Working

I’ve been working every day this week which has bee going pretty well, but there is still a lot to get done before the school year starts up.  It was a beautiful sunny day out too which makes it that much harder to be inside.  I worked on getting iPads updated, which I think I’ll be doing till the end of time.  🙂  We have also run into a slew of problems with our student information system (JMC) and a few bothersome things with Google Apps.  I’m hoping that we can get these taken care of in the next couple of days so we don’t have to worry about them when staff and student are back in the building.

After work Erin and I met up with Greg and Corey at the Crescent for some hot wings.  They have a deal on Wednesday nights so we met up there to have a little dinner and visit.  It is always nice to hang out with them.

The lake sure is nice right now.  Its the perfect temperature for swimming and right now its pretty calm out so there are reflections of the trees hanging over the water.

Sure is nice living on the lake.

Time to Start Blogging Again

The summer sure has flown by.  I’ve been back at work off an on the last few weeks.  We have quite a few new iPads to get ready for this school year.  Erin and I have had a great summer.  We spent some time in Europe visiting Erin’s family and our friends Inkari and Peter in Germany.  We also spent some time in Italy and Switzerland.  It was really nice visiting with everyone over there.

I have been trying to get out sailing as often as I can.  I really enjoy spending time out on the water with a full sail.

I’ll try to get back into the habit of posting more often.  It gets a bit overwhelming when you haven’t blogged in a while and you feel like you have to cover everything since your last post.  So I’m hoping this gets the ball rolling.

Deutchland

The trip over to Germany was somewhat long. Mostly because of a 6 hour layover in Amsterdam. We had gone carryon for the entire trip having to look after our bags in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Amsterdam only to find out that we would need to check the back for our last one hour long flight to Stuttgart. This was unfortunate because waiting for our bags at our final destination was the thing we were trying to avoid. Not a big deal though as our bags eventually came popping up out of the baggage carousel. As we left baggage claim we were met by Erin’s family. Her Great Uncle Rolf, his wife Hulda, his son Klause, and Klause’s girlfriend Sabrina were all there with smiling faces. They helped us get our rental car picked up and then escorted us back to Rolf and Huldas house about 45 min away in Ensingen. They have a beautiful house with a garden and a cherry tree. We were able to steal a few of the ripe berries while we were there. We had some tea and visited for about an hour, but then needed to get back on the road as we were planning to be in Trier for the evening. It was great to meet Erins family and we are excited to see them near the end of our trip.

Driving to trier was fairly easy with the assistance of the GPS telling us which way to go. We were driving on the Autoban for much of the journey which wasn’t too bad. If you haven’t driven here yet, my only advice is if you do venture into the left lane to pass someone make sure you check your mirrors as cars can come flying up from behind quite quickly. It sounds like in Germany its pretty much never okay to slow these individuals down so getting quickly back into the right lane is always a good idea. I do enjoy not having a speed limit however, I think I was pushing our little Ford Fiesta to its limits.

We arrived in Trier around eight in the evening. Inkari and Peter were gracious hosts and took us out for a quick walk that brought us by an old Roman colosseum. It is amazing to live an an area that has history that goes so far back. We then headed up the side of a hill that gave a great view over the city of Trier. It is set down in a river valley with vineyards covering the sides of the surrounding hills.


After our walk we came home and Inkari had dinner ready for us. It was nice to sit down and visit with our hosts over a nice dinner and relax after a long bout of traveling.

test

Great Saturday

Slept in this morning until 9. It was so nice to get some extra rest. I don’t know what it is about the week of school after a long break, but it really wipes you out. After some honey nut cheerios I dropped Erin off at Jesse and Aprils house and went out for a ski. It was about 6 below when I stared skiing. The sun was shining a the snow was sparkling everywhere. The trail was snowed over from the wind and snow we had last night so I was breaking the trail again. There were lot of fresh tracks already out. I wasn’t sure but I think there were fox, wolf, and deer.

After skiing I hauled wood to fill up the “wood box” outside our house. Then I relaxed and took a sauna.

Curling instead of skiing

Thursday nights I curl in the afternoon league. We played
pretty well and ended up winning in an extra end. The excitement of
the game however was Tony having the opportunity to score 8 in one
end. He ended up missing by about an inch on his throw. Fun times.
Back to skiing tomorrow.

Skiing

Double click to play.

Back to Skiing

I went for a ski after work today.  There was a lot of snow on the trail.  at times it was above my knee.  Im guessing it averaged about a foot and a half of new snow.  This caused the skiing to be slow and more of a walk than a glide.  It was great to be out in the fresh air and watch the sun setting behind the trees.  As I was skiing along I flushed a grouse that had been bedded down underneath the snow.  There wasn’t really a trace of it being there, and as I skied up onto where it was hiding, it exploded out of the snow leaving a perfect set of wing prints in the snow.

I have a really cool app on my iPhone called RunKeeper.  It kept stats on my progress including distance traveled and average speed.  Every five minutes it would announce the duration of my ski in both time and distance and then let me know what my average speed was.  On the way out I was averaging 37 minute miles and by the time I got back to the car the average was down to 27 minute miles.  By no means was this a quick ski.  It will be interesting to see what I get to for a speed once the trail is nicely broken in.

Here”s how my fuzzy face fared from the frosty frigidness.  (like my use of appropriate f words?)

Last Day of Break

Well that went awfully fast.  I can’t believe Christmas break is already over.  Today I pretty much laid around the house watching Sawyer with Erin.  The Vikings game was on in the background which was really a waste of my time.  After the boy took off Erin was driving her Dad to Virginia I got my winter gear on and shoveled off Jim’s roof.  He was planning on doing it tomorrow, and since I had the time I figured I’d take care of it for him.  He does most of the driveway plowing so I hope it evens out a bit.

I also put in for a BWCAW permit today.  The lottery for the 2011 canoeing season has opened and will close on the 15th.  We put in for the Nina Moose entry point hoping to get into Lady Boot bay on Lac La Croix for some fishing.  We hear its pretty amazing there.

We are also planning on a Quetico trip this summer as well.  This will be my first trip into the Canadian version of the BWCA.  After doing some research on the web it looks like their permitting system is shut down right now for a revamp.  We’ll apply for the Canadian permits when they open back up for business.

Its back to school tomorrow.  Its crazy how fast the first half of the year has gone.

Let the new year begin

2010 was a great year with lots of fun and lots of work.  I’ve been working very hard on getting my masters in educational technology.  In 2010 I completed 27 credits, 9 in the spring semester, 9 in the summer session, and 9 in the fall semester.  I’ve only two classes left and will finish the program this summer.  Erin and I have some exciting news, and it doesn’t involve a baby.  😉  In the last month of the year we officially purchased our home on lake Vermilion.  We love living on the lake and enjoy getting out in all the seasons Northern Minnesota has to offer.  School (work) is going well.  I am teamed up with a guy named Steve who works for a technology company based in Duluth.  He comes up to Virginia twice a week and we hammer out the tickets created by our staff k-12.

We’ve had a nice amount of snow this year so far.  I’ve only been out skiing once though.  🙁  I am hoping to ski at least three times a week in the coming months.  I may have blogged about this already, but I’m not sure.  Jesse and I built a sauna this summer.  We’ve been using it quite a bit and I’m really excited to use it after skiing this year.

Well.  I hope to blog more often in 2011.  We’ll see how that goes.