Ready for the New Year!

We had a great time in Manitowoc for Christmas but are glad to be home to ring in the New Year! We have lots of snow in Boulder Junction and our little Mika is sure enjoying it as much as we are. Jay is out skate-skiing at Razorback trails in Sayner this afternoon. We went together on Thursday night and 30 minutes was enough of a workout for me. Jay, however, could have done "10 times that". So he will, but just not with me :).

Mika and I are at home hanging out. We went and visited our neighbors, Brandt and the Iltis' and got to play with their chocolate lab, Caramel. I am about to make a fire and settle down with a good book. This is the first weekend we have been home in a long time and I aim to make the best of it and actually relax a bit.

Please enjoy the pictures of our Mika from the last couple of days...

Mika gets a bath!

Mika got her first bath and loved every minute of it. Before her bath we wouldn't let her in the bathroom because we didn't want her drinking out of the toilet...now we can't keep her out of there. This morning when Jay was brushing his teeth Mika snuck past me and ran into the bathroom and jumped in the tub. We couldn't stop laughing. She might have liked it because Jay fed her 3 treats while she was in the tub with me.

Playing outside with Brooke and Jay

Jay demonstrating cross-country skiing for Mika. She is a very attentive student but was a little nervous about actually going with him around the yard. So, we went for a long walk on the frozen lake and through the snow drifts. After our walk we went over to Coon's to play with Ebb, their golden retriever. Mika was exhausted by 1:00 and took naps for the rest of the day. Having Brooke and Jay home for the weekend is really tiring on her. We had a lot of fun tiring her out and even more fun watching her dreaming on the rug in the early evening. Here are a few highlights of our walk:

Mika smells something good...

Dig, dig, dig...


Mika bounding through the deep stuff.

This is one happy puppy :)

Pictures of the day

Mika the moviestar

I thought it would be cool to just start taping Mika to see if she would do anything funny. She licked the camera and stared at me for awhile. Then I captured this...



She rarely sits when we say "sit", but she will sit every time we say "wait". Not bad for only 8 weeks old. :) She rings her bells that are hanging on the door every time she wants to go outside. If we don't move fast enough she really goes crazy. We are working on getting that on tape too.

Little Things

Mika and I wanted to say hello to all. We wish we could be at the Christmas party this evening.

All the books that I have read say that puppies shouldn't start obedience training until at least 12 weeks. I can't tell whether she is bored or just often tired. She understands wait(sitting) before going through doors and before coming out of her crate, she fetches and most of the time brings it back, and last night started to understand that if she rings the bell that we ring each time we take her outside, we'll open the door. As she is sleeping with her head on my leg, I think I'll just let her be a puppy.

After a few days of trying, she figured out how to get under the futon. I don't know what she was after, but she was pretty happy when she was under there. After this Giardia clears, she will be ready to tackle the world.

Giardia, not just for backpackers...

Dr. Kurt called this morning and informed us that Mika has giardia and that it is contagious to humans. Hopefully we will not develop giardia in the next couple of weeks.

We took her to the vet in town and got some pills. She should be okay in about a week, but that does mean that we can't bring her to Manitowoc to meet the extended family this weekend as planned. Everyone will just have to wait until Christmas...

Welcome Mika!

We picked up our new puppy this weekend. Isn't she cute! Ha ha.

After a great night in Madison visiting Rick, Andrea, Joe, Chris and Ben, we woke up early and drove down south of Chicago to meet Mika (pronounced mee-kuh). We didn't know which one would be Mika so we spent some time playing with the last two pups in the pouring sleet and freezing temps before we made our choice. Both puppies were equally adorable one being just a little larger than the other. We picked the bigger one because she seemed better suited to enjoy the snow and ice that prevail in the Northwoods. We have about 10 inches of powder at our house and she loves it!

Because she was the biggest in the litter she was the most dominant and really ran the show. Unfortunately for her, we will now be running the show. We drove up to the Miller's house in Winnetka and had a great time learning about our little charger. She is extremely confident and went right up to their black lab and started nibbling on her (Lucy's) paw. Lucy is a rescued dog and was actually afraid of Mika, who then proceeded to chase her around the room barking. What a great game :) Dr. Kurt checked her out at his new clinic and she got another couple vaccinations. We had a long drive home and she was excellent the whole way.


She is going to be a handful but we are both up for the challenge. The first two nights have been wonderful, no accidents in the crate and no crying. She is a good girl...I hope it lasts. Jay is excited to take her to puppy training to she if she will try to dominate the bull mastiffs.

Pre-puppy training

I called our local vet's office yesterday to see if they knew of any puppy training classes in the area in the next few months. Ironically, they had a four week class starting that evening for puppies 9-20 weeks old and were not aware of any in the future. I asked if we could sign up even though we don' t get our puppy until Saturday and she said, "sure".

