Why is it that winter seems to drag on and on forever, but summer just flies right on by. I cannot believe we are already almost to the middle of August. It blows my mind that so much of summer has flown by. I feel like I’ve barely enjoyed it.
August 9, 2010
July 29, 2010
Boundary Waters Canoe Area Trip
We had our first BWCA trip together this past weekend. It was quite the adventurous weekend!
Friday morning we were up at 6am and packing up the food and car to head to Kevin’s where we were dropping the food off at for them to bring up Saturday. (I was the food packer, spent 4 hours the night before grocery shopping, prepping, and repackaging food for the 4 boys for the whole week and for Nathan and I for the 3 days we were there). Left Kevin’s at 7:30 and headed north.
We arrived at the Tofte Ranger Station to pick up our overnight hiking permit at around 2:30pm. We had the privilege of watching a BWCA educational video, where we learned that if a bear comes into camp you should throw rocks at it. We also learned that the BWCA is supposed to be uncongested, and people sparse; which is not true in all cases, more on that later…
The Brule Lake Hiking Trail was calling our name, but we were not calling its. We had decided on the way up we wanted to do the Eagle Mountain Hiking Trail, which was half the length of the Brule Lake Trail, but the Ranger was not able to let us change our permit and a new permit would have been $32. Lesson learned, don’t book a hiking permit online, wait to book one in person- they never sell out anyway. So at 4pm we headed out on our 16 mile round trip hike.
The Brule Lake Trail was not much of a trail. It was a strip of land that was cleared of trees but covered over in brush, bushes, weeds, and small trees; all of which were covering rocky, muddy, and boggy terrain. It was quite the adventure to hack our way through 7 miles of brush to Whale Lake, where 2 campsites awaited us. 7pm rolls around and we finally arrive at campsite numero uno to find that it was a beautiful site right on the lake and, much to our dissappointment, was occupied by 2 couples. So we headed to site 2, which we could not find, after much backtracking and scratching of heads we finally found site 2 set far back into the woods well away from the beautiful lake. The seclusion ended up being nice. We were exhausted after our 7 miles of bushwacking so dinner was quick and no fire. We headed to bed where we passed out before 9pm.
Saturday we were up and at em at 7am to hike the great Eagle Mountain, we were told it was a 3 mile hike each way, we were not looking forward to this but we were looking forward to standing on top of Minnesota. We grabbed some oranges, granola, and our water bottles and headed out. A short mile later we were at the top! How relieved we were to have a shorter hike than anticipated!!! The summit was actually set in among some trees and brush, but a 100 yards south was a cliff edge that had a pretty sweet view of the BWCA. We enjoyed our oranges and the morning view before heading back down to pack up and hike out to meet the boys at the Brule Lake Parking Lot at 2pm.
More to come later…
June 17, 2010
Bethel
I had my first night at Bethel last night. I met my advisor, Mike Graham, an hour before class and he gave me a tour of the campus. Bethel’s Campus is beautiful! There’s a nice lake and lots of green trees and grass, plus I heard there’s a disc golf course on campus! How cool is that?!
Mike answered all of my questions and I feel a sense of peace about Bethel and attending their Communication Studies program. The only thing that is holding me back is the drive, it took me 45 minutes to get home, which is double the length of time my Inver Hills commute currently takes. I will give it the summer with this class and see how it goes…
Class was great. The teacher is a very nice older woman who was the daughter of missionaries and she grew up in Guam. She has a beautiful accent. The class is pretty small, around 10 students, and that will be beneficial and allow me adequate time with the teacher and the chance to get to know my classmates. I met one girl who was super nice. She got married at 22, like me, and she just graduated from Bethel’s HR program in May, she just had this one last course to do. Her husband is attending Bethel’s Seminary for his master’s degree.
I got home close to 11pm last night, which would have been fine, except I was so wired I had trouble getting to sleep. It’s left me exhausted and fuzzy brained today but I’m sure I will manage.
June 5, 2010
Bethel are you ready for me?
I have enrolled in a class at Bethel! I will be taking Academic Research and Research Writing on Wednesday nights starting in a little over a week.
I still haven’t completely chosen my major or B.A. school, but I have narrowed it down. I want to major in Communication Studies or English. Bethel offers a good Communications Program, and it’s a Christian school, something I would like and appreciate in my 4-year school.
A few months ago, Mike from Bethel, gave me a call after I requested in information packet. He was really friendly and helpful (yes, I know his job is to sell me on the school!) but he seemed like he really cared and wanted to help. So last week, I said, what the hey! I don’t know what school I’m going to yet but I should at least get prepared for at least one school. So I emailed Mike and he replied within 20 minutes!
He said the only thing I needed to do for the Comm Studies program was take a good Research Writing course, which I was planning on taking online this summer with Inver, but after talking to Nathan I realized I should take it at Bethel and try the campus out and see about the drive.
Soap, I am taking a course there this summer! I am very excited and like the fact that I can call myself a Bethel student 
