Only 360 More Days....

Thursday July 16

I know I said I was going to take pictures of more vintage signs in Virginia, but I just didn't get around to it today. So instead you get STARBUCKS! Starbucks is one of my favorite things...it just makes me smile. And YES, there is a difference between Starbucks and Caribou.


The weather is sort of weird up here. It will be nice one week and then the next it is fall like. This has been going on since the beginning of June. It is very fall-like this week. On my way home, it was 52 degrees, cold and raining. Where is the sun?

Four of 365

Wednesday July 15

I made it through the day! It actually went way better than I thought it would. The boys were very cooperative and all must have taken their medications this morning. This group of boys is ADHD at its finest. I was able to bribe them with Skittles and they actually listened to me and discussed things for 2 hours! Then I found some active fun things for them to do for the remaining hour. So what was one of their ideas of fun....yep, none other than Toilet Tag. Anyone else ever heard of it or played it as a teenager? It is probably a "Range Thing."

I know I said I was only going to take 1 picture a day, but today I took 2! I just love old signs on businesses so I found one in Eveleth and one in Gilbert. I will try to hit up a few in Virginia tomorrow.

365 pictures....

Tuesday July 14

It was a very rainy day today on The Range. These are two pictures I took on my way home from work. I took the picture of the river because there was fog over it. This river/stream runs from Wynne Lake (at Giant's Ridge) to Lake Embarrass(which is outside of Biwabik).


Hope you are all having a great week. I am a bit nervous because I have to lead a group session of 7 adolescent boys (ages 13-15) for 3 hours tomorrow by myself (my co-leader is gone). Wish me luck!

A Picture A Day for 365 Days

I love to take pictures so I am challenging myself to take at least one picture a day for the next year! I think art and photography is so interesting and unique...and one thing that you will notice with the pictures I take, they will be of nature, buildings, or people in the moment. I usually don't get excited about taking pictures of people posing for the camera. I am hoping that each picture will tell a story of where I've been that day...I hope you enjoy.

Sunday July 12

This is a picture of Jason I took while we were golfing (well waiting to tee off because the groups in front of us were a bit slow).

Monday July 13

I saw this HUGE dandelion while I was running this evening. I was amazed by its size and how delicate it is. I think it is so neat how you can basically see right through it.

This Past Weekend

Jason and I spent the weekend up north together. We were able to golf twice and enjoy the perfect weather. Jason left Sunday morning to get home to play in one of the many golf events at Troy Burne....at least he won. The above pictures are two holes from The Quarry Golf Course at Giant's Ridge. Jason and I love this course because of it's beauty and ruggedness. The tall thick grasses will eat your ball up, so this course is very challenging. Below is Jason standing on the 18th hole which overlooks the Embarass Pit which is 550 feet deep! This is an old mining pit--the water is caribean blue.

One thing about living up here and having to spend a lot of time apart from Jason, I have learned that "goodbyes" are difficult for Jason. I love to cherish every last moment and he would rather wave a magic wand and we would be apart. I think things like this are so interesting and it is what makes each of us unique. Well, I only have 6 weeks left up here before I will be back in Hudson for good! I cannot wait. I have really enjoyed my time up here, but I am getting restless to get back to my home in Hudson. I cannot wait to be living with Jason permenantly. In the 5 1/2 years that we have be married, very little of it (less than a year) has been by ourselves. We lived with friends for 8 months while our house was being built. Then we took care of my sisters dog, Punky while she was studying abroad--actually he moved in with us. Then my sister and her son lived with us for about a year or so. One of my other sisters lived with us for awhile as well. And then I have been up here for the past 11 months. I cannot wait for it to be just the two of us.

4th Of July Weekend

Golfing at Giant's Ridge--The Legend. Hole #17 Hole #17---Par 3...you have to hit it over the water---we all made it! For the guys, 216 yards to clear! Hole #11--Another Par 3 that requires you to hit over the water.
What a beautiful weekend to celebrate this country's birthday. Our good friends, Jeb and Kaylan Wilson joined us for the long weekend and we had a lot of fun.

Jeb and Kaylan arrived Thursday night and the girls made dinner. We had 4 cheese maccaroni and Black and Bleu burgers on the grill. Dinner was great. Then we decided to head to downtown Biwabik (a true metropolis I tell ya) to a place called Giants Pub. Well, what do you know, they had a class reunion there with a live band. It was hilarious. It was the Class of 1979, the year Nicole was born and Kaylan not even thought of, but we had fun listening to their music and "mingling with the locals". Here is the best thing about Biwabik, I bought the first round of drinks and the total came to $12.00. Gotta love the small towns! Go Class of 1979, we'll see you soon!