We showed up empty handed at 6pm and were quickly labeled the "expectant parents" by the other members of the class. There were puppies everywhere struggling at the ends of their leashes to get at the other dogs. A large German Shepherd and a cat were having a showdown in the corner, somehow the cat was winning. A couple of black labs were going crazy and two huge 5 month old bull mastiffs were quietly drooling near the doorway.

Jay instantly discovered a shy goldendoodle and its elderly owners far away from the chaotic group. Bayley, a nine-week-old puppy, was being held by her owners and looked like she was about to fall asleep. They explained that they had just taken her for a long walk...just goes to show that Cesar Millan's tactics work, this dog was calm!

We went upstairs behind the parade of pups and frazzled owners to a big open room half-carpeted, half-vinyl. We made our introductions and after a 15 minute lesson on house-training, biting and leadership the puppies were let loose to play. Bayley slept through the beginning of the class and was rudely awakened by the pack of insane dogs. She cowered under a chair and didn't really come out for the rest of the class. She was really afraid and did not seem to like the other dogs at all. It probably didn't help that her owners were comforting her and feeding her fears.

The trainer quickly picked up on the situation and coached the old couple on how to correctly react to their dogs fear. By the end of the class Bayley was responding a little better to the other dogs. I hope our dog will be friendlier, at least she will have a fellow doodle to hang out with.

First Snow of the Winter!

We had our first wintery storm yesterday and woke up to about 4 inches of packy snow this morning. Jay hasn't stopped smiling...

Seilers Visit

The Seiler family came for a visit this past weekend and boy did we keep them busy! We spent a lot of time outdoors taking walks, canoeing, going to the park and playing on the ropes-course. Jane and Don were also able to scramble up the indoor climbing wall...even Catherine climbed! I think Jay might have lifted her up a little of the way but she did really well for her first time up and had a lot of fun doing it.


We went for some world-famous cheese curds and played games. Liam watched "chitty bang" and got his first taste of "Willow" although I am not sure how that went over. Don set up our router so we now have wireless :) at the Creagh cabin. Thanks Donny!


Our house is really quiet now but we are enjoying the peace for now. Soon our puppy will be here and getting into trouble. Liam was a good indicator for us as far as getting our house ready for a curious little one...he was EVERYWHERE! We have a lot of work to do...

Puppies

One of these little critters will be running around reeking havoc in Boulder Junction sooner than we know it. Licky, licky, licky. Our breeder just sent us a couple of pictures of the pups that were born on Friday. So far mom and puppies are all doing fine. The mom is a standard poodle and the dad is a golden retriever. Hopefully that will make for one really smart dog!

We don't know which one is ours yet but we'll keep you posted as we get more pictures. Born October 12, 2007. 5 girls, 4 boys. The girls are in the bottom picture.

Wabakimi - September 21 -28

The paddlers: Brooke and Jay Creagh

After planning a trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River for the entire summer, we were forced to reroute in September after concern about fire closures. A quick change of tickets for a winter ski weekend, researching canoeing destinations, a phone call to a local outfitter, and we were off to Ontario.

I have had Wabakimi Provincial Park on my short list of canoe destinations since a group of Manito-wish Alumni went there last summer. I grabbed a few large scale maps from the map library and started pouring over the possibilities. I was able to scale back my initial itinerary after being reminded that at the end of September the days are much shorter and that Brooke(or I) might not want to paddle from daybreak to sunset.

Wabakimi Provincial Park:
The park is located northwest of Armstrong, Ontario. To get there drive to Thunder Bay and then head north-northwest for about 3 hours. It is a young park that was established in the 1980s and expanded to its current size of over 2 million acres of land in the late 90s. It has large lakes, rivers, candadian shield, mostly pine and birch trees. Definately more variety of moss and fungus that trees. Supposedly there are moose and woodland caribou. We saw so proof.

The fishing is supposed to be excellent as there are fly-in fishing camps througout the park, but it was described to us as "sketchy" before we left. We were able to hook a few, actually catch two walleye, have quite a few get away and were given 3 walleye. Brooke is still waiting to catch a trophy northern.

Day 1, September 21: Lookout River
We were woken up at 5:30 am to get to the train in time. The train stops in the town of Armstrong. No train station, just tracks. We got there at about 6:30 and waited until 8:15 until it arrived. The gal who shuttled us to the tracks said that she called at 6:00 and they said it would arrive at 7:00. How does the train get over an hour off track in the same amount of time? I didn't mind the wait as he were able to watch the town wake up and the rain was holding off.

We loaded our packs and boat onto the train and warmed up for 24.5 kms of Canadian rails. We passed the native town of Collins (accesible only by train) where a group of 4 wheelers circled up to greet the family riding the train. A few miles past this, the train came to a stop in the woods at a spot labeled Schultz's Trail and we unloaded our gear. The train went on its way and we portaged to the lake



The rain held off for the first few hours and we were fortunate to have little to no wind. We made our way to the Lookout River and were able to run a few rapids safely and portaged the ones that would've left us swimming in the river.

