Camping at Sakatah State Park

Me and Lisa took a camping trip last weekend to Sakatah State Park. I wanted to go where there were plenty of lakes for fishing. It is about an hour and a half drive north of Austin. Once I got Lisa straightened out on the navigating, we checked in at the campground at about 5 on Friday. We got the tent set up and I went fishing.

I just fished from the boat dock because I didn't feel like unloading my jonboat. I hooked into a northern pike and got it all the way to the bank. I tried to lift the line to get the fish onto the bank but the line broke. The good thing was, the fish was in shallow enough water that it didn't move. I wasn't sure what to do to get it for a picture, so I decided to try and grab it. As soon as my hands got around it, it took off with my lure in its mouth. It was about 2 ft long and I think it weighed 3-4 pounds. It put up a good fight and ended up winning. Later that night I caught a fat bullhead and threw it back.

Saturday morning we woke up at about 5, but it was already light enough to fish. We put the boat on Sakatah Lake and went to a spot that a man at the boat dock recommended the night before. There were a lot of weeds on the lake. There were also Northerns surfacing all around us. We stayed on the water for about 3 hours without a bite. Pretty disappointing.

We went geocaching that afternoon and managed to find a few. We were the only ones on the trails, except for the thousand mosquitoes following us. Lisa's directional difficulties improved a little bit with the GPS in her hands.

Saturday afternoon we went about 15 miles to Madison Lake. It's supposed to be one of the best fishing lakes in Southern Minnesota. It gets down to 60 ft deep, and my anchor wouldn't reach at that depth. We found a quiet cove where other big boats couldn't harass us and tried some more fishing. The trolling motor battery died so it was all rowing at this lake. Lisa rowed for about 1/2 mile and did pretty good. Of course, I managed to snag a whopper bluegill. Lisa caught 2 drum. At least we didn't get skunked. If you notice Lisa's shirt, you can imagine the bad sunburn she got on her back.

Saturday night we relaxed around the campsite. We ate some good hamburgers and a brat. Lisa got a lot of reading in. Sunday morning I woke up early to give Lisa a good campfire breakfast. Luckily, she's not very picky. I just cooked a couple eggs and burnt a little bacon and she was satisfied. We got a warning from the park rangers about our dog being unattended the day before. Sorry about that Rangers. She was pretty understanding when I explained that my small boat with 2 people and a dog wouldn't work very well. We tried to go out fishing again Sunday morning with the dog and us in the boat. Lisa didn't care for Belle making the boat move so much. I was used to it. A storm was coming in and we didn't want to get struck by lightning, so we headed back to the truck after 1/2 an hour.

Overall, I think the trip went good. We had nice weather until late morning of the last day there. We got to spend a lot of time on the water. We couldn't get any fish for eatin, but I was glad to have my fishing partner with me.

Here Little Fishy

We went on our first official fishing trip of the year last Sunday. We just headed over to Fountain Lake in Albert Lea. Planned on getting on the lake with the jon boat but it was much to windy. We didn't have much luck but Tony managed to snag two of these whoppers ;)

Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day all! It's been a wonderful weekend for the unofficial kickoff to summer. Tony and I are eager to get camping and to enjoy everything else that summer brings. Many thanks go to the men and women who have served and continue to serve this wonderful country we call home.

I realize it's been some time since we last updated this blog. I also realized I never added the pictures of the newly finished bathroom. We are so glad it's done. It was a long project but well worth it! Just about all this is left is to find a shower curtain that will go with the color scheme. For now, the one we have will do just fine.

We took some time off of renovating, about a month, and now we are back at it again. This item it's the living and dining room. Basically all that involves is fixing a couple of spots in the walls, along with the endless cracks have a plaster walled house brings, painting and finding/making new curtains.

(My husband LOVES to get his picture taken)

Other than that, not much else is new in our lives. Been keeping semi busy with weekend get-togethers with friends, garage sales, and Tony is wrapping up school. Only two more weeks!!! He's got an interview with the State Patrol next week so keep your fingers crossed and him in your prayers!

Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Congrats to all the recent graduates, especially, Katie, Brandon, Kelsey and Michael! Katie and Brandon-best of luck in your future endeavors. Kelsey and Michael -welcome to the big kids club; it's kind of over-rated :) Love ya all!

Spring is in the Air

Well I think it is safe to say Spring is here. We have been having abnormally (at least that is what I hear) higher temps. Not sure if that has anything to do with climate change or not...but at least I am enjoying the warm days. I've been able to get out and run most days. All the grass is really greening up and the tulips are finally starting to bloom. I love it. No leaves on most of the trees yet but they are fully budded out and a think any day now we will start to see some green on them too. I can't wait to start to start planting flowers. Oh and the ruhbarb is coming up like crazy. If anyone wants any please help yourselves. I have 8 plants that I don't know what to do with!

