Lifestyle — Page 35

2nd Annual Dead Lake Wknd, part 2

June 28, 2008

I forgot to mention this in my last post (I don’t know how I could forget), but after Smitty was passed out cozily in bed… we may have snuck in and painted his toe nails pink. Passion fruit to be exact. We managed to get all the toes on one foot, and the big toe on his other foot. It was a pleasant surprise for him. He was disappointed to have to wear socks and tennis shoes instead of sandals today. Not because his nails were pink, but because it’s been rainy and windy and nasty all day long.

Jake, Sarah and Jeremy went into town to buy rain gear so they could spend some time on the boat. Smitty, Jordon, Travis and I played hearts while Nick played WOW, then we went into Perham so the boys could find a bar where they could play poker. Mission unsuccessful. The boys had blizzards at DQ. I declined a blizzard, but I did have a small birthday cake ice cream cone at the little candy and knick knack shop. I forgot the name, but it’s something in regards to a Spoon.

After we got back, events such as card playing, computing, reading and napping occurred. Randy and Paul had a hankering for rhubarb crisp and asked if I could lend my mad baking skillz. I found a recipe online and consulted with Sarah, who made rhubarb crisp a week ago. We had everything we needed in the cabin and Paul clipped some rhubarb that was growing at their cabin. It turned out pretty well. I sliced a small strip for us to sample and brought the pan next door. Since Denise, Palmer and Palmer’s mother showed up today I didn’t want to sample too much. In return, Denise gave me a fruity angel food cake to bring back to everyone. It sure looks delicious.

I think everyone is itching to get outside. Just a minute ago there was an argument of whether or not to play croquet before the rain starts again. The boys wanted to play shuttle cock (aka badminton) in their swimmers earlier, but it was just too windy for that.

Gallery photos are here.

The exciting conclusion is to come soon!!

2nd Annual Dead Lake Wknd, part 1

June 28, 2008

Nick and I are having our 2nd Annual camping weekend at my parents’ cabin on Dead Lake. We arrived late Wednesday night.

Thursday we bummed around the cabin and took the fishing boat out in the evening for a couple hours. On Thursday night Sarah, Jake, Travis and Smitty arrived. We sat by the campfire for awhile and then hit the hay.

On Friday the boys went fishing, while Sarah and I caught less than an hours worth of rays before the clouds rolled in and it got windy. Super windy. And cold. Michelle and Jeremy showed up around 12:30. The boys came back to pick up Jeremy and the three of us girls sat huddled in towels on the lawn chairs. Soon it started raining and we headed inside.

Randy and Paul stopped by a couple times to visit. Randy graciously gave up his and my mom’s bedroom for us to use and was staying at the other cabin (two cabins away). Since the people they were expecting weren’t showing up they invited us for breakfast at 9 the next morning.

The boys came back later in the afternoon to refuel (with food, not fuel). All but Nick and Travis were pretty drunk. Fishing had been pushed aside for a game that involved slapping each other, so they were all red and welty. They headed out after ravaging our food supply, leaving wrappers and food remnants everywhere.

The boys took the pontoon out again. Shortly after it stormed again, big time. The radio reported severe t-storm warnings. We couldn’t believe they rode it out on the lake. When they got back the sun came out, but it was rather chilly.

Smitty drank too much and was completely inebriated. He sat on the steps for about two hours vomiting the entire time. After which he passed out face first on the lawn. I think we all agree we’ve never seen him this drunk before.

Jordon showed up about the time Smitty was on the lawn. Since it was too windy to have a fire we spent the night inside playing games.

Today (Saturday) I woke up at 8:58. No one was up yet and I didn’t want to wake anyone, so I walked to the other cabin to let them know we probably wouldn’t be in attendance for breakfast. Apparently Randy had stopped by about a half hour before. He said Smitty and Travis were up and said they’d come to breakfast. Sure enough, they showed up shortly after I did. Smitty seemed fully recovered from the night before. The three of us at with Randy, Paul and Denel. Yummy pancakes with giant blueberries, eggs, sausage and cantalooop. After some chit chatting we headed back to our cabin. Everyone was up and they were making breakfast. Michelle had already left to go to a baby shower. :cry:

Now I’m going to go play hearts :D

I ♥ Chocolate Ox

June 23, 2008

This weekend I went with Blog Reader Kristen up to the cklahr cabin. We left on Friday afternoon. Curtis joined us on Saturday afternoon. There was a whole lot of nothing happening. Lots of books, audio books, lounging lake side. The highlight of the weekend was pizza at Zorba’z followed by ice cream at the Chocolate Ox (licorice chip and Caribou java chunk, mmm…).

Nick didn’t attend the festivities because he had a concert to go to on Friday night. I tried talking him into coming up with Curtis on Saturday, but he claimed he had a lot of stuff to do around the house, something about a leaking faucet outside. I figured he’d fiddle with some broken computers, then play WOW for a good portion of the weekend. Party pooper.

I got home Sunday afternoon. To my shock and awe, my husband spent the weekend doing yard work. Not just his typical version of yard work like spraying weeds and crop dusting ants with poison, but yard work like trimming hedges, planting flowers in the bukkit in front of the house and in the planters on the deck and repotting the aloe plants which were in dire straits for some decent soil.

I’m not used to this kind of stuff happening when I leave for a weekend. It’s usually video games til the break-a-break-a and when I come home I find him in the same position I left him in. Or the cat doesn’t get fed. Well, I guess he did let my Amish friendship bread explode from not letting the air out. And he did think Boo ran away at one point. But all is well that ends well, and the weekend ended really well.

I ♥ Firefox 3

June 19, 2008

I downloaded Firefox 3 yesterday. It’s pretty awesome if I do say so myself. First off, it just looks way cooler. Second, it knows how to read my mind. The bookmarks automatically drop down once stuff is typed into the address bar if it matches anything the URL or title. Same with history once you’ve been surfing for awhile. So once I’ve surfed around on the web, I just type in “jilla post” and it drops down the link to post a new entry, or “ck fit” and it brings up the fitness thread on the cklahr forum. Awesome. I utilize the bookmarks toolbar because I’m too lazy to actually click on bookmarks and find what I want in the menu, so this just brings it to a whole new level of ~~laziness~~ convenience.

Bye, Bye Goldie

June 16, 2008

Jake’s Goldwing got totaled this weekend.

It started raining about the time we were leaving the boys’ grandparents house on Saturday night. Sarah hopped in the Explorer with Nick and me, but Jake didn’t want to leave his bike so he decided to ride it home. After leaving the storm quickly worsened. Jake tried to stop at his step-dad’s house to wait it out, but an unfortunate chain of events unfolded before he could get there.

The wind knocked down a tree into the road. Because of the weather and location that the tree fell it was difficult to see and he ended up sliding into it and getting hung up on one of the branches. Shortly after a truck came and smoked the bike at full speed. He wasn’t on it at the time and fortunately no one was hurt.

The three of us got to the scene a few minutes later. Traffic was backed up (only as much as a country road at 9:30 during a storm would be) and some good samaritans were towing the tree off of the road. I snapped a quick picture before they were finished. It was raining like a mother furker and made for a difficult photo op.

Jake’s bike was smishy-smashed. The boys collected Jake’s belongings and pieces of the bike that were scattered about the road. We waited for over an hour for the cops to show up for the police report. Afterwards the boys pushed the bike to their step-dad’s house, about two houses down the road. We’re talking country length properties here. It was no small feat. I tagged along to hold the flash light and I’d like to think my verbal efforts were motivational. Nick almost bit it a few times, and I’m pretty sure Jake tried to drop the bike on him on purpose.