle to town, and my husband will eventually pick me up.

I am thankful I opted for the shuttle both from home to the airport (2.5ish hour drive depending on traffic) and from the Orlando airport to the hotel. I am thankful that I can sleep on the shuttle if I want, which really on the way down here sleeping on the shuttle was key, since I had to board my first shuttle at 1:15 am. Plus I didn't have to worry about/ pay for parking and what not. Today I give thanks for shuttle drivers.

It will be wonderful to be home to:

• See Marc and Dakota
• sleep in my own bed
• to go back to a routine
• to look at all of our pictures on photopass
• plus I enjoy being able to edit them and add borders and what not
• and let me not forget MAGIC pictures - sooooooooo fun - I always make it my goal to get a bunch of those
• to upload all of my pictures and be able to spend time editing the
• and to finally finish off my Coast to Coast shutterfly book - I have the first half completed and it is now just waiting for the second half of the book
• be able to wash my clothes
• stinky race clothes get even stinkier if not washed immediately, I am thankful for my wetbag which contains most of the smell
• to go back to work 
• I actually really enjoy my colleagues, the people who I get to walk alongside, I miss my youth, and this weekend is a huge 50th anniversary celebration at church which should be wonderful 

Itasca State Park

This week on Thursday I believe my senior pastor told me that I should take Sunday off (seriously this is next to unheard of and we ALWAYS work Sundays, but it was to be a slow Sunday, nothing out of the ordinary happening and he was preaching) because I have been crazy busy with trips with kids. Marc and I had already planned to meet up with a couple of friends at Itasca State Park for Friday night, so we thought we'd go see if we could get into a site for Saturday night as well, have one night with friends and one night just the two of us. It was marvelous. We got to Itasca State Park and the ranger at the check in spot told us that there was a 35 person wait for camping spots and that you can't reserve the next night until the day of (Itasca is 70% reserved and 30% first come first serve). As I was saying I would be back tomorrow and what not I had her double check what site we had for Friday night, when she saw that we had a backpack in site - she said that she could get us a reservation for a backpack in site (whoop whoop). So we had a site for both nights! REJOICE!

    We went to camp (roughly a 2 mile hike one way) and began setting up. We had a BEAUTIFUL spot (B07) we had a short path to Myrtle Lake and our campsite over looked the lake. It was AWESOME! We couldn't even see our neighbors. Dakota ran off leash while we were at the campsite and was on her leash when we were out hiking around. I think she thought she died and went to heaven, her humans were giving her full attention, and she had a lake to run and play in. It was wonderful! We spent our days cooking over a campfire (we made some delicious food, lots of food in the pie irons and lots of food in the dutch ovens and lots of yumminess. With all of the hiking that we have done we were all very hungry people most of the time) - hiking around and exploring the miles and miles and miles of trails - climbing up to the top of the observation/fire tower (I believe it is 10 stories tall) - and visiting the head waters of the Mississippi River.

     It boggles my mind how small the headwaters of the Mississippi River really are and it is nuts to think how many rivers feed into it and how massive the river is by the time it gets down to the coast in the south. Nuts and cool. We were able to walk across the headwaters and the water is not much past my ankles. We laughed at the wide variety of people who were at the headwaters. Some were straight out tourists who took their five minutes to snap a picture and ran off to try to find something better, there were some with swimming suits on their kids splashing and playing away, some confused at what they were looking at. Thousands of photos taken. Then there were people like us, who we could tell had been camping and had been hiking around and enjoying the park. We all sort of greeted one another with our hair scattered every which way, our clothes showing our adventures we had had, and our bodies smelling like last night's campfire. There is something glorious about camping. 

     I love the way in which when we go camping we shut our phones off, we eat when we are hungry, we smell like day old campfire, and we haven't a care in the world. So very thankful for friends, family, Dakota, camping, and some down time. We had an absolutely marvelous trip and we are already trying to figure out how we can squeeze some more backpack camping into our schedule before the snow sets in (fingers crossed it won't be until at least October).  I have posted a few more pictures at the end of this post, sooo much fun and it was hard to only select a few photos (I think I took over 300).