Tony and I can't wait until he is finally done with his schooling. We are really getting the urge to go camping and canoeing. Oh and we both got fishing licenses this year so I am super excited to get out to catch some fish!

Here's a nice surprise I found in the front yard yesterday. I always thought it was a pretty bush but I didn't think it would actually bloom.

Birthday

So last Friday was my birthday! Oh and Happy Birthday to my birthday buddie Brenda too! Thanks to everyone for the cards(and the money;)), the well wishes and phone calls. I received a nice surprise at work around 11:00. Tony got me this beautiful flower arrangement.

Later that night we headed to Rochester to go to dinner. Tony was all dressed up when I got off work. He had a whole list of these different restaurants picked out for me to choose from. Some of them didn't allow jeans. That's pretty fancy for us. I told him I wanted seafood and I really did not want to wear my dress pants all day so I choice Red Lobster. It was decisious as ususal. After that we headed to a movie. It'd been forever since we had seen a movie. We saw Date Night on the Mega screen. And it was a mega screen. We were sitting almost too close. The movie was great. I'd highly suggest it if you are in the mood to laugh. It was a wonderful day and weekend. My family and friends helped make it so. I'm so lucky to have great people in my life.

Thank you so much Aunt Carol for the box of goodies and gifts!! Tony especially enjoyed the candy!

Almost done!

Here's an update on the bathroom process. We have a shower!! Woohoo! You have no idea how excited we are about this b/c more tiles in the downstairs bathroom continue to fall! Plumbers came about a month ago and installed at the pipe work. Then we set to tiling the bathroom. This was a fun experience. I really enjoyed it. As long as I could keep them straight. Mostly I liked playing with the thin-set.

The most difficult part was the cut tiles. We rented a saw from a local place in town and had it from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning. Tony worked all day Friday trying to take measurements and getting the tiles cut. We realized later that it would have been much easier to do with two people. This way one could double check that if fit right. On top of that, Tony froze his butt off using the wet saw and by the time I got home from work he was ready to stop for the day.

Since we had a few more tiles to cut we decided to get up early on Saturday and get these done before our 10:30 deadline to have the saw back and only get charged for one day.

So we got up early ready to go. However we had a nice surprise when we went to cut more tiles. It never occured to us that it was really cold outside and we have a saw that requires water to work properly. Needless we found out that the water tubes to the saw were froze! Something we did not plan on. This took some much needed time out of our short schedule. So after a couple of buckets of hot water and a hair dryer or two we got the saw back in proper working order.

The rest of the morning was a busy blur but we made it. Some of the tiles could of been done better but overall I believe we are statisfied with our first tiling experience.

Tony grouted and sealed the whole bathroom. I found out that I wasn't as good at this but I did try grouting on very, very, small part.

All that is left is painting, installing the new vanity and faucet, medicine cabinet, and other finishing touches. I can't wait!

On a side note, I received some good news at work this week. I received a promotion and I will be moving across the street to the corporate office. I look forward to the challenges, excitement, as well as the summer hours it brings ;)

New Truck

This story is actually Tony's story to tell but I've been hearing from people that we need to update the blog so here you go.

A couple of weeks ago Tony rolled his truck on interstate. He was fine. Didn't have a scatch on him, the the good Lord above. The Toyota didn't fare as well. The insurance ended up totalling the truck. So for the past week and a half we have been truck shopping. It was a lot of back and forth. At the moment we don't really need a full sized truck but we would like to have one in the future. After much hunting (the internet was a big help), Tony found a few that he wanted to go test drive. One day before his class in Rochester he test drove a few. Later that night he told me he thought he found his truck. After a quick phone call to the best mechanic in the world, I was like okay, lets go look at it tomorrow night after I get off work. The next day I go home for lunch. Tony's says I think I may have found a better truck. It was a year newer and it had less miles.

So that night was a long night. One truck was in Fairbault (about an hour North) and the other in Rochester(45min east of Austin). So we made a big trip. We got to Fairbault and the truck was up on the lifts. They were fixing something(like I said, Tony could tell this story much better). Anyways we got to Fairbault at about 5:30, expecting the test drive the truck and head to Rochester and test drive the other truck, but we had to get there by 8. We both knew we'd be cutting it close since they were working on this truck(kind of a bad sign huh). I think it was 6:45 by the time we were able to get in the truck. Drive it for a bit and headed to Rochester. Tony was thinking he liked the one in Rochester better, and after seeing that one, I did too. So that's the truck we got.

We had to go back the next night to get it and sign all the paperwork but so far we have enjoyed it. It's definently something we plan to have a very, very long time. Probably the biggest downside of it is it doesn't fit in the garage :( Which means we, or I rather, get to play musical cars in the morning if I want to take the car to work. Oh well, I'm in love with the truck...I've always wanted a big truck although it came a little sooner than we planned.