Activity Days

So I got an additional calling as Activity Days leader. I don't know why it seems that every time I get a new calling I get a feeling of inadequacy. I guess it won't be until I have had every calling in the church that I will be prepared for anything. Well it was just about the time were I was telling Brad that I loved being a nursery leader and thought we had it all figured out, when I got asked to be the Activities Day leader. 8-11 year old girls are a lot different then 2-3 year olds. 2-3 year olds will love you if you just hold them on your lap or you play kitchen with them. 8-11 year olds seemed to me like they may be expecting more out of me. Well 2 activities down, and though it may be work (not more just different work then with the little kids) I think I am getting to really enjoy being around these girls. I loved the pics from our first activity of acting out the story of Ammon. Then we just had a daddy daughter activity which included making pineapple upside-down cake in the dutch oven.

Beach

So last week we took a last minute trip to a beach north of the city (about an hour north). We got ready for hiking, playing in the water and beach bar-b-que in like 20 minutes. But by the time we got up there we hiked and got attacked by mosquitoes (so the hiking didn't last too long after that) and then a storm rolled in so we headed down to the beach to check it out before getting rained on. We just had to wade in because the water actually looked clean here. Don't worry we still had the bar-b-que just back home in our friends back yard after driving through the storm. We did get some nice beach pics though.

We were talking about how we would pick berries when we went hiking in Alaska when we found raspberries all along the trail. There were kind of small, but that didn't stop Brad from continually stopping to pick raspberries the whole way.


At the beach you can see the storm moving in to the left, it gave some pretty cool light variations across the water.

Not your typical 4th of July Post

So our 4th of July this year did include the normal fireworks, parade, bar-b-q, and most importantly day off of work (for both me and Brad!) But this year also included an emergency trip to the dentist too. We were watching the community 4th of July parade with a group of friends. I was chatting away when Brad comes up to me and interrupts asking me to look at his teeth. When I do my mouth opens wide and I bring my hand up to cover it. Brad had a huge chunk of his front tooth missing. As I told him what it looked like we look to the ground to see if we can see a piece of the tooth, but after a second we know that is a hopeless effort. The parade is over at this time and some of our friends are coming over to see Brad's teeth. As he talks he tries to cover it with his upper lip, but this is just too obvious. When I tell him he looks like a hick, he responds with I can't see my patients at the hospital like this, we need to get it fixed today. So next comes phone calls to his dad the dentist and then to our friend in the ward who is in dental school. Some hope comes when our friend tells us to come over and he will look at it and maybe he has the stuff to fix it. So we rush over to his house, our hopes we crushed but then restored as he didn't have the right tools to fix it, but he told us what needed to be done and how it would only cost in the couple hundreds not the thousands and that we could call around because some dental clinics had emergency lines. So we proceeded home to make phone calls to any dentist we could find. Brad had remembered seeing a flier for such an emergency dental clinic that claimed it was open 24-7. So as I roamed the internet, we went through our trash to find the flier. His work payed off before mine, as I heard him scheduling an appointment for the afternoon. Yeah! We are now grateful to the dentist that had to work on Monday when everyone else was off. $150 later, Brad had a beautiful smile again.

Northern Wisconsin

So we decided since we didn't want to spend a lot of money to fly and since we aren't going to live in Wisconsin forever (two more years for sure but that is all for my vote) that we would take our vacation as a road trip to Northern Wisconsin. This was your typical Roberts trip including camping, hiking, kayaking, and backpacking. It was very pretty up north, lots of forests and still very green. If you have heard that Lake Superior is cold, it is still almost freezing still at 40 degrees, we know, we got in. Instead of going through our trip itinerary (if you want to know you'll have to ask) I wanted to show all the FIRSTs that we had on this trip.

First waterfall we saw. The color of the water is a copper tint because of all the minerals found in the rocks. This is the same for all the other waterfalls in the area, trust me we saw a lot and they were all this same copper color.

This is the first time Brad has played with the color accent mode on our camera. We happened to have a picnic in this beautiful field of orange flowers.

Our first mishap of the trip was a flat tire. Luckily Brad can change a tire almost completely on his own, and more luckily we were in a town that had a tire repair place.

First mouse even in my car! It was hiding between the passenger door and the car. Brad did not believe me when I screamed there is a mouse in the car, but I got pictures to prove it.

Here you can see him finally escape after Brad repeatedly poked him with a long screw driver. Still don't know how he got in there.

First time ever going to the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. Located in Hayward, WI if you ever want to visit. Brad would have spent hours there, luckily for me we got there 1/2 hour before it closed.

First time to kayak through sea caves. This part was really cool, you could actually go in the caves with your kayak. I might post more of these pics later.

First time camping on an island. Here we are when we first arrived to our campsite. We spent the night just right under those trees.

First time playing croquet on an island. The next day we kayaked to another island that had a lighthouse on it. The lighthouse tour guide had set up croquet for anyone to come play (he said people come from miles around to play here).

First tick! We noticed a tick on Brad's leg after backpacking. He promptly burned the tick (to death, along with some leg hair). Luckily the tick hadn't burrowed in very far, but unluckily it was not the only one Brad had on him this trip.

First amazing sunset while camping on the beach off the mainland. We were pretty much isolated at this location to enjoy this sunset by ourselves.

First time backpacking on the beach. Okay this was only for about 20 feet while the rest of the 4.6 miles was through the forest.

First time strawberry picking at an orchard. And for two people who love strawberries we couldn't believe it was our first time.



First picture with the Tallest Indian.


First time I have ever backpacked in the rain. Not such a good idea after all since I got eaten alive by mosquitoes and we ended up spending all night in our little backpacking tent just playing cards and watching the lake of water pool up around out tent.

First time ever that I used a bear pole. We stuck a poncho over our packs so they didn't get soaked over night (it worked pretty good). I think the rain kept the bears away more than the bear pole though.

First time using our water filter on Wisconsin made water. We also used it in Lake Superior which made for nice cold water to drink.

First time in the Upper Peninsula (Michigan). Here we are at the Porcupine Mountains, to some they still might laugh at the 'mountains', but this is probably the best we have seen out here. Below is the Lake of the Clouds. Supposedly the clouds will sit over the lake, but the first day we were there it was rainy and the second there weren't many clouds to be seen.

First porcupine I saw in the Porcupine Mountains.

Not the first waterfall, but really the last one that we saw on our trip. But the first waterfall we got someone to take a picture of both of us.

First time on Lambeau Field. We took a tour of the Green Bay Packer's stadium, what else do you do in Green Bay. The tour was pretty sweet because you got to go up into the box suites and then down through the players tunnel onto the field.

First time seeing a real Lombardi trophy.

Okay if you have made it this far through this super long post I guess you are craving some more, so here are a couple clips that you can watch.

(hiking in we were really tired and did not believed that this was only 4.5 miles and we thought we were lost half the time, apparently we were right the next day we got back and the sign said it was 4.6 miles. It still felt like a long hike)