Surprise!!!

Mike Svir was is having his golden birthday tomorrow June 27th. Amanda (Mike’s wife) has been working up a surprise birthday party for him for the last couple of months. We had it last saturday at an indoor water park in Baxter. Erin and I drove down for the event. We didnt make it in time for the surprise, but he seemed pretty surprised that we were showed up.

It was a lot of fun hanging out with Mike and Amanda. It has been a long time since I’ve really been able to hang out with even Mike, let alone him and Amanda. We are going to have to make these rendavous happen a little more offten.

We spent the afternoon at the water park going down the slides, sitting in the sauna, and swimming. In the evening we went back to Mike and Amanda’s new house. Its a very nice house with a big yard, in what seems like a really nice neighborhood. We sat out on the yard and had dinner with his family and friends. It was a very nice day.

Here is a picture of the four of us..

I was showing off photobooth a little, here is a few other people….

Lane, Helene, Mike, Jed, Amanda, and Myself

Lazy Days…

Well, I am really in summer mode now.  I went golfing with Jim (Erin’s dad), Bill, Rick, and Glen (Erin’s uncles) Monday night.  We only played 9 holes.  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoy golfing.  Mostly be cause I am outside walking around.  There is of course the sport of it, but I am pretty laid back when it comes to the rules on golfing.  My cohorts were a tad more restrictive when it came to the rules.  Like when I tee-off, and it goes flying into the woods and have to get another ball and tee-off again.  I wouldn’t count the first one because, well, I can’t find that ball, and I’m starting from the same place there is no need to count it right??  :)  So out of the five of us Jim came in first and I came in last.  The other brothers were interspersed in between. 

Right after the game, Jim and I raced home to catch game seven of the Stanley cup finals.  Edmonton vs. Carolina.  Jim and I were rooting for Edmonton because really should a place that far south have a hockey team let alone win the cup?  Well Edmonton really didn’t play well the first two periods.  They turned it up a notch in third, but it wasn’t enough.  They ended up losing 3 to 1 after Carolina scored an empty net goal with less than a minute to play.

Unlike a normal summer day for me today I got up at 8:30 in the morning.  I
think it was partly the sun shinning in the window onto my face, and
the fact that I really needed a shower.  :)  After the golfing and the hockey game I was wiped out, and crashed.  So I felt all grimy when I woke up this morning.  So I got up and played a little nintindo.  That’s the thing to do these days.  After that I watched “A history of violence” which was kind of an interesting movie.  I had never seen it before, and would recommend it if you don’t mind a little violence, and are into movies that are a little different.  After the movie I was sufficiently awake, so I hopped in the shower and got cleaned up.  Then it was back to the nintindo.  My goal while Erin is gone is to beat Super Mario 3 with out warping.  I beat it last week with warping, so now I am trying to go through all of the levels and beat the game.  I had a great start a couple days ago.. Actually before the golf game, but I paused the game while the golfing and the hockey game were going on.  I didn’t want to stay up late playing, so I left it when I went to bed.  Unfortunately the power went off for a split second in the middle of the night, and the game was reset.  So I started over again today.  I got all the way to the last world, and stopped to eat dinner.  Someone must have bumped the console because the game got corrupted, and I had to reset it again.  :(  So for real tomorrow I am going to beat that game.  I have to get a lot of rest.  It takes a lot out of you to sit down and play all of those levels back to back. 

So I guess thats the plan for tomorrow.  Play nintendo, watch movies, and possibly take a trip into town to find a high speed Internet connection to do some software updates and download something for work. 

Wisconsin Dells

April, Trisha, Erin and I piled into the car and took a little 7 hour drive over to Wisconsin Dells.  We were meeting up with Steve and Amy who are friends of the girls to spend a few days in the largest grouping of water parks in the world.  We are staying at the Polynesian Resort Hotel which has both an indoor water park and an outdoor water park.  We spent some time on the lazy river and went down a few of the slides yesterday.  We went out to dinner at Mexicali Rose which is right on the water.  After dinner the rest of the crew went to watch a water skiing show, while I went back to the hotel to watch game 5 of the Standley Cup Finals.  Edmonton was down 3 games to 1.  They ended up winning last night in overtime.  Edmonton had one person in the penalty box, so they were short handed.  One of the Edmonton players stole the puck at the blue line and went in and scored the sudden death game winning goal.  It was a pretty exciting game.  Game six will be played Saturday at 8:00 PM Eastern in Edmonton.