This night we slept at the end of a portage around a 5 foot ledge. Sound of whitewater, double-wide tarp, rain hitting our tent and wind blowing through the trees. This also marks the night that Brooke caught two undocumented walleyes. We fryed them up as appetizers. At this point, all signs point to a good fishing trip.

Day 2 - September 22 - Smoothrock Lake -

Today we got to run some whitewater, portage and paddle into the wind. Not bad. We continued down the Lookout River and got out to scout every set of whitewater. Luckily for us, we were able to avoid some of the portaging and scoot through the waves and whitewater. While we were having a drought in northern Wisconsin, they were having record rainfall. Even in late September, the water was 1-3 feet above normal levels.

After getting to where we planned on camping around lunch time, we decided to push on north up Smoothrock Lake. As luck would have it, the wind picked up and we were able to paddle straight into it for a few hours before arriving at our island site.

We tried out our frybake (similar to a dutch oven) and I was doing something wrong as it took about 2 hours to bake four bisquits. I had a few more chances to redeem my baking skills throughout the trip.

Day 3-September 23 -Smoothrock Lake(northern end)


While Lauren, Meg and Jen ran a half marathon, we did our own 13 mile paddle. I would imagine our half marathon was a little less strenuous than theirs. Fishing was dismal and we decided to push on to a better fishing hole for our rest day.

Day 4 - September 24 - Funger Lake (Honey Hole)

After battling the wind for an hour for one measily crossing, we heading a different direction and the wind wrapped around the point and sent us happily on our way to Funger Lake. The was the spot marked on our map as "honey hole." Spirits were high that this would be our mecca of fishing spots. We paddled out and tried our luck for an hour and half. Nothing. Brooke tried all her lures and I got mine stuck every other cast.

Later that night two moose hunters from Wisconsin stopped by and chatted with us. Turns out we were 50 feet off from the hole. If you go to where the birch tree sticks out into the water and head 15 feet off the shore, you catch walleye all day. 10 minutes later, they came back and offered us 3 walleye. We fried them up despite being full.

Day 5 - September 25 - Funger Lake

Our rest day consisted of sleeping in, eating great food, reading, napping and eating more great food. I explained to Brooke that this is a typical rest day at a Manito-wish trip. Next time, we'll bring games, cards, scrabble, something to keep Brooke entertained for a day of not paddling.

Day 6 - September 26 - Caribou Lake


Our mighty march up the Caribou River proved to be no match for this paddling duo. There were clear cut portages around every pool drop set of rapids and falls. If you ever go down this river, I recommend using the portages, or at least scouting as we saw an aluminum canoe ripped to shreds after wrapping around a rock. We sported our blaze orange hunting vests to avoid any trigger happy moose hunters.

Day 7 - September 27 - Little Caribou Lake

This was a section of the trip that had us a little worried as we didn't want to get stuck on the island if strong wind and waves prevented us from paddling. Luckily, we had a smooth paddle to Little Caribou Lake and even had some glassy sections. We reached a site by lunch time and were able to enjoy our last afternoon and set up camp before it started raining. This evening it rained the hardest of the whole trip. I had a hard time hearing Brooke over the downpour hitting our tent rainfly.

Day 8 - September 28 - Boulder Junction , WI


We got picked up at 11:30, showered and were on the road by 12:30. We stopped in Grand Marais for pizza, looked over the cliffs to Lake Superior at Palisade Head and made it home by 11:00pm.

Bonus Day - September 29 - Beef-o-rama festival

More on this to come. We met up with my parents at the Beef-o-rama festival and watched the parade of beef. I've never seen anything like it.

Keeping it in the family

It has been a long time since our last post as we have been pretty busy in the Northwoods. The lastest news is that Chris Vater started working as an Assistant Counselor at Camp last night. He spent the evening shadowing a Counselor and is probably with a cabin today.

I saw him with a group of kids this morning with a smile on his face.

Chris came up to visit us last Wednesday and was convinced that he should stay and work for the last two week session. It was a perfect fit, college student with nothing going on in Madison and Camp that was in need of another guy. I'll try to get a photo of Chris with his Campers and post it soon.

Maurers Descend with Aunt Lolo

A few weekends ago the Maurers and Lauren came to visit us in the Northwoods. We had quite a fun filled weekend which included meeting Paul Bunyan himself at his restaurant, geo-caching all over the area, playing board games and going for a paddle in the North Canoe. We didn't get much rain in April so we couldn't have a bon fire because Smokey said "no" but that didn't stop me from doing one of my favorite things, roasting marshmallows and eating s'mores. After that visit Aunt Brookie had to take a two-hour nap because she forgot how energetic three kids can be. Her hosting skills were later compared to Grandma Lauerman which is a huge compliment. Thank you Maurers :) "Who needs more food?"