Part 2

I'm stressed out beyond my capacity right now, with moving and trying to create a small group and my work schedule is getting crazy and people are vising, BUT- I have to finish my blog. Priorities are priorities. :)

Less than a week before the Lock-In, I was invited to chaperone the Girl Scouts to Juneau for a weekend. At first this sounded like a great idea. Time with the girls, time in Juneau, and I love the ferry. Great. I would need to switch my Saturday shift at Mt. Market, but that shouldn't be a big deal. However, in the couple of days it took to work the switching out with another coworker, the Lock-In happened. I'm sorry, what I meant to say was the Kids to the Max and Thourough Exhaustion happened. So I walk into work the Monday morning, having come from the church after the Lock- In and cleaning up and such, quite the zombie, and Nelle tells me she can switch and to have fun in Juneau. Uhhhhh....I call Crystal to tell her I can come and only then do I learn the schedule: leave Friday night on the 10:45pm ferry, get to Juneau around 3:15am, drive to the Council office, sleep a few hours, wake up early for Thinking Day (the event we were there for), run around Juneau all day (including the MALL), get up 6:30am Sunday morning to be on the ferry and back at church by 10:30am. Upon hearing this, I started to cry. Crystal doesn't know it, but as she was talking, Leche was sitting in her warm bathroom, crying. I was just so tired...I called Kenny BAWLING at another sleep-deprived weekend ( was just so TIRED), but took a few days to catch up on sleep and headed to Juneau. I had a great time. The girls were hilarious and we got to go BOWLING! One of the girls had a cast on her good arm which made her disinclined to bowl, but I promised to bowl left handed or granny-style and it worked out great (I SUCKED). Kelly, pictured with the bowling ball, decided to name it Old Reliable, which I thought was hilarious. We hit the mall, where all the girls spent their money on earrings and shoes and headbands and bangles and oh my word, were they decked out. I bought comfortable shoes in lieu of my hiking boots and COFFEE, finally. Thinking Day was a whole 'nother story, but the trip was a fun whirlwind.

Last Friday, Lori, Kenny, Mike, and I went ice fishing at Mosquito Lake. Not kidding, folks, there were, in fact, mosquitoes flying around us as we were ICE fishing. Weird phenomenon. Lori and I made it competetive, boys against girls, but I soon realized my standards were too high and I modified my goal to just three fish, tops, even as the guys were catching nine, ten, eleven...The picture on the left is of my first fish caught, displayed morbidly with the weapon which expedited its demise. I'm proud to say that I actually caught four fish (the last one by accident as I was walking away to do something else while still holding the pole) and even caught the final fish, making our total catch THIRTY fish (but we only kept sixteen). Kenny and Snoopy can be seen posing by the catch we kept.
The weather was beautiful and let me tell ya- by the fourth fish I was taking the hook out and beating it over the head multiple times with a screwdriver all by myself. Papa would be proud. :) It's even on video, as Mike recorded the event for posterity. Don't worry- we watched it later that night. A few times. :) We had a fish fry and I cleaned my own fish, but not without much girly hesitation. *shudder* I'll go ahead and admit that three of the fish cleanings did involve plastic bags tied around my hands so I didn't actually have to TOUCH them. Heh heh. Don't judge.

Well, I'm outta steam. Phew. Thanks for hanging in there. I tried to include as many pictures as possible for those of you who require visual stimulation to stay interested (Jennifer?).
I'll try to post more often in order to prevent any future bombardment of posts.
Honest. :)
<3