Hot Summer Days

HEAT WAVE!! Man, I tell you, these 85 to 90 degree days make me wish for winter. It has cooled down today to around 68 and that is just fine with me. Give me a dry, 75 degree day and I'll call it a perfect day. Throw in 85 degrees with high humidity and I'm ready for a trip to Alaska. We have gone to the beach the last few days for some family swimming in order to cool everyone off. The boys and I went out about 75 to 100 feet off shore to swim around and you didn't have to dive too deep to remember your swimming in Lake Superior. The top foot or so is relatively warm to swim in, but you try to dive to the bottom to pick up a rock, and it feels like your going to freeze. Great way to cool off on a hot summer day. The shallows are much warmer where Belle likes to sit and play with her shovel and bucket. She will hold on to my back while I swim out into the cooler water, and she wants to go back in to the warmer, shallow area.

It has been an odd summer up here. It has been cool all summer, without any hot streaks like the last week or so. It feels like summer just got here to tell you the truth, and summer is almost over. It is a strange feeling. The boys start school the day after Labor Day, and like I said, it feels like summer just got here. Even the trees are confused. In order for us to drive home from town, we have to drive through some woods. Some of these poor confused trees are already starting to change into the beautiful fall reds and yellows. It's way too early for that. We just started going to the beach this year! Next thing you know the poor salmon will start to run into the rivers early, dogs and cats will start living together, and we'll have chaos all over the north. What's a poor yooper to do?

I'm not complaining. I would much rather be cool than hot any day. With the southern, moist breezes it's been hard to cool the house at night. Everyone tends to gather down in the coolness of the basement at the end of the day. As I walk up the stairs with Breanna sleeping in my arms, with every step I feel the heat and the humidity rise; I want to turn right around and put her on the couch and let her sleep downstairs with the boys. But like I said, today was a nice cool down, with temps to rise again tomorrow to the mid-high 70's . . . perfect. It's funny to listen to yoopers complain about the heat. If they only knew how hot it can really get, like in say . . . Phoenix! I don't miss burning my hands on the steering wheel and I especially don't miss burning my thighs on the leather seats. I don't miss praying my air conditioner would blow cooler sooner than it did. What I do miss . . . friends.

Anna-Belle at the Beach

Great Northern Pike

Small Mouth Bass

Little Small Mouth with lighthouse in back-ground

Busy Summer Already

Here is a picture of Breanna at the Strawberry Fest Parade in Chassell, Michigan. All the kids surrounding her would pounce on the candy as it was thrown to the curb, but once she got the hang of it, she was able to hold her own against them. What a little dandy she is. She is developing such a personality and sometimes it is a challenge just to simply get her hair brushed in the morning, let alone, do another one of those non-preferred activities that can create quite the emotional outburst! All-in-all she is a wonderful little girl. Please. Thank-you, "sorry daddy" which gets me every time. Her mother is teaching her that all she has to do is say, "please favorite daddy" and then she is coached to bat her eyes, and she gets what-ever she wants. She loves her older brothers and uses them as her little play mates. Help up on the trampoline, ring-around-the-rosie mates, hide-n-seek mates, you name it, she can get them to do it. She will laugh and laugh with enjoyment while playing with them.

We were looking forward to having Uncle Richard and Uncle Trent come from out west for an fishingpallooza event like no other. But bad luck with health (flu) and unforeseen circumstances has canceled the event like a drummers bad elbow can cancel a show. We were really looking forward to the company way up here where visitors are very few and far between. Maybe a winter carnival can be planned that will include 80 mile snow-mobile trips, ice fishing, snow shoeing, or skiing. We'll have to wait and see.

With the time off this week that would have been spent with brothers and nephews and nieces, I'll have to get the family out on the lakes and do some fishing and camping without extended family. I'm looking forward to a little break from work and just relaxing with a fishing pole in my hands. Nothing could be better than watching bald-eagles skim the surface of a woods bound lake, no sound at all but the splash of a bird catching more fish than you. Man is it beautiful up here. I love it so much and I'm so happy to be up here, away from it all. When I want to engage with the big city events, I can just go to the big city and then come home to the "quiet-of-the-earth"

All is well with all of us. The boys are not looking forward to the end of summer vacation and wish the next 5 weeks would go slow as cold tar. Breanna has been going to day-care at the school districts pre-school since the end of June. There are some positives and some negatives about taking her out of the old day care but I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Hopefully she will get used to it and not be so tearful at drop-offs like she did at her old day care. Time has a way of changing us all.

Springtime Sun

On Friday (5/22) I had about 45 minutes to kill for lunch while I was in L'Anse, so I went down to the marina and fished for a while. On about the 5th or 6th cast, I caught my lunch! The pic doesn't seen to give the poor fish justice as he gave up quite the fight. As soon as I would pull him close to the rocks, he would take off again attempting to get back out in the deep water. After wearing the poor guy out I was able to pull him up on the rocks to take a quick picture. I had meetings the rest of the afternoon, so I very well couldn't keep him in the trunk of my car for the afternoon, so after a little fish CPR, he was able to swim back out into Keweenaw Bay to live another day. It is a small fish for Lake Superior, but it sure did fight bigger than what he is. I've been asking people, what fights harder, a Large Mouth Bass or Trout/Salmon? I think the yoopers are a little biased in their opinion and always say trout (walleye are pretty tough fighters too). I think if I were to ask someone from the south, they would say the bass. I love catching both. Uncle Richard & Uncle Trent are planning to come this Summer with their families and we hope to do a lot of camping and fishing this time around as we didn't have time to camp and fish last time they were here. Going out to Isle Royale with canoes for some huge lake trout would be great; as well as camp and canoe in some of the chain-of-lakes around here which have massive bass, pike, muskie, & walleye would be great to do too. We'll have to decide when they get here! Tough choices. Anyway, all is well. The boys will finish school June 8th and we will have them for 3 weeks before they go to their father's for 3 weeks. They will be back in time for the fishapalooza which they are very happy about. Nothing like having 2 boys always begging to go fishing everyday I come home from work!
The sun is out, the flowers are blooming, and spring has finally hit the UP! We need to take advantage of the sun and warmth as November will be here before we know it. Living in the UP, we have to have an appreciation for the Sun because of our relatively short spring and summer season! So go out and appreciate the sunshine where ever you are!

Gone Fishin'

4/20/09 Snow

We just about lost all of the snow with our beautiful spring, but it hasn't stopped snowing for 3 days and we have a new thick blanket of snow (suppose to receive 15" by the end of this) on the ground. The lakes have almost melted and was preparing for the steelhead run, but this puts a little damper on the trout fishing. It is suppose to be back up in the 60's by Thursday, so the snow will go quickly.

All is well up here in the great-white north. Anna is growing so quickly. She talks up a storm and acts much older than 26 months. It must be due to her older brothers and attempting to keep up with them. The boys are ready for spring. As much as they love the snow and playing outside, they want to ride their bikes and go play with their guns in the woods. Kellen bought a new air-soft hand gun. Kameron has his gun too, and they put their head-gear on and go out into the trees in the back yard and try to save the world from evil. They both are getting all A's and some B's on their report cards and are great boys. It is hard sometimes to remember that they are only 11 & 9 and that they can and should act that way. I certainly wasn't a saint when I was 11 & 9. We are excited for the summer months to come. Anna will be old enough to go camping, canoeing, and all the out-door activities that we love so much. We are looking forward to doing much more this year now that she is old enough to do more with us.

Hopefully it will warm up soon so that we can get the camping gear out and start the warm weather acitivities! Get outside and blow up your TV!