Near Disaster Averted!

I almost lost every single picture taken on vacation today. The card in my camera received a fatal error saying it needed to be reformatted and refused to let me down load the pictures to the computer. Reformatting would have deleted ALL pictures on the card and started brand new. After some Google-type-searching I was able to find and download a free program called " PC Inspector Smart Recovery" and was able to recover all 388 pictures. Took a long time but they are safe on my PC. To hold you over until I am able to post my trip journals and some proper pictures. He is one of Matthew and his first catch! You can't fake that smile!

WE'RE HOME!!

We finally made it home yesterday afternoon and boy am I glad to be back! Was a fun trip! Will post my trip journal soon as well as a bunch of new pictures!

Tired

I have so much running through my head right now I really feel, at times, like my world is spinning as fast as my thoughts are. There is so much still to be done before we leave for "vacation" but by the time I get home from work I just don't feel capable of doing anything. Yesterday, for example, I biked from the transit station after work and made it home by 4:15pm. At this point I sat on the couch and "rested" because I still needed to cook the kids supper and I had to leave at 6:10 for a board meeting. Ugh

6:10 I bike to the meeting and it lasts until after 8:30pm. We had to clean up all the chairs and tables at the end so by the time I made it home it was a little after 9pm. I was so tired.

Fast forward to today. Up at 3:45am and off to bike to the station at 4:30am to catch the bus into Minneapolis.

I'm tired and there is so much I want to do before we go on Vacation that I have to wonder how I'm going to get it all done.

Feeling overwhelmed.

Finished my book "The Time Traveler's Wife" this morning on the bus ride in to work. Wow...what an amazing book! So good, so funny and sad and romantic all at the same time. I makes me think. I really think everyone should read this book, I absolutely loved it.

17 miles so far this week of "me powered greatness"
0 gas burned
1 less car

awesome...

Thursday - September 11, 2008

Weeeee hours of the morning, current time 5:57am. I am at work and have been here since 5am. Left the house a little early this morning (4:20am) as it was really raining hard and it would be my first ride in the pouring rain. I have to say one thing. What a rush! I loved it!! There are a few things I need to work out, like...how to keep the rain out of my eyes and glasses. I think, of everything, that was the biggest challenge. Being able to see. Will do some research on biking in the rain and see what others have worked out. Maybe some goggles and rain-ex on my lenses? Who knows.

Anyway, I rode to the station and locked up my bike, David drove down there and picked me up and drove me to work. He didn't have any desire to bike in the rain. So here I am, to work early and feeling great! All in all it worked out. More to come!

Soaked and Stoked!
Jen

Promised Pics

Good evening and happy 58 degrees and dropping. Fall is in the air...and slowly slipping from the trees shaped like leaves. I am feeling the urge to write and it's all I can do not to completely give in to it and loose myself in a sea of words and letters. Happiness truly is...however, it's 7:45pm and I am exhausted. My ride home went well, again another 3.28 up hill miles (yes, I stopped and took some pictures) but those will need to wait until another time as they currently reside in my camera which resides UPstairs. If I head up then I am going straight up and into my bed. So, for the time being I will pacify you all with some pictures from our first trip out to Cannon falls. This particular trip we forced the kids to come with and the 4 of us did 21 miles. It was a fun day...and yes, we brought the cooler. Enjoy.















This is honey (well minus 52 pounds of him) and yes, this is our cooler and fun time supplies being pulled in the dogs trailer.











...Sorry Pickles...this is why the cooler got top billing this time.





....Let's play "Guess who didn't want to come". SAY CHEESE!




...Matthew and I found a path that went down to the river on one of our rest stops.



...No cooperation, I tell ya'. You can almost see her face!



I took this picture as we left that rest stop and continued on towards Welch Station. You can see Bethany (in the black), Matthew is in the red and blazing our trail is David in the blue. That's me, behind the camera...don't I look pretty =)

Well, it's now 8:04pm and I can hear my book calling my name (as well as my pillow, my blanket, my bed and possibly a tall glass of ice water if I listen REAL hard!).


