Rendition of Events

An artist's rendition of the terror.

Merry Christmas

                                   

Merry Christmas Everyone! I tried to photo-document Queequeg uprooting my pine trees and lampposts in our little Christmas village, as she does several times a day, instead she sits in the window nonchalant when the camera is out. She really is Godzilla Cat. Sigh.

Muffins

With a longer work commute now, I have discovered the value in mini muffins. I had written off the mini muffin before as a needless size in the muffin world. It's the perfect sized morning commute snack. Ridiculously easy to put together and bake, and a mindless mobile breakfast. Now the search for a few good muffin recipes.

Relaxed Cats

Our cats seemed to adjust quickly to the new place, falling back into familiar poses and haunts. Diogenes flopped across a chair.

Queequeg sleeping under Zachary's desk.

New Places

In my relative blog silence, a lot has changed for us in the last 6 weeks. In the end of September, Zachary's promotion went into full effect and started managing his own store. 60 miles away to the west. That new change spurred on a housing search for us to relocate somewhere in the greater Wausau area. After about a month of commuting for Z, we found a nice place on the east side in Weston that will be convenient for Zachary and easy highway access for me to get to my job. I still have my same job, just a longer commute now.

Let me just say, moving sucks. We started moving about 2 weeks ago and about 90% of our belongings are here now. Hopefully this week, the rest will get here. One fun fact for me, being nearly 30, its officially the first time I truly moved. College doesn't really count and when Zachary and I got married, my parents moved out of the house, not me. In the moving process I found a lot of "gems" we/I forgot we even had. I may make a blog post soon highlighting some of the fun finds once everything is here and sorted through.

So this new location starts a new chapter for us. The Wausau area has a lot to explore and we are looking forward to it. Lots of hiking/biking trails, rivers, natural areas, dining, and more. We haven't spent much time here in the past, so for a while, every outing will be adventure. (Woohoo, I made it to Target and back and didn't get lost) Id like to think my blogging will be more fruitful now with things settling down again. We'll see :-)

Random Quee

Holland

Friday we drove to Holland. Zachary grew up in Holland a number of years, and enjoyed showing me some of his old haunts. Friday evening through Sunday we hung out with Ben and Amanda. Ben and Zachary reminisced about the old days growing up. Ben and Amanda also taught us a bunch of games, including Dominion and Settlers of Catan. Ben brought us to his local game store and we bought our own starter set of Dominion cards. (Thanks for the crash course and getting us hooked :-) Sunday morning we left and headed home. By Sunday afternoon, we ended our trip, by completing the loop around Lake Michigan. 1200 miles around.  Many memories to cherish.

Dune Climb

 After dinner at a local pizzeria, we thought a leisurely dune climb sounded good before setting up camp for the night. The Dune Climb was pretty quiet.

Wow, this thing is steeper than it looks.

 And sandier too. :-P

Zach realizing that the top is still over there.

 Ah, there it is. The parking lot down below and the view overlooking Glen Arbor lake.

And much to our chagrin, Lake Michigan wasn't just on the other side of the crest. More like a few crests yet.

Finally, after about 1.75 miles of trudging up and down loose sand dunes.

 Zachary may have been holding me up a little more in this picture. My legs were already terse with me at this point, wait till they have to carry me all the day back across the rolling sugar sand dunes.

By the end of our hike, it was dark and my legs and I weren't speaking to each other anymore. On the walk back, I offered Z to leave me behind and just bury me in the dunes. It would be a beautiful place to be interred. :-) Needless to say, our trek back was slower than trek in. A beautiful ass kicking hike indeed.

 Since our evening dune climb lasted longer than expected, we ended up setting up camp in the dark. (I took this pic the next morning)

Platte River

After our scenic drive, we headed to the southern part of the park to look for a campsite for the night. We picked out a site at the ranger station and ran across a sign for canoe rentals. Ah yes, perfect way to kill time before dinner.


Zachary, happily paddling away.

The Platte River, opening up onto a lake.

Crossing the lake.

Back on the river, making a portage around a fishing weir. After passing the weir, we saw a few salmon running up river, doing their fall run. I believe they were Cohos and Steelheads.


River running up against dunes, meaning Lake Michigan is not far.

The Platte River emptying into Lake Michigan.

Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive

On our trip in Michigan, went spent some time at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We took the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive around the park. It is about a 7 mile drive, but it has several lookouts to explore. The sights were amazing.




One of the larger bluffs, about 450 feet down the lake shore, darn near straight down too.


We did tackle the famous dune climb later in the day, pictures to come.

Road Trip: Mackinac

Zachary and I got back from a 6 day road trip, making a loop around Lake Michigan. Zachary's insane work schedule lately paid off with a stretch of vacation days. We started off Tuesday night after work driving north, into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, staying in St. Ignace.

Wednesday we crossed the Mackinac Bridge and explored Colonial Michilimackinac in Mackinac City. It is a reconstructed fort and trading post of colonial times. Originally created by the French, it was taken over by the British, then later destroyed and abandoned by the British during the Revolutionary War. Loving early American history, we had to see the fort.

The curators recreated the fort as it would have been under British rule, so it had the Union Jack flying high. For a couple hours, we were King George III's subjects.

The buildings were open and several reenactors around simulating daily colonial life.


Two Redcoats outside the guard house, on watch. I wanted to swipe one of their hats, but I am sure I would have been tossed in the Hole for being an unruly subject of the crown.



More pictures and adventures to come. :-)

Missing

It has been a strange week for us, yet vaguely familiar at the same time. Zachary has been gone for over a week now, managing a store opening 2 hours to the north of us. He should be home in a few days, but it has been the longest we have been apart since we have been married. Last night I made a whirlwind drive up to see him and bring him some fresh clothes when he was done with work. Sorta reminding me of us dating again. Driving a 200 mile round trip just to spend a couple hours together over pizza, seemed like our trips between Whitewater and Waukesha years ago just to have Toppers or late night Denny's together after a long week of work and school.

It will be good to have him home again in a few days, then I can have more human conversations than talking to our pets. I think they are getting sick of hearing me talk about what happened at the office everyday. :-)

Hike and more

Wow, its been a month since I have last posted. It seems like not much has been going on to a lot going on in the last few weeks for us.


First bit of news is we have a new pet. Well, a new housemate (in case he reads this) :-) Our nephew Zach asked if he could move in with us for a while. He just started a new job in the area and wanted somewhere to stay around here while he figures out a more permanent living solution. Kinda funny to have 2 Zachs in the house now. He has been with us a week now and all moved in for the most part.


During the prep cleaning and organizing for the move in, Zachary (my Z) got a promotion unexpectedly. He has been an assistant manager at an automotive supply and now he is a manager. He won't be the manager at the store he is at currently, but will be placed at a different store in the coming months. We are pretty excited for this new opportunity. This may result in some bigger decisions for us down the road once we find out which store he will go to, depending on the location.


With Zachary's new added responsibilities, came another addition to the household. A Nissan Sentra. We have been an one car household since we have been married, avoiding the added expense as long as we could. While we dairy farmed it wasn't really an issue with having a farm truck on the farm. And since our post-farming days, we have managed car sharing since we work in the same town.

But now Zachary will be working a lot of odd hours, special assignments, and training before he gets his own store in a few months. So it was time for a second car.

(Pictures from a hike we did this past Sunday at the Navarino Wildlife Area)