Sea Cave Adventures!

This past weekend, Joe and I decided to take a trip up to see my parents and explore a little more around the area. I had heard about the Apostle Island National Parks and the Sea Caves many times, but I never took the time to venture out and see them. Well, Saturday turned out to be wonderful! Not too cold but not too warm. We got all dressed up, and headed north. (Who would've thought we could have gone further north than our house!) We got to Cornucopia, WI, which was 20 miles north of Washburn. I had a general idea of which way to go, so we headed east from there. Before we knew it, we were at Meyers Beach just outside of Cornucopia. A park ranger stopped us to give us the low down of what to come! And so our adventure began.

After parking about 1/2 mile from the stairs to the lake, we finally made it down to the lake and followed a path along the shoreline about a mile to the caves. The ice was chunky and difficult to walk on in some parts, but it was well worth the trip! Once we made it to the caves themselves, we walked about 1 1/2 miles along the shoreline, wandering in and out of caves, admiring the views along the way. There were a couple of times we got to crawl around on the ice in and out of holes and through barriers. It was great, and we got to be just like little children having fun! Here are some pictures from our trip!

Chilling between two huge ice chunks!

Check out the shoreline and the rocks. It's amazing how nature can change the shape of the land.

Joe tried ascending this trail but kept on sliding down. It was icy!

This was amazing crevasse, traveling further back than we were able to travel! It was so neat to see something like that! Some people were able to get up and over the ice mound in front of those people standing there, but we didn't have the equipment to get us back!

This is pretty neat. We crawled in and got to slide around for awhile!

This was cool. A huge hole in the wall! We did get our picture taken here, but the lighting was off and difficult to see. And as soon as we went to take a better one, some other couple pulled up in front of/behind us. Oh well! The picture itself is still amazing!

If anyone ever gets a chance to travel up here, please take it. This is something we have absolutely no control over and look to see what nature has done. The rocks, the ice, the colors. It is truly amazing and worth the truck out and back. If you want to see more pictures, please take a look on my Facebook page. I have them all there, waiting for viewing!! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16677&id=1135476093&saved#/profile.php?id=1135476093&ref=name

Iced Out

During our recent "Ice Storm" event that happened earlier this week, Joe and I were a bit nervous about the commute, considering we never know what the bridge will bring us. So, on Monday we packed our bags, just in case (especially knowing what happened the last time we had a storm warning and I wasn't able to make it home due to the bridges closing). So, Joe drove me to work, he went and did his thing, then went to Starbucks for a couple of hours. Throughout the day, all we heard was how bad it was suppose to be, and how icy it was "suppose" to get. In lieu of the potential horrible weather, when Joe picked me up, we talked and decided since I had to be at work the next day and he'd have to be at Starbucks at 5 AM, it was in our best interest to stay on that side of the bridge, especially since our luck really hasn't been on our side lately! So, we got a hotel room at the Sheraton (I get a discount for being a SMDC employee!). We unloaded our bags, and took a stroll over to Fitger's Brewhouse for dinner and a drink! It was nice, just the two of us, a little vacation so to speak. After dinner, we headed back across the road, through the RAIN, to our hotel room and off to bed. In the morning, Joe left bright and early for his walk to the store, and me over the skywalk to the hospital. Yep, no ice, no snow. Nothing. It gets very frustrating. We rely on the news/weather to try and give us an accurate report, but this is another time they've been wrong. Oh well, we had a good time!

Congrats to the newborns!

It's amazing how being around all these pregnant women makes one really want a baby, too! Unfortunately, we are just not at the point in our lives, but we'll see what happens. Two of my co-workers recently had their babies. Heather and Aaron had a baby girl, Elsa Rose, on Friday the 30th. She was born at 2 something in the morning after a long time of being in labor and was 8 pounds, 22" long. Heather had a whirlwind of a pregnancy, if I do say so myself. She missed so much work the first trimester becuase of low blood pressures and what not. All in all, she made it through with a beautiful little girl.

Today, my friend, Sarah and Tanner, had their little girl, Sophia Rose, at 11:13 AM. Sophia was 7 pounds 12 ounces, and 21" long. Sarah had a long time in labor but was lucky to have actually pushed for only twenty minutes!! Anyways, Sophia is just precious as well!! Needless to say, Sarah had a very eventful pregnancy as well. Something through the middle, she ended up having her appendix removed and missed 6 weeks of work as well!!

I'm very excited for these two families and envious. I know at sometime it will happen to us when the time is right. But honestly, I wish these two families congratulations!!