Today we went out for breakfast at iHOP, before we headed out to the pool area.  Steve and I were using the smallest tubes and going down the water slides.  We were a little big for the tubes and were getting dumped at the bottom of the slide.  We were able on occasion to stay right side up.  We also went down in a double tube (Steve and I)  which makes you go really fast down the tube.  We flipped on that one too.  April and Amy went up to the room to get showered up.  Erin, Trish, Steve and I went to the indoor park and sat in the sauna for a while.  I really like saunas.  I am excited to have one up in Unalakleet next year.

Sounds like we are heading out for dinner right now.  MooseJaw is the resturaunt of choice for the evening.  I am planning on wearing my MooseJaw shirt this evening.  Maybe I’ll get some free food.  🙂

Quick Post

After a fast 6 days in Cook, I am sitting in the Hibbing Airport, which is now one of my favorite airports due to its extremely fast free internet connection.  I am on my way to Florida for the week. John, Chick, Mia, and I will be presenting at Educomm 2006.  I have worked up a little flyer for the session Mia and I are doing.

Today before I left the lake, I hopped on line and bought my Florida fishing liscense.  We are going fishing early tomorrow morning.  John said that we may be able to catch  mahi mahi, sailfish, wahoo, marlin, and whatever else might be swimming off of the Florida cost.

Erin and I celebrated our first annaversery yesterday.  Crazy that a year ago today we were flying out to Hawaii for our honeymoon.  It has been a really quick year.  We spent the day out on the lake tubing and getting some sun.  I got a bit of a burn.  Trisha asked me if I ever get a tan, or if I only turn red.  I am starting to wonder myself.  We’ll see how that all works out this summer.

Well, Im going to work on a little keynote for the presentation on Thursday.

Heading North

Currently at 37,000 feet somewhere over “Beautiful British Colombia”.  Yesterday I was swimming in Lake Vermillion on a hot sunny day.  The water was the perfect temperature.  I little cool to the skin after being baked by the sun, but warm when swimming around.  The water was filled with tiny pieces of yellow green algae that apparently comes out during the hottest time of the summer which makes visibility underwater even more difficult than it already is.  The swim was very nice.  We took off in the boat out to the middle of the lake where we jumped off.  We swam by the boat for about a half an hour.  If we didn’t have to drive to the cities it would have been the perfect day to spend out on the boat.  hhhhmmmm….. Maybe next summer.  This summer has suddenly come to a close.  I start my new job as the “Distance Learning Facilitator” on Wednesday the 3rd.  Seems like the summer didn’t even exist.  Erin and I drove to the cities yesterday afternoon.  We got in to our hotel in the evening and went for a little walk around the area looking for a movie theater or a restaurant.  We ended up going back to the restaurant in the hotel.  Dinner was tasty.  It was kind of late by then so we crashed for the night.  We had to be up early to get me to the airport on time.  Erin dropped me off at the gates and headed back up North.  She was, believe it or not, going to pick someone else up in Cook and drive her to the Hibbing airport.  So she has a day of driving.  Erin’s summer unfortunately will be coming to a close here soon too.  She has to be in Homer on the 10th to do a joint training with Sharon.  I hope she will have some relaxing days on the lake before she has to head north.
When I land my father should be awaiting my arrival.  Then begins a day of shopping.  I am going to try to get as much of the bulk food that I can for the year.  It’s kind of a toss up at this point not knowing what our apartment will be like, weather we’ll have storage room for the food coming up.  I also need to stop off and pick up a part for the satellite dish that broke last year when we were setting it up.  Possibly stop off at the DMV to get my drivers license updated.  I found out it expires in April, and since I’ll be up north when it does, it could be a little tricky to get it renewed before it expires.  Well, that’s all for now.  I think now that I am back at work my blog entries will be posted more often.  Hope everyone is having a great summer.
Later….Bill