Ahnapee Trail

Yesterday we set out to see some of the Wisconsin sights. I had found a bike/hiking/snowmobile trail a few weeks ago so we loaded up the bikes and set out to see what it was about.

The trail was really beautiful all along. It reminded me of finding the good fishing holes with my Dad in Idaho. One really great thing about biking in WI, everything is flat!

A hornet nest.

This flowering tree was so funky. It reminds me of one of the plants in Hawaii.

Us by a field.


Farms and corn fields, both of which are all over the place.

Pictures from the Trip

Here are some of our pictures from our trip from OR to WI.

This is how we looked traveling down the road. All professional in the front and scary in the back!

We saw beautiful country all along the way.

The Rockie Mountains.

The notorius Fargo, ND. To know how the people talk out here think of the movie Fargo and there you go.
Some turtles we saw at a rest stop. FYI Minnesota has the best rest stops, clean, safe, and not scary. I saw plenty of bathrooms on the way out and the thing I noticed. People in the Midwest, for the most part, do not believe in toilet seat covers. Hardley any bathrooms had them! Yuck.







Despite having a migraine for the previous three days I was determined to make it to Mall of America in MN. It's huge! They have four levels, two food courts, plus restaurants, and rides and a rollercoaster in the middle. It was so big I actually got tired of shopping. We did however manage to make it to all the shops. Too fun. Ann, wish you had been there, it would have been even better than Black Friday shopping.

Camp-

They had a Lego Land where everything was made out of Legos. Look at this Robot with Ryan. It's all made out of Legos. It's almost as tall as Ryan and your Dad! They also had an airplane with a propeller that went around, a hot air balloon, and a lot more. Do you think you can build something that big?












When I was little I had an American Girl doll and I loved her so much. Given that each outfit was about $50 then I didn't get too many of her accessories, mostly from Grandma. Gotta love Grandmas! In the mall they have one of the American Girl shops. It's every little girls dream, and maybe big girls who are reminising too! You can purchase the dolls and accessories or take your girl to the beaty shop. Oh, yes they actually have stylists who do their hair! And the best yet, a cafe where little girls and their dolls can have tea parties. They have highchais that hook to the table for the dolls so they dine with you. Not only do the people get to eat they have food for the dolls too. I think you can guess where I will be visiting if I have a little girl.

While we were there I went to show Ryan the doll I had. For some reason I couldn't find it after looking high and low I asked a teller. And no joke she said they had retired her. What? I'm only 28. I could hardley believe it. It was a wonderful walk down memory lane.


These pictures are for Jacob. We saw Sponge Bob and his starfish buddy. They had a big roller coaster ride where all the kids went. We also saw Sponge Bob's house. We thought of you and wished you could have been there to meet Sponge Bob.

Right as we crossed the border into Wisconsin we saw what looked like an average big box store. Much to Ryan's absolute pleasure it was a firework store. It was set up like a suppermarket but instead of meat and veggies it was row upon row of fireworks. And we're not talking regular fireworks. They're the professional ones. Many of the packages are $400-$500+ and they have shopping carts. Do you mean people fill up those carts at $500 an item? What?! I can't imagine blowing money on smoke and spark like that. I think Ryan was in Heaven. He was in shock that you can legally buy and set these off anytime of the year. No more traveling to a reservation Wisconsin has their own year round firework supermarket. When we got back in the car I said to Ryan, "Well welcome to Wisconsin Ryan." He said with the biggest smile on his face, "Yeah, I think it's going to be good."

Our first look at Wisconsin country. It's definatley a lot flater out here but suprisingly green. And that's saying a lot coming from an Oregonian. They have a lot of trees they just grow in groves here instead of everywhere at once. You'll notice the red barns, they are everywhere. No matter where you look you see at least three and then turn around and see more. They are really different from West Coast barns in that they have a domed shaped roof and their foundations are all out of stone and everyone has at least on silo if not more.