Do you have any fun plans for the rest of summer?

Thoughts on camping?

Favorite camping recipes - please share!

Tourist-Ville

I really do love living where I do, most of the time. I live where people vacation, I live where people buy million dollar lake homes to live in for a few weeks out of the year, I live in a very touristy location. It is a great location and has a ton of perks of being here. We get all sorts of amenities because we have so many tourists come through our area.

I was aware of this as this past week we were up in northern Wisconsin in the Apostle Islands, I imagine that those folks feel much of the same way that we do. I wish I could help out the tourists some and remind them that they don't have to haul their big boats with big trailers and their new trucks and park across nine parking spots at the grocery store and Target.

I welcome our touristy friends, I want to share that which we love with everyone, however, I wish I could some how post a sign that says something along the lines of "remember some people live here full time, work here full time, and live where you vacation."

For those of us who live in the lakes area, we alter the way we live in the summer. We get groceries Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday and we would never consider going out to eat Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. We avoid the main roads and travel back roads and dirt roads to make space for you and we try to be as friendly as we can.

So dear tourists - enjoy the lakes, land, and state parks as much as we do, but please respect them. Keep your zebra muscle infested boats out of the waters, pick up your trash, and have a marvelous vacation.

Dear Winter

Hello Winter,
    Yes, it is true we love you November through about mid-March, now that it is the end of April and you are continuing to drop snow on us, you annoy us! Yes, we know we live in the Midwest and that you do like to stay around for longer than we'd want but you have seriously broken every agreement we ever had. Seriously, give spring it's chance. You win. We give up. We don't want to play your games any more. We are over you 110%. We now spend our days cursing you, dreaming of warmer places, and want to punch anyone who even mentions you dropping more snow on us. We can't stand the sound of you not to mention we all are experiencing some serious vitamin d deficiencies and that is having serious effects on everyone.
   Our youth are crying for warmed days where their track meets, golf meets, softball games, lacrosse games, and baseball games aren't cancelled because they can't find the fields. They are longing for good practices outside in beautiful green grass not dirty white snow. Our kids are remembering days spent on playgrounds and picnics outside and yet they can't remember anything other than your white snow. Our people are praying that the ice is off the lakes by fishing opener so that they can once again fill their freezers full of walleyes. People don't want to be ice fishing in mid-May, some lakes still have over 30 inches of ice on them and that will take some serious time to melt.
   Please let the sunshine reign. Please go away, take your spring, summer, and fall vacation somewhere else, I hear Antarctica could use some more snow, or go freeze some more ice up by the north pole, go away from here. You are no longer welcome. Not to mention you are the laughing stock of all social media - people are claiming you are drunk and all sorts of things. I am trying to speak highly of you which is why I am telling you all of this to your face.
   Give spring, summer, and fall their chances and by November next year we'll welcome you back with open arms (if you leave now) as we dream of days spent snow shoeing, cross country skiing, ice fishing, sledding, and days with hot chocolate and good books. Please go away. We beg of you.
   At this point we are certain you can name your price and name what you want, we will probably happily give it to you just to send you on your way. You have had your glory days, we no longer doubt you or mock you, we know your strength and power, and bid you farewell with much respect and what little love for you we can muster.

Love,
   Minnesota (and much of the rest of the Midwest)


p.s. This really isn't a request it is a demand. Please consider this your eviction notice effective immediately.