15 miles so far this week of "me powered greatness"...
0 gas burned...
1 less car...

....Priceless!!

The most wonderful time of the year!

Tuesday – September 2, 2008

Today was the first day of school. Half of the house was thrilled…the other…not so much. I took the day off from work, spending a precious vacation day, to stay home and relive my “stay-at-home-mom” fantasy slash previous life. I was up early, as usual, kissed David goodbye as he left for work, made more coffee (Hazelnut) and then waited for my darling children to wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I knew they would be. Once they were up and moving I commenced to make breakfasts of choice. Bethany decided, time being short as usual, to have a egg on toast sandwich and a quick cup of coffee before chanting one more “I don’t want to go to school” as she headed out the door. Just in case I had forgotten and would quickly, upon that revelation, change my mind and extend summer vacation one more day. Matthew, on the other hand, opted for scrambled eggs, toast and coffee (cream and sugar with coffee for color). Surely sixth grade would be an undertaking worthy of large amounts of caffeine to get ones finally “almost teenage” brain motivated. Or so I am told…all the time.

The morning flew by quickly and much to my chagrin, Matthew did not like my idea of me and Pickles walking him to his bus stop. I, personally, didn’t see what the big deal was, this was a huge step! This new bus stop is NOT in front of our house but a block away. DOWN the street! Well, after his initial look of horror dissipated, he quickly threw on his best “I love you anyway mom” face and all was forgiven. He left, on his own…Pickles and I waving (and wagging as they case may be) goodbye from the door.

7:15…all is quiet.

Monday - September 1, 2008

Well, finally...I do believe my PC is "fixed". BE GONE ye' ole computer virus...BE GONE! It only took me trying to figure out how to save my iTunes from an early demise, save the family finances, save all my pictures, my blog writings, my any writings and then wipe the hard drive clean. This, in and of itself, was a task worthy of great men! I am, however, happy to report that YES..iTunes was SAVED!!

(a general outcry of relief is heard kingdom wide)

I will admit that this feat of great worthiness was undertaken with only the slightest hint of uncertainty by my dear husband, David.

(insert ominous music here)

I realized, as I entered Azeroth (the home of World of Warcraft for those of you living a non-informed existence) I had no sound! How can on protect one's party of adventurers if one cannot hear the evil doers approaching?! I ask you!

Well, whilst trying to install drivers for my sound card (stifles a laugh) our efforts were thwarted when an evil error box appeared, having the GALL (not spelled GAUL because that is a native inhabitant of France...who knew?) to tell us we did not HAVE said sound card! Well I don't think I need to tell you that right then and there I thought "LIAR!"

Well we continued to fight the good fight and finally decided our best chance for a successful mission was to sneak inside and confront the enemy in its lair. So...having armed ourselves with a flash light and a two sided screw driver (very handy tool) we tore through the outer defensive wall and into the dark and VERY dusty cavern. IT WAS GONE! Immediately my mind raced as to what could have become of this elusive sound card...and then to panic (how could I ever hear ABBA again?!). Well, David's immediate response was to throw money at our problem and go and buy a sound card IMMEDIATELY. THIS would fix their little red wagons! My response was to google my questions and see what the world had to offer. Really long an boring story brought to a close, turns out I have ON-BOARD sound (no card required...gotta love it). We found our answers, fixed our problem. Enemies of Azeroth beware...I can hear you (grins).

Moving on to Sunday we wanted to get in some biking. We packed up a few snacks, lots of water, the bikes and handy wipes and drove out to the Cannon Valley trail. This trail starts in Cannon Falls Minnesota. We started our journey up a bit at Welch Station and rode our bikes to Red Wing. Round trip we did 22 miles! Was a gorgeous day, tons of fun and will post a few pic I took a little later. Once we got home I wanted to weigh myself (it's been a few weeks) and to my surprise (had to weigh three times to make sure I was seeing it right) I had lost another 4 pounds, bringing my grand total so far to 30 pounds!

We celebrated my success with pizza!! All in all it has been a great weekend.

22 miles of "me powered greatness"
"a little gas" burned...
1 less car...

...PRICELESS!!