Birthday Weekend!

As some of you know, every year my family is able to celebrate quite the birthday week. In June Amanda's birthday falls on the 25th, my dad's on the 26th and James' is on the 27th. 

This year to celebrate we took an over night canoe trip on the Au Sable river in north-ish Michigan. 

Amanda and I shared a canoe and my mom and dad shared another. James was the lone man in the kayak for the majority of the trip.

The first day was 8 hours of paddling. Obviously we stopped to play just a bit.

James and I gave Amanda a package of stick on mustaches for her birthday, which she promptly opened. No canoe trip is complete without the handlebar stache, right?

Of course James couldn't sit in a kayak for 8 whole hours. In true James style he was out and about and up in some trees.

By the time we were done with all that canoeing we were HUNGRY! James and my mom made us some delicious burgers and tinfoil potatoes.

 

I'm not sure if I can effectively describe to you how truly excited we were to eat - so I'll let this picture do the talking for me. 

The night was young, so we took some pictures, jumped around a little and played before heading to our tents for a good nights sleep.

Over all it was a fun trip. Happy Birthday to the B-Day kids!

Pedal-Paddle 2012

This Spring, I bought a road bike, thanks to Clayton's influence (see http://pedalperupedal.blogspot.com/). I've been biking and canoeing a lot this summer. A few weeks ago, I got the idea to combine the two. My canoe is inflatable, which makes it portable enough to carry on a bike. That may seem strange, but its quite simple. I carry the canoe on the back of my bike, and then when I get to the river, I inflate. Once the canoe is in the river, I can carry the bike in it. I've done a few short trips, biking a few miles and then canoeing for about an hour or two.

On Friday, I left for an overnight trip. I expected to bike about 35 miles the first day, and canoe around 15. Then on Saturday, I would wake up early, canoe about 10 miles, and then bike another 5 to get home. I left Ann Arbor at about 10 AM and headed north towards Kent Lake in Island Lake State Recreation Area. It was about 25 miles, and my legs felt pretty good. 


My first view of the river put a knot in my stomach because the water was very low. I decided not to worry about it, and started paddling downstream. It was slow but okay for the first couple of hours. Then the debris problem started. There were so many downed trees blocking the river, that it took me about 4 hours to go the last 2 miles. It was pretty miserable to say the least.

I decided I'd rather bike the extra distance than keep battling the trees, so I pulled out at a road crossing and packed up the canoe. I headed to Hudson Mills to a campground and set up camp. I tried to go to sleep at about 10 PM, but was unable. I was too exhausted to sleep, and it was still 75 degrees outside. I wasn't enjoying myself, so I packed up and biked home. It was actually my favorite part of the day. Stars in the sky, fireflies, and no traffic.

My bike computer said I went 56 miles, and google maps says 59.1. I guess they calculate distances using different projection systems.


View Bike/Canoe Trip (June 15, 2012) in a larger map

Leaving home Friday morning with 55 lbs of gear.

The beach at Kent Lake

Huron River just below Kent Lake dam.

Huron River, somewhere in Island Lake State R.A.

Fairy Doors

Like I was saying, Ann Arbor has a thing for fairies.

The city has maps available of all the fairy hide outs in the city. There are fairy villages ...

And many of the businesses in town have had fairy doors installed for the many fairy citizens of Ann Arbor. James and I went looking for a few, but apparently there are quite a few more!

Memorial Day

Our family blog has been an extreme misrepresentation of what we have been up to lately. For some reason we just haven't been taking that many pictures. I'm really going to need to step it up.

On Memorial Day I did bring out the camera for our morning activities. Before the lake with our ward friends, James and I went on a bike ride to the university arboretum to see their annual peony beds.

They had so many different colores of peonies. It was super beautiful. 

We walked around taking pictures and smelling the flowers for a little until we decided to to visit Ann Arbor's Arb fairy village. 

The kids of Ann Arbor build huts every year for the fairies and wood trolls to live in. Ann Arbor has really embraced the fairy houses, and there are fairy doors and villages all over Ann Arbor. You can actually download a map of all the fairy doors in town and go on a hunt to find them! I think we might go on an adventure sometime soon to find them all!

St. Louis

I'm not sure why I never included these pictures in my recent trip with my parents. We were also able to stop by and visit Marissa and Justin for a little while in St. Louis.

While my dad was in a business meeting, we took the day to explore the botanical gardens.

The flowers that were in bloom were very beautiful.

One Year Older, and Wiser Too, Happy Birthday To You!

Earlier this month I was able to go on a trip with my parents to Missouri to celebrate my Great-Grandmother's 90th birthday!

We got to spend some time with Amy, Regan, and Baby Crew. 

The girls all went to see the Hunger Games! It was a pretty great movie. 

Jenna and Zane were in their school's high school musical this year. Luckily we were in town while it was running and were able to see it! It was a fun night! We all went to dinner before the show and then had a great time watching "Calamity Jane." The girls did a great job!

Sunday afternoon was Grandma's birthday party. Almost the entire family was there! 

A Three generation picture with my mommy, grandpa, and the lady of the hour - My Great-Grandma Joe. 

Published!

James has recently been working very hard on a few publications of his own and in collaboration with professors at both Hopkins and Michigan. 

All that hard work has paid off! 

Earlier this week, James had his very first (of many) articles published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization entitled "The population-based burden of influenza-associated hospitalization in rural western Kenya, 2007-2009."

Long name. But if you want to check it out, it can be viewed at the link below: 

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/4/11-094326/en/index.html