Mn State Fair 2011

Today Eric and I went to the great Minnesota Get Together... the Sate Fair! We had a good time walking around, checking out the different groups there and eating very unhealthy food. We spent $35 on food (yikes!) and ate a turkey leg, cheese curds, salted pretzel, elephant ear, and of course Sweet Maratha's cookies with all you can drink milk! YUMMM.

Eric enjoying his Turkey leg

YUM! It is almost Fall and time for apple cider!! I was happy to find some in the agricultural building for only $1.

You know you are in MN when....you can find hotdish on a stick.

Nothing is better than all you can drink milk with Sweet Maratha's cookies....

Having my cookies and milk

This place made me feel like we were back in the south. They even had hush puppies! I was too full to have some....maybe next year.

Moving on and in

In 5 days we start the process of moving into our new place in Minneapolis. We have been dreaming of living back in Minneapolis for over a year now and it is finally all happening. We have been so lucky to live rent free for the last 3 months but we are ready to have our own place again.
As excited as we are, we are also a little nervous. Well, I am the nervous one....Eric doesn't get like that. :) So I am nervous. Nervous about moving everything again, seeing if all our stuff will fit in a small apartment and living in a smaller space than what we had for the last 5 years.

But with that I am also SUPER excited about where we will be. With in two blocks of our house there is a public park, co-op grocery store, and a couple restaurants. We will also be much closer to friends! I am excited to finally have our own stuff again, to cook again, and relax and read on my own couch.

I am excited to see where this stage of life will be taking us! 5 more days....

The dreaded red line....

Its a sad day in my camera's life. It has developed the dreaded red line. Unfortunately I didn't know about this red line until this weekend. When Eric came back from camping I noticed there was a red line in a lot of the pictures. I was really confused about it because sometimes it was there and sometimes it wasn't. I tried reformatting my memory card and it didn't work. Then I asked my very wise camera friend Kelly, and he found a lot of other people who have the same problem. Apparently the red line is a common defect with Nikon...wish I would have known 4 years ago when I bought the camera. It seems something is wrong with the camera's sensor and it is way too expensive to fix. BIG BUMMER! I have an email out to the Nikon service team...praying that it isn't the end of the world. BUT I don't have my hopes too high either.

See the red line going through Eric? BUMMER

Gardens

I love digging in the dirt. I love fresh veggies and flowers from the garden. I have been able to dig in the dirt and enjoy the bounty of a garden this summer while we have been living with my parents. My mom planted zucchini, cucumber, tomato, banana peppers, beans, peas, herbs, carrots and lots of flowers. My favorite flower, the Dahlia, is also my moms and lucky for me she grows a ton of them! So of course, I have been taking advantage of the opportunity to take pictures of the flowers. Here are some of my faves...

Camping in Voyagers

Eric and Gabe had a great time at Voyagers National Park last week. They started out their trip with a ride to Anderson Bay on Uncle Duane's boat. In Anderson Bay they did a little cliff jumping with the family before hitting the trail. They hiked into an inner lake and made camp. While camping they spent their time canoeing, fishing, hiking, and being boys. :) I am sure Eric would have a lot more to say about his trip but here are some of the pics he took....

Gabe jumping of the cilf

Ready for the hike

Eric made the above and below for me out of birch bark (they were dead trees). Isn't he sweet? :)

The Cabin

Last weekend Eric and I headed to the cabin for some R&R and to hang out with his extended family. It was a short trip for me. I went up Friday after work with Eric and then left on my own, back to the cities on Sunday afternoon. It was still a great trip even though it was short! I don't think we could have asked for better weather! It was sunny, warm and calm waters. While we were there we did some sunbathing, swimming, skiing, wake boarding, moonlight skiing and a moon light boat ride. We also celebrated Eric's cousin Blaine's 13th Birthday! It was a great trip. We probably wont get back to the cabin until the Fall but we were really happy to get in all the weekends we did this summer!

