Out West

Shana, Anja, and I have been having a great trip thus far! We are currently in Spokane, Washington and we head to Everett, WA tomorrow and then on to Vancouver. Anja has been a trooper, despite an additional tooth and what looks like more on the way. She has also really started to cruise around on her feet. While she's balanced a few times on her own, she is walking all over the place with help. Here she is with Grandpa Erickson near the Lower Falls in Yellowstone.

We are also relieved to hear that to our knowledge, all our friends and family are safe and sound after the 35W bridge collapse. We were shocked to hear of it and our hearts go out to all those who have suffered from this tragedy.

Our trip started out with a brief visit to Alexandria, Minnesota where we saw Shana's grandmother. Beverly was looking much better and she was in good spirits. From there we spent our first night in Dilworth, Minnesota with a wonderful stay at the Traaseths, Erik's godparents. As always the food was great and so was the conversation. Al and Jan even gave us a great restaurant recommendation and we are looking forward to eating at Confluence in Prescott, Wisconsin sometime when we got back.

Our next stop was Fort Smith, Montana where we met up with the rest of my family. Fort Smith lies at the start of the Bighorn river, which could be the premier trout river in the world. There are some 5,000 catchable fish, meaning they would be worth keeping, per square mile, and that is a conservative estimate. While Fort Smith is basically a small village just filled with fishing guides and shops, it was originally created to house the workers building the damn. Once the damn was finished, the town basically dried up. Fly fishing is probably the largest reason for the town's existence today. Evidently Dick Cheney came to Fort Smith and shut down a good stretch of the Bighorn river so he could fish it a year or so ago. Hopefully Dick was a better fisherman than hunter . . . somehow I doubt it. He probably used a spinner reel anyway (using a spinning reel on a trout stream might as well be blasphemous). For our part, we had some decent luck despite some tough fishing conditions. My dad and brother fared the best and I at least caught one fish. Shana even gave fly fishing a try and we were impressed by her natural talent. For anyone who has ever attempted fly fishing, it is not something most people can just pick up in a day and while I might be a bit biased, lets just say Shana isn't most people. The photo above is my dad in action while the two below, from left to right, are a section of the Bighorn river near 3-mile and the local baptist church in Fort Smith around sunset.


The best part of this portion of our trip, at least for me, is that we were joined by my brother. Karl is currently living the ultimate bachelor lifestyle in Japan where he is in the JET program. He is also a total surf bum, if the picture didn't make that perfectly clear, and just does his own thing. We really haven't seen him for over 2 years so it was great to do some catching up.

From Fort Smith we headed to Roscoe, Montana where we stayed with the Arthuns. We had great fun and we extend a huge thanks to our wonderful hosts. We went on a great little day hike up to Slough Creek where we got a little fishing in as well. The photo above is of my brother from across the lake. Mountain lakes can be a lot of fun and we managed to catch a decent number of cutthroat trout. By we, I really mean everyone else as I wasn't able to land a fish on this occasion.

From Roscoe it was on to Yellowstone and Anja's first camping experience. This was our last stop with the Erickson's. We enjoyed some great fishing on Slough Creek and saw a good deal of wildlife. If anyone can identify the yellow bird in the picture to the right we'd love to know what it is. The big adventure was camping with Anja. The photo on the left shows her cruising around the campsite. To give ourselves some extra space we borrowed my parents old expedition tent. It was fantastic until it started to rain and we found out that the once premier tent now leaks. Luckily it was a short rain and we are able to keep ourselves and Anja warm and dry. She was a real trooper, especially considering she was also in the process of getting her second tooth.
After the first day of fishing and getting settled in, we toured some of the sights. The above photo is the lower falls of the Yellowstone canyon. For the second night we stayed at the Roosevelt lodge in a quaint little cabin. It was a great little one room cabin with a little wood stove and all. While it was nice for us, I'm sure Anja also appreciated it as she was really in the process of cutting her second tooth and it was sure giving her some grief. The photos below are of a wildflower in some valley Northwest of Tower and a closeup of Anja walking around with Grandpa near the Lower Falls.


I also did a bit of reconnaissance work for a winter ski trip across the park. In the winter of 2009 I, along with some other adventurous souls, will cross country ski from the Southern edge to the Northern edge of the park. I got a lot of good information from the Rangers and now the major challenge is simply deciding which route to take. There really are just too many good options!

From there we said goodbye to my parents and brother and headed off to Bozeman where we stayed with Eric and Elizabeth Gilje, college friends of Shana and mine. It was great to catch up with them and to introduce Anja. We look forward to staying with them again on our way back. Eric also introduced me to some great Montana beer and I'm excited to get my hands on some more of that as well!
We'll try and post a bit more regularly as I believe we'll have more regular internet access for the remainder of our trip. We'll have to see.

We have a tooth!

On Friday afternoon Anja finally got her first tooth. While it is not all the way in yet, it is definitely there! So far Anja has been handling it well and it doesn't seem to be bothering her too much. It will be interesting to see if she gets any more in the next couple of days as a number of her teeth seem to be just below the surface. Although, I think we'd do well to take that with a grain of salt as we thought she was teething four months ago! If she does get a few teeth back to back, it will be perfect timing for our road trip out west ;-)


Here are a few pictures from the past week. Anja is really starting to move and laugh! It has been great fun to tickle her, chase her around, and play peek-a-boo with her! The outdoor pictures are from the Osceola landing. Anja was exploring the grass, twigs, and anything else she could get her hands on. The picture of her inside was taken this morning during a game of peek-a-boo with her mom. I really like the photo because of the subtle expression on her face. I'll let you try and decide what she's thinking.

Tomorrow we're off to adventures out west. We're going to try and post along the way so check back now and again to see where our adventures have taken us.

A Dip in Golden Lake

A couple of days ago, we took Anja to a nearby lake for the first time. It seemed to us that she enjoyed herself--no trepidation or tears, just lots of curiosity. With all of this hot weather we're experiencing, we hope to get her back in the next couple of days before we head out west.








In preparation for our trip out west, we put Anja in this winter's snow suit. We plan to do a few nights of camping in Montana and Yellowstone, so she'll need to stay warm. She can stand to grow a few more inches, but we think it'll do the trick!


We hope to publish a few posts while we're on the road, so stay tuned!

Jay Cooke

Ever since I began posting about topics other than Anja (see some of my posts in June about Mark in China, Hannah's rugby game, hail at the lake, etc.), Shana has been giving me grief about losing sight of the obvious focus of this blog. Recently, classmates of mine echoed these concerns and after Shana gave me even more grief over my last 3 posts, none of which focused on Anja, I bent to the pressure. While I still intend to post about random topics, here are a number of photos highlighting Anja and our trip to Jay Cooke. The photo above is a personal favorite of mine. It is always wonderful to come home to those bright blue eyes.
The kids pack is truly a great invention and Anja really seems to enjoy the ride. We hiked for over an hour before she started to get the slightest bit fussy. We definitely have an active child and she was keen to do a bit of exploring for herself. It's great fun to watch her facial expressions as she feels things for the first time. The pine needles and pine cones were some of her favorites at our lunch stop.Anja has also becoming much more expressive and is giving us some great big smiles. Still no teeth, but we can see a number of them right below the surface of her gums. Here she is truly enjoying the ride!

In a bizarre coincidence, a trail marathon was in progress as we hiked along. The 26.2 mile event was actually a warm-up to the 50 mile trail marathon to be held later this summer. We cheered the runners as we hiked along and even ran into Tim Stoddart, one of the many brave souls to tackle the event. I worked for the Stoddarts during a summer in college - what a small world. Who knows, perhaps we'll be running in that marathon next summer!

Here's a link to the half (26.2 mile) event: http://mvtu.slovis.com/
Here's a link to the full (50 mile) event: http://www.voyageurtrailrun.com/

A Trip in the Kelty Kids Pack

Last Saturday, we traveled to Jay Cooke State Park. It was the perfect day for a hike and picnic.

Anja's Return to the Blog

Anja a little tuckered out on her way to Dave & Diana's post-wedding open house. Congrats you two!

It has been a hectic couple of weeks . . . my Mom and Dad are now official residents of MN, we hosted our niece and nephew during the move, traveled to ND and CO and back again and are finally settling back home for a few weeks. Here are some shots from all of the events.

For our loyal "Anja-watchers," you'll be happy to see that there are several shots of her. For the record, I've given Erik some grief about too many posts that don't even mention her!

Our nephew Antonio with Anja. He wanted to put foot rattles on her feet. He was great with her, singing to her whenever she was fussy and using Grandpa's old cell phone to play music for her as well.
Antonio and our niece, Nina at the start of our trip. As you can see, we talked Grandma into purchasing a portable DVD player for the trip. Can we watch "The Incredibles" one more time?!

Anja driving with Grandpa at the Rolfsrud Reunion in Watford City, ND. This was during the driving tour of the area. Our van didn't have 4-wheel drive so we opted out of the drive through the hills (yes, there are hills in western ND!).
The view from Don & Karen Kirmis' (Karen is my Mom's cousin) back yard in western ND near Watford City. We stayed at their beautiful cabin for two nights. They were wonderful hosts!
Nina playing with Anja somewhere in western SD. Anja was a great little traveler. We made several stops to parks and picnic areas to give her a break from her car seat.
After checking out Mount Rushmore, we headed down to Fort Collins to drop Nina and Antonio off. Here's a picture of my sister, Alyssa with Anja.
L to R: Antonio, Corey (my brother-in-law), Nina, Memmo, Alyssa and Emillio. Emillio had an appendicitis a few weeks ago, but only had three small battle wounds to show.
Anja at a park somewhere along I-80 in Nebraska. Grandma and Grandpa were doing "corpse pose" nearby. (It was a long trip!)
And last but not least, my Mom and Dad picking up their new Prius. It's a pretty sweet car, loaded with a in-dash touch screen computer and the works. My Mom, who isn't shy to tell people she's not the best with technology, plans to spend the first few months of retirement figuring out how to use it. Good luck!

Thor at the Tour

Thor Hushovd won stage 4 of the Tour de France today. If you remember from last year's tour, Erik and Thor are good friends ;-) Be sure to check out some Tour de France sites to get a stage recap. Here's a link for todays stage report http://www.versus.com/tdf -- note that might change depending on the day.

A Snapshot of Karl's World

Karl is my brother. He's a great guy who's currently teaching English in Japan. I think I've received all of 3 e-mails from him in the past 6 months, so I know he's doing just fine. Two of those were really directed towards Shana and were about sending him a pair of sun glasses he had ordered. I was lucky enough to finally get one today and here is what it consisted of.

Ps--- Super weekend fun ahead.. have a look
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/wp200704.html
= big f-'in waves

Okay, to put it in context had just sent another 2 liner thanking Shana for sending his new shades.

Karl has always been the type of guy who works hard and plays hard. A perfect day for him in Japan involves the "trifecta" of surfing, skateboarding, and fly fishing. Luckily for him, the island he lives on provides abundant playgrounds for all of these. In fact, it has the best surfing in all of Japan.
Here's the picture from the link he sent which shows a typhoon being tracked. The island Karl is on is farther North and it does not look like it will be directly hit. In any case and as he so elegantly put it, this means there will be crazy big waves. Have fun bro and don't try and stick around if your island gets evacuated! (for the record, he has been evacuated a few times due to typhoons)

The Wonders of Google

While back at class this week, a classmate of mine introduced me to iGoogle. Basically it allows you to create a customizable home page with all sorts of gadgets. This can range from news feeds about a wide range of topics, to a virtual fish bowl, to calendars, to gas price maps, to random quote generators. My personal favorites thus far include the Chuck Norris fact generator and the Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey generator. Ok, so both of those are terribly trivial, but they're worth a good laugh. You can also add these to web pages. Notice our fish bowl on the right side of the page - feed them if you like.

To keep up to date on all the wonders of Google they even have a blog. I've linked the Google Blog from our page. Also, here is a link to iGoogle.

Another very interesting program I found through the TED website is Trendalyzer. Hans Rosling and the folks at Gapminder (an organization that works to promote awareness and development of the third world, especially in Africa) demos this software and you can see it in action here. Google bought the software and is working on making it accessible to millions (or at least that's what I hear). In any case, you can check out a beta version here. It's certainly an interesting way to look at statistics about the world. If you want another eye opener of world living conditions, check out the program dollar street.

I hope everyone has a great 4th!

Erik

The Big Move

The last year has been a long and hard one for my parents, and the culmination of it was the scheduled move that took place this past week. Between preparing their home in Colorado for sale, showings, cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning, they finally sold their house and began packing a couple of weeks ago.

A few words of wisdom from my Mom: "De-clutter now, Shana! It will make your life a whole lot easier when you decide to sell and move again!" Here's a picture of my Dad, nephew Antonio (a great little helper!), and Erik with the moving truck they drove to Cloquet. The truck was stuffed to the gills, thanks to Erik's master packing skills. The unpacking of the additional PODS will happen later this fall. (Hoorah!)

My Dad will be serving a parish as interim for a year or more. In the meantime, the builders have already started construction on their new home in Blaine. Here's a shot of Our Savior's in Cloquet.