Here is the Mobile Bay Ryan's new ship. In the winter they break the ice blocking the shipping channels along the Great Lakes. The rest of the year they attach the barge you can see on the front and tend all the buoys.
Our first week here we headed down to Milwakee, about three hours SE of us, to go to the exchange and see the sights. I love all the brick buildings. Cities definatley have an older history here. Unfortunaley the Exchange doesn't carry uniforms. Dang 7 hours of driving and a full tank of gas later... we came home with only pictures.

First Post From the Land of Cheese!

Yes, I finally feel like I am back to living once again. It's been about a month and a half of slowly losing my connections to the world (ie internet, household goods, recieving mail) in preperation for our move and then slowly getting them back. And that's a heck of a L-O-N-G time to be without. But today offically marks the end of it (at least for the next three years), as my internet got connected today. Yipee!
We made it out here to Wisconsin in about ten days. We took two days to stop in Montana and North Dakota to visit Ryan's family. The stops were much needed after several days in a row of 8+ hours of traveling. It was a good trip and I'll post pictures when my camera arrives back here at the house (Ryan took it underway with him). We or I should say for the time being "I" am finally settled into our new home. You don't realize how much you love your bed, good sharp knives, and a washer and dryer that are quiet and work awesome until you have to do without! I am in a whirlwind around here most every day making this house our home and filling it with our dirt. There's something about dirt being your own and not someone else's that is so much comfort when you have to clean it up. And what is the best thing about a new house? White walls of course! All the endless possibilities of color I could splash on them and the hours of furniture arranging making it just right. It all make me so giddy. I took about a days break after putting most of the house together and then I decided that the master bathroom must be re-done. Ahh the smell of fresh paint!!! I believe it might possibly be better than the smell of fresh sheets. (Don't worry I checked with the dr. and it's zero VOC to boot.) Saturday I am off to Green Bay with a friend to go check out fixtures to complete "the look."
So far I really like the town. It's very charming with a lot of old houses which are immaculently maintained. Did you know they fine you if your grass gets too long? So on any given day you can drive past and see at least a handful of people out doing yard work. The locals are really helpful, well unless they are in a customer service postion but that's a whole nother story.
Well that's a start. There's so much to say but I'll wait until I get my camera so I can add pic to go along.

BTW- Does anyone know what "Soup to Nuts" means? I know what it means, in essence something that is from start to finish but what relevence does soup and nuts have to the meaning? I thought about making soup from scratch and then the final touch would be to top it with nuts. But I've never seen people use nuts in place of crackers. Any thoughts? ...maybe I do need to lay off the painting a bit.

This Is How I Told

This is how I told Ryan...

A stack of diapers on his closet shelf with a specially "loaded" one. (Just melted Snickers.)

This is how we told my family on Easter...

Say, "We are moving to Wisconsin."

Say, "We can't wait to try the cheese!"

Say, "We're having a baby!"

...After the words registered.

And this post is how I am telling you!

The Next Adventure

Well, Tuesday morning we received the long awaited phone call...our orders. However, they didn't come as we had expected they would. You know when the detailer (the Coast Guard dude who gets to play chess with our lives & decides where we will live for a few years) calls its not going to be good news. And this is because it mean that out of all the places you submitted, that you would like to go, none are available. For us it meant that 37 places we would like to have lived were places other people apparently would like to live also. So we are now headed out to the big state of (INSERT DRUM ROLL HERE)........................................................Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Yeah, that's what we thought too...Wisconsin? I have never felt the undeniable urge to even want to visit the state let alone live there & Ryan has never mentioned it either. However, we are determined to make the best of it, snow and all. So we have started making a list of activities/places to visit/things to go that will make us excited about being stationed there. Believe me it took a couple of days for me to get over the snow issue, it pisses me off having to live and deal with it, & be able to thing of anything to be excited about. Here is the list so far:

Reasons To Be Excited to Move to Wisconsin

1. The Green Bay Packer are 1 hr away.

2. Visit Green Bay

3. Norter Dame's Fighting Irish are 8hrs away

4. Hockey games (probably better than the high schoolers here in Eugene)

5. Learn to ice skate

6. Oprah is only 3 hours away

7. Visit Chicago

8. Visit Canada

9. Closer to the South than Oregon is

10. See our friends stationed in the Midwest & east coast

11. You can bait bears for hunting

12. Different ducks to hunt than in Oregon

13. Great excuse to buy some Uggs

You probably noticed #1,3,11, & 12 are courtesy of Ryan. If you can thing of any other reasons let us know. We are still waiting for the report date so I'll pass it along later.

"Hiking"

I was going through our photos & ran across our adventure (another time I thought my life was most likely in danger, I mentioned it in the last post) where Ryan had us "hiking" down a cliff via ropes. Uh, Ryan...that's not called "hiking" that's repelling...without harnesses. Thought I would post some of them for your viewing pleasure & to remind myself how precious life is. I may not make it out of his next adventure.

Oh, & this little beauty right here. This is where Ryan just happens to be collecting more crap...I mean useful found "treasures." Leave it up to him to be able to find an old crab pot beacon on a remote beach accessible by repelling only. He succeeded in getting the strobe light out & packing it home. He was so happy!

Hobbitt Beach

After leaving Astoria Ryan & I realized that there were quite a few activities & locations we failed to take advantage of while there. With only four months to go before we are transfered again we are scrambling to see all the "hot spots" of Florence before it's too late. So last week we went to Hobbitt's Beach. I had heard so many great things about the beach from friends. I was told you can collect a ton of shells, the path to the beach ends with you emerging out of a earthin hole, hence the name of the beach, & it has easy access (this really peaked my intrest because not so long ago Ryan took me to a beach where we had to use ropes off the side of a cliff to access!)

Aside from the evening of our reception I have never in my life been to a beach when it was so warm & calm, not even in Hawaii. It was such great weather. And because we had to hike 1.5miles in & out the weather was especially a blessing. We found some nice tufts of beach grass to spread our blanket on, left our picnic basket, one of our fav. wedding presents, & went exploring. I was so happy to see an outcropping of rocks where tidepooling was a probability, I have really missed tidepooling latley, and just my luck there were lots of pools stuffed with anenemis.

Of course we had to take a picture in front of the Hobbitt Hole. After ten minutues of trying to create a tripod out of drift wood a lady offered to take our picture. I must say her's turned out much better than ours.

We strolled the beach, did some sand carving, & ended our day with a picnic under the emerging rain storm (that most likely accounted for the great weather), how romantic minus the stringy wet, wind blown hair.

Oh, & on the drive back home we had a little adventure too. Ryan is always on the look out for free crap on the side of the road and I do mean crap. One time he saw a cardboard box, got curious, stopped, looked inside & decided it was worth lugging home. It was full of tapes, not CD's tapes, from 80's hair bands. On this particular day he spots a binoculars case on a guard rail. A guard rail that was on a corner of the road with no pull out. So hoping it was full of an expensive pair of binoculars he turns around drives back up the road where I figure he will park the car on a turnout & walk back down to the guardrail. Much to my horror he starts briefing me on his plan involving me as the recoverer. He tells me I have to be quick because he can't really stop on such a sharp corner & because we can't see the traffic coming until they are right there on us. And while we wait for the traffic in both directions, the traffic we can see, to clear he's saying, "You've got to be fast. You have to be really fast." And at this point I am scared for my life but I go along anyway. Once we can't see any traffic coming either direction he hauls the Expo' back down to the corner where the prize awaits, yells, "Hurry, get out." And I'm off, out of the car, grab the case, run for my life & jump back in the car.... and... the case... is EMPTY. Was it worth it?... Oh, yes. Because for those few minutes that I thought my life might be rapidly drawing to a close, I reinforced in Ryan's mind that I AM still the coolest chick he knows. And that is priceless.