On Friday we went to our favorite spa in Virginia called The Pebble. We all 4 had massages, then headed to lunch at the Quarry out on the patio. From there we were off to The Wilderness, a golf course in Tower, MN that was built by the Fort Bois Indian Tribe. They built a beautiful golf course cut out of the woods and along the shores of Lake Vermillion. It was right up there with a course near our hometown called Dacotah Ridge. I suppose the lake up here made it a little more scenic and the trees were just beautiful. I would recommend that course to anyone.
After golf we had dinner at their very Frank Lloyd Wright clubhouse (it was very cool). Then it was on to "Hairball". Each night this weekend there was a Town Festival in all of the surrounding towns. They all go all out with a parade, fireworks and street dance. Where we grew up in Springfield it used to be called Riverside Days or Crazy Days, well in Tower, MN it was called Riverfest. They had a band that is popular around the Twin Cities called Hairball. They were quite good, they play nothing but BIG HAIR 80's music. The lead singer changes costumes constantly from Bon Jovi, to Twisted Sister, to Guns N Roses, to Motley Crue, you get the idea, big hair 80's. The people watching is always the most fun for me as people really get out of control. Wives are fighting with their husbands for drinking too much, people are stumbling all over the place and it all makes me giggle. It was outside the cool bar I showed you from week's back called the Iron Ore Bar. It was an old brewery back in the day and is still a very cool place. We froze a little bit as temps got down to the 40's during the concert, but the music was good, costumes and band quite funny and people watching excellent.

On Saturday morning, the 4th of July we had plans to play golf at The Legend, one of Giants Ridge's great courses. We teed off at 9 a.m. and the weather was perfect. We enjoyed the day and then had plans to take the pontoon (rented from the Villas at Giants Ridge) When we got home from golfing we got the cooler ready and the grill ready to take out on the pontoon and when I went to the Villa office to rent it they had bad news. The crappy pontoon was broken down. Apparently the people that rented it on Friday were stranded in the middle of the lake and had to be towed in, so no pontoon on Saturday. It was a bummer because it was such a nice day, but we made the best of it and spent the afternoon on the beach with our grill and cooler.
Saturday night we went to watch fireworks in Virginia, they were pretty good for a small town and we had dinner at The Whistling Bird. This is in Gilbert, MN and is quite good, but very pricey for a small town. Lastly we finished the night in Biwabik where they had a street dance with live music (3 different bands playing at the same time at 3 different bars). Jeb has a lot of friends that are from "the range" so he and Kaylan spent time with them while Nicole and I found a nice spot to listen to some music. On Sunday we got up and had breakfast on the Quarry patio and again the weather was perfect. The Wilson's headed back to Hudson and Nicole and I spent the afternoon lounging on the beach again. Lakes are sure nice to live by, I can see what the fuss is about. I hope everyone else was able to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Nicole teeing off at the signature hole #3 at The Legend. Notice the Bear Paw, that is one big sand trap!

Jeb and Jason
Jeb and Kaylan Wilson
Teeing off on Hole #17 over the water.

A few pictures...

I thought would add a few pictures of the two weekends we were able to spend with our nephew,Zander and niece, Hattie. Zander loves Uncle Jason's mower and I think he would sit on it all day long if we let him. He talked Uncle Jason into giving him a ride on it. He also golfed 18 holes of golf with us that afternoon and was well behaved. This little guy is going to be 3 years old in 2 weeks!

Last weekend in Detroit Lakes, we went on a pontoon ride. The weather wasn't very cooperative, but we had a lot of fun hanging out with Em and Ryan and of course, getting to play with Hattie. She is growing up so fast and is so darn cute. She always has a smile on her face.

This picture of Hattie is hilarious....she fell asleep while we were eating so Em laid her down when we got back on the boat and covered her up with the towel because it was a bit cool and windy. She immediately lifted the towel up and gave us this look...

Still Catching Up...

It was a long month of June, but it seems to have flown by very quickly.

Highlights Of The Month
1. Completed 7 seminars across MN, IA, and Wisconsin. These are 19 hour days and tire even a young guy out!
2. Visit to Detroit Lakes for braces tightening and to see our niece Hattie. She is the most beautiful baby I can remember seeing and her nature is absolutely unbelievable.
3. Played 18 holes of golf with my nephew Zander. His energy level resembles his dad so much, which is a good and a bad thing, but mainly good. He listens better then he has in the past and is a great kid! One incident on the golf course, as I was about to hit he jumped off the seat and onto the gas pedal and rammed into the cart ahead of him. He bruised his nose, but mainly just scared him! He was "very quiet" for about 2 holes after that.
4. Got my golf game back on track! I had lessons this month with my instructor Brent Snyder who is Troy Burne's Director of Instruction. He helped me change a swing flaw and the results were immediate (not usually the case in golf)! Now we are just refining things and the game is fun again. I shot my best round at Troy Burne this month, equaling a round I shot 2 years ago.
5. Basement Progress (the paint is done and the finish work is beginning) We can see it taking shape now!

I am back up north now until the 12th of July when I have to go back for a seminar on Monday, the 13th in Sioux Falls, then we have a wedding in Springfield that next weekend. My mom is going to watch Hattie while we tear it up with the Ritchie's (Ryan and I can get dangerous when our wives aren't watching us). It usually results in 2 headaches!
We are looking forward to the 4th of July holiday! Our neighbors and friends Jeb and Kaylan are coming up Thursday to spend the weekend with us. We have many activities planned (I'm guessing you already knew we would be golfing)! On Friday we are playing a course that Nicole and I have never played called The Wilderness! It is located at Fortune Bay (a casino about 40 miles north of where we live). The nice thing about Casino's, I hate to gamble but as long as other people do they have the money to build beautiful golf courses, and with most courses that Casino's have, no one hardly plays them so they are in great shape! We will also play the courses at Giants Ridge (our home courses away from Troy Burne). On Saturday we are renting a pontoon for the day so hoping for good weather and then fireworks in Biwabik on Saturday night!

I hope everyone has a great holiday, be safe in your travels! We'll post some pictures after the weekend!