Speaking of moving, Anja is keeping her pace. We purchased a walker for her, and she's taking to it quite well. Here she is moving her blocks this afternoon.

I can't resist posting another photo, so here she is in her little library. She's a great page turner!

Good Eatin'

Anja has really hit her stride when it comes to eating solid foods. She's also beginning to have some fun with dinner time! These pictures are from her second encounter with peas. Despite a few bitter faces, she really seems to like them. We have also discovered that she can be quite the picky eater. If the rice cereal or the oatmeal is just the slightest bit too cold, she won't touch it. She obviously gets this from her mother.

For those who know Shana, they'll recall her "bun,burger, bun" days. Yes, she literally ordered hamburgers this way for who knows how long. Erik, on the other hand, has been constantly reminded (at least by his mother) of his days as a nine month old in Greenland eating arctic fox turds. Obviously, the temperature of the turds was not an issue for dear ol' dad. In all fairness, Shana has moved up in the food world and has greatly expanded her palette.

Sneak preview of tomorrow's post: Ron and Linda are nearly settled in at their new place in Cloquet, Minn. Steve, Erik, Antonio and Ron loaded up a rental truck while the Shana, Linda, Nina and Anja readied the new place. Pics and details to come.

The Nature Valley Grand Prix

Every June, professional cycling comes to the Twin Cities. The original 3 day event has grown into a 5 day race with 6 stages. Check out the official web site. The final day is always capped with a criterium race in Stillwater, Minn. A criterium or "crit" is a race where riders complete a number of laps on a course that is around a mile in length. The crit in Stillwater is considered one of the toughest in the nation as it goes up Chillcoot hill. This hill has a 26% grade and needless to say, its brutal. We've been making it an annual event to go down and watch and this year was no exception. The steep hill also provides a similar atmosphere to the big mountain stages of the Tour de France. It also makes the race in Stillwater especially fun to watch! I've posted some photos and a short video clip as well. We also got to try out the Kelty Kids Pack, which Anja seemed to enjoy!

Girls High School Rugby State Championship

A few weeks ago (this is a very timely post) Hannah McMahon, a senior at Minneapolis South High School, helped her team to a 3rd place finish in the State Tournament. While 3rd place sounds great, it really wasn't what the team deserved. In fact, they played a perfect season and were undefeated, at least on the field. Their only loss came from a disqualification due to some substitute players. In the semifinals they would've had to play 3 players down the entire game so they recruited some extra players to fill their line-up. They still played with no substitutions and won fairly easily. The pictures, courtesy of David McMahon, are from that game. However, the subs ended up costing them the game as they had to forfeit. A disappointing way to end up in the 3rd place game.
My rugby knowledge is quite limited, but I believe Hannah plays half-back. She stays out of the scrum and does most of the kicking. Hannah is the one kicking in the photo.In either case, congats Hannah! She will be attending Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois this fall. We wish her the best of luck!Also, check out some of David's photography.

mcmahonphoto.blogspot.com
www.portfolios.com/mcmahonstudio

Congrats Nathan and Krista!

Yesterday afternoon marked the wedding of Nathan Gossai and Krista Johnson. Both Nathan and Krista were fellow Concordia grads and have become good friends of ours. After a stint in the Caribbean for their honeymoon, they will be heading to Virginia where Nathan will continue medical school at Georgetown and Krista will begin her dental practice. We wish them the best of luck! We realized, to our chagrin, that the picture below was the only one we took of the couple. While the light isn't great, here they are during their first dance as a married couple.The wedding was beautiful and Hemchand (Nathan's father) delivered a very memorable homily, definitely not of the canned variety. Interestingly enough, Hemchand along with Nathan's mother Maria, were both Concordia students when my parents were working at the college. Through a number of activities they got to know each other quite well and it was a surprise for both Nathan and me when we found out our parents knew each other. The "Hemchand Gossai Cricket Club" is something I'd still like to hear the full story about or I'd at least like to find the t-shirt. In another bizarre connection, Maria (Vold - we're not certain, but we think this is her maiden name) is from the world famous Watford City, ND, site of the upcoming Rolfsrud family reunion. This means she has also read "Gopher Tales for Papa" by the infamous (a member of the North Dakota hall of fame) Erling Nicolai Rolfsrud. Erling is Shana's late grandfather. What a very small world!

Our true colors as proud parents are really shining when we only had one picture of the bride and groom but numerous shots of Anja. Here she is all decked out for the wedding!


Thanks to Nathan and Krista for the coffee from Africa. I brewed some this morning and it was great!