the one that didn't get away

so two mondays ago i went fishing with a friend of mine. we took off from the cities and headed north about 45 min, and picked up phil's boat so that i wouldn't need to haul mine. we got on the water by about 5:30 pm. it should be just about perfect for the fish to be biting. we went into one of the bays on the lake (were i have had lots of success) and began casting for bass. dustin got a nice bass on his third cast. wow this was going to be a good evening. from that point on we never found another bass. after moving around a bit, the crappie and large blue gills began biting. okay so we didn't find any large mouth, but the fishing was still good and the pan fish were large enough to keep.

toward the end of the evening i decided to move the boat to the mouth of the bay and cast a rattle trap into the opening. i was hoping to find a northern cruising through the area. one big fish would be nice to see. keep in mind that the sun has already gone down and we don't have any lights on the boat. there is still daylight, but we are quickly running out of time. after casting for about 20 min and getting a few hits here and there i finally got a solid hit. while i was fighting the fish my thought was that this isn't a northern. it didn't feel right. it took a little while to bring him in and the fish at the end of the line was the best case scenario that a fisherman in minnesota could ask for. i caught a 4lb, 24 1/2in walleye!!!!! my fishing was complete!! needless to say, by this time i had so much adrenalin that we only managed to measure the fish and put it into the live basket. i wasn't going to take any chances on loosing the second largest walleye that i have ever caught.



without further ado: here is the fish.

ps - the walleye tasted really good!!

continued progress

here are a few pics to update all of you on the progress of the tree house. i have not worked on it for almost a year now, so it was time to start putting on the roof. phil and i dodged thunderstorms rolling through the area and were able to get the framing of the roof completed before the big storms hit.

are you choking? can i help you?

so i needed to complete cpr/first aid training for my teaching license. no big deal, but i really didn't want to spend 8 - 10 hrs in a classroom breathing into a dummy. after much searching, i was able to find a course offered through the American Red Cross that was a combination online and classroom course. all the bookwork was done online, and then there was a morning class that was focused on the skills. the online portion took me just over one hour, so that was awsome!! basically i took a 10 hrs class and shrunk it down into 6 hours. not too bad.

as for the people in the skills class, yikes!! let me put it this way for you, i think i would have a better chance of surviving by getting cpr from an untrained person than from some of the people in this class. the instructor didn't really seem to make sure that everyone was proplerly doing the procedures. the focus was more on making sure the proper steps were done. this is fine and dandy, but when they are holding onto the throat while checking for breathing that can't go unnoticed. geez.

maybe its because i have had training many times in my lifetime. maybe its the teacher in me that says you keep learning until you get it right. i don't think that some of the people that i watched today should have been given their certification. am i being to harsh?

duh!

no!

when you are dealing with peoples lives you have to know what to do, and how to do it properly!!

its a jungle out there!!!!!!!!

so as many people know, i finished school on the 21st of may. phew. one of the projects that i did while student teaching was to have the class create a field guide for the trees, birds, insects, and flowers that are found around the school yard. it was a neat experience, even though many of the kids were freaked out of their minds about getting a tick.

since i have been focused on observing nature for the last few weeks i have noticed a few things in my own back yard.

1. we have a blue bird living somewhere around the neighborhood. i have seen him three times, so it is my guess that he lives close by. i am not sure if i have ever seen a blue bird this close before.

2. today i was outside with brin and i overheard a family of robins going berserk. as i watched them fly and hop frantically around in the spruce tree out front, i happen to see a bird of prey (i think it was a red tailed hawk) fly away from the robin nest. i am pretty sure that it had a small snack in it's clutches as it few away. needless to say the robins were overly excited for the next few hours.

so for all those people that say a person needs to "go out" into nature to see wildlife, i say phooey on you. just open your eyes to your own yard and you will be amazed at what you can see.

a visit to see uncle bryan and aunt carissa

if you have been reading gianna's blog you know that a trip to the zoo made for a thrilling experience watching the anaconda. last week i took maya with me to visit grandma and grandpa kordatzky. we had an extra day to spend so grandpa played taxi and took us to visit aunt ruhama's house for lunch and then to aunt carissa and uncle bryan's house for supper. for those of you who don't know about bryan's second job well let me tell ya. bryan is and entrepreneur. ha, so that doesn't tell you much. well if you don't know then too bad. lets just say they have a few snakes at their house. okay, so when we walked in the door one of the first things that maya said was "can i hold one of your snakes."

now this is a big deal to gianna since she will not even look at the snakes that are in the marsh house. they have a special room and gianna refuses to even be on the same level of the house as the snake room. so when i told gianna about maya holding a snake she was a bit shocked. alright maybe a bit mortified as well. so to make sure we had proof of the dirty deed, here are a few pics of the grand event.






p.s. we didn't show maya the blood on bryan's hand from the snake that had just bit him. notice the glove on his hand in the last pic.

STRESS!! -- ain't life a pain

as most of you know the basement became a swimming pool a few weeks ago. okay, a minor problem, but i can handle it. many things were working in my favor. day off, soapy water, lots of help, blah blah blah. anyway so that was a wonderfully stressful day. this past weekend gianna and i ran away to the Embassy Suites for a night. what fun!! well it was nice to get away, but due to a sinus cold, the insane forced air and the remodeling two floors down, sleep was at a premium. (yawn) and again a little more stress, due to lack of sleep. sunday night we got the basement somewhat put back together just in time to watch the game. yea! some stress is going away. then are you ready for this... i don't think you are ready. dum-de-dum-de-dum. okay, now you are ready, or at least you should be. on monday i opened an odd looking letter that came in the mail over the weekend. to my surprise it was a letter from some agency telling me that the !@#!#&* school has cancelled my loans!! STRESS!!! ANXIETY!!! PANIC!!! what a rotten week this is turning out to be.