Dru Sjodin - Purple Elephant Run Review

Today I ran the Purple Elephant Run 10k, there was also a 5k run option. The race began at trail side park in Pequot Lakes. Packet pick up was quick and easy. At first I was excited to see the shirts and then I realized that they were tight fitting, small cut shirts for the women. Don't get me wrong I like when the shirts are broken into men's & women's however I am not a super small woman and the tight tight fitting ones don't fit. The shame is that they are made of a fabulous material and are super fun shirts. I heard a lot of people complain about how small the women's shorts were.I am thankful for the woman who after the race let me trade sizes.
The race itself was well marked & had plenty of water stations. It wasn't a closed course and was relatively flat (one tiny hill) with little traffic. It wrapped around Pequot Lakes and on the Paul Bunyan trail. I would highly recommend this race to everyone. It wasn't a super huge crowd which I also loved. It was a beautiful morning for a run.
The people directing and staffing the race were super nice and seemed very well organized (this was the 5th annual race).

Just a couple notes to my fellow runners:
-even if you and your closest five friends have really fun matching race outfits please don't run 6 wide on the trails - you are super hard to pass & obnoxious to run by
-even if you have been working on your sprinting skills and you are an Olympic sprinter please don't speed passed me like a bear is chasing you & as soon as you get six inches directly in front of me come to a complete stop
-even though spitting is totally acceptable while running (I do it too) - please look while you spit by the third time you spit on me (once on each shoe and once on my leg) - I was totally grossed out

Upper South Long Lake

Upper South Long Lake

Tons of lily pads and flowers out! LOVE IT!

Finally got back out on the lake and paddled upper south long lake. The lake is a decent size for a good afternoon paddle but wouldn't be enough for a day trip. The lake was surrounded with trees and homes. There are tons of residential houses around the lake and not many if any resorts which is nice.
The lake was busy for sure, one of the problems of paddling on a Sunday afternoon. The Police were out on the lake which made things a little interesting as well. With all the boats on the lake it was a little choppy.
I would rate the lake a 7 out of 10. It was smallish and crowded. But it did have quite a few varieties of birds, at one point there was a loon within five feet of my boat.

Gilbert Lake

Since moving to Minnesota I have realized that Minnesota has several things that South Dakota does not, one of them being tons and tons of lakes. I will always be a South Dakotan at heart, even if I am misplaced in one of the other 49 states, none the less I must move on. Anyways. Recently I bought my first kayak, she is beautiful, a Wilderness Systems Pungo 120. I love her, not only is she a beautiful boat but she is lime green, making said boat even more beautiful! I have recently fallen in love with kayaking. Last summer was rough because I lived in Minnesota and saw all of these beautiful lakes and had no way to get out on them, other than a random invite from someone else with a boat. This spring I cured that problem and bought a kayak and I love being out on the water.

As you can probably tell from the photo above, Dakota also loves the water. She managed to sit in the front of the kayak for about 45 minutes before she became all too restless to sit in the kayak any longer and jumped out. She needs a bit more training but I think eventually she will be an awesome little kayaker - or maybe a rider would be a better description of what Dakota does.

Marc and I have decided that we need to paddle in every lake in Crow Wing County Minnesota. Now coming from South Dakota this at first seemed like a super simple goal and something we could potentially accomplish this summer but then as we began thinking about it and doing a little bit of research we have found out that there are actually a few hundred lakes in this area, moving our goal from to paddling in them all this summer to paddling in them all in the next five years or so. We need to find a Crow Wing County map with all the lakes on them so we can mark off which ones we have paddled together.

Saturday we crossed the first lake off the list: Gilbert Lake. This one maybe hard to top. It was a beautifully sized lake, not too big nor not too small and it had lots of bays all around it. Although in terms of ideal I did wish it was a little bigger not a ton but some would be nice. From what we know of this lake most of the residents on this lake are local so the lake hardly had any boats on it, we maybe saw two boats on the lake while we were out - and it was even a Saturday afternoon on a beautiful day. We did see a mamma loon and her three baby loons who couldn't be much more than about a week old while we were paddling and mamma loon let us get a pretty close look at her and her babies, but daddy loon quickly got possessive of his pretty family and we paddled on.

I think I will start to rate the lakes on a scale from one to ten, with then being the top and one being the bottom. I would easily give Gilbert Lake a 9.5 out of 10. I deducted a half point because I wish it was a little bigger, Marc and I easily paddled around the whole lake in the afternoon.