Water skiing on a paddle board

Eric skiing

Blaine, Eric, George & Con

Blaine, Charles, Jamie, Kris, George, & Eric

How many people can fit in the boat? A lot!

Blaine

Charles, Con & George

Jamie

Rach trying to get up on the paddle board

As I said at the beginning of the post. Eric stayed in International Falls when I left on Sunday. He spent all of last week camping at Voyageurs National Park with his friend Gabe. More of this to come....

Interstate State Park Pics

As promised....

Some of the stairs we climbed

View of the St. Croix

Eric & Me

We had to walk under this bridge on the hike. Eric had to duck but I didn't. :)

More stairs

This part of the trail felt like the AT

State Park Hikes

Since my last post about our State Park hikes I, Eric and I have visited two more. We went to Interstate state park and Wild River state park a couple weeks ago. Our first hike at Interstate was great! We hiked along the St. Croix river and then up some sandstone bluffs for a total of four miles. On part of the trial we did more than 450 stairs. I was not prepared for that but it felt good to do a little hard work!


Our next hike at Wild River should have been 8 miles....BUT the first loop we tried we got about a 1/4 of a mile before we reached a part of the trail that was flooded. So we turned around and tried another loop. This one was an ok trail. Mostly flat, kind of buggy, and then at the end....also flooded. Thankfully it was at the end of the trail and we decided to just walk through water. So overall, not my favorite hike but it was decent exercise.

I have some great pictures from Interstate State Park but not from Wild River. Pictures will come later... I haven't had time to download and edit them but will post as soon as I can! So stay tuned....

First week

Well, after TWO whole MONTHS of NOT WORKING I have started to get back into the grove of the 8-5 job. I have to say it has been great! I have absolutely loved my first week of work at Bethel. I have a lot to learn but I am up to the challenge and excited to have new things to do. It has been nice having familiar faces around and catching up with people I worked with when I was a student. It has only been my first week and I already feel appreciated for what I am doing in the office -- even though it isn't much since I hardly know how anything works!! :) I am excited to see how this job develops in the future and excited to get to know my new co-workers!

Up North: Part 3

(I know, i am WAY behind in blogging!! I have just been too busy!)

So... three weeks ago - after we visited Castle Danger and Ely, Minnesota we headed farther north to the cabin on Rainy Lake. As always we had a great time hanging out with Eric's family (mom, step-dad, sister, aunts, uncles, and cousins). The weather was BEAUTIFUL and it was a great relaxing weekend. We spent time "spring cleaning" the cabin, doing yard work, picking blueberries and raspberries, having camp fires, swimming, skiing/wake boarding, sunbathing, and taking boat rides to catch the sunset. This is the cabin life and I like it!

We are going back to the cabin this weekend to catch some of the last warm days on the lake! As always I will have more pictures for you! :)

Up North: Part 2

After visiting Ada & Chuck we headed to the family cabin on Rainy Lake. Before going directly there we decided to check out Ely, MN. Ely is small town in the middle of now where MN,  night next to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We had never been to Ely and wanted to drive the scenic way to Rainy Lake. In Ely we stopped to hike at a place called Bass Lake Trail. We did almost a 5 mile loop that went through a beautiful forest and by a lake. Along the trail we stopped at a waterfall for some rest. Eric decided this was a great opportunity to go for a swim! This trail was great! There were some nice elevation changes and changes in the terrain. I hope we can make it back here some day to hike some more and to camp!

 

Up North: Part 1

About two weeks ago Eric and I headed to northern Minnesota to see family and have fun. We first stopped to see Eric's Aunt Ada and Uncle Chuck. They live in a little town called Castle Danger about 45 min north of Duluth on Lake Superior. I am sure you remember some posts over the years of us visiting them and going hiking and snow shoeing. This visit it was too hot for hiking...so we headed a little farther north to Grand Marais. I had only been here once and it was winter time so was never too impressed. This time I was! We went out to part of the shoreline called Artists Point. Apparently a lot of artists go here to capture to beauty of the lake. It was beautiful! I took a ton of pictures but here are my favorites: