Classic Kruzers

This weekend's art trip gave us chance to spend some time in Ironwood on our way to and from the "ryokan" in Wisconsin. They were having their Festival all weekend. We drove back in town just in time to get in their Classic Kruzer parade. Joe drove Phil's '87 Fiero!Here's Judy in her little Miata!

Then I got in Judy's car to ride in the parade... well, turned out it's kind of hard to take pictures when you're in it!

Here's a good shot of Joe and Judy and the cars. Phil was busy at the Theatre meantime, but got to come out and see us drive by. Hopefully next year Phil's '88 Fiero (yes, another one, but even more sportier) can join the other two.

Art Business Trip

This weekend we took a trip to deliver my oil painting to a client and to spend some time at his cabin in Wisconsin. A beautiful cozy place with a newly added Japanese style bath house (attached). His wife is a second generation Japanese-American, and they traveled to Japan a number of times. We decided to call their cabin a Mini Japan in out-of-nowhere Wisconsin. Their accommodation was a 5-star "ryokan." Here's Joe in his yukata, getting ready to take our Japanese "sento" style bath in the evening. Next morning, after breakfast, our hosts threw us both in the river upstream from their cabin and simply told us "See you back at the cabin in an hour and a half." So we went with the flow in our kayaks. It was beautiful and relaxing!!

Down we went in Yellow River...I took a bunch of photos, hoping to paint some images of the river. Our business trip turned out to be fun and very enjoyable. We managed to forget our empty cooler behind at the cabin... so we look forward to seeing our new friends sometime, somewhere, again!

A Good Day Fishing

Yesterday morning we went fishing the Big Hole on Apple Creek with Joe's dad. It was a beautiful morning (although Kayo had a hard enough time getting out of the bed at 6:30 a.m.).Thanks to the recent rain falls, the water level was where it should be, and its color perfect dark chocolate brown. Joe's dad said it was a perfect fishing condition, which I didn't take seriously first, at least not until I saw fish being caught, I thought.... Joe caught our first keeper, a rainbow. Then I saw lighter-color something rise under the dark water. Before I knew it, the fish was on my lure. It was a big one!! A nice German brown trout. So, it was worth getting up early! But Joe's dad kept repeating that it would've been even better one hour earlier. Whatever... I got a nice fish AND an hour more sleep, didn't I?

Here's me holding my proud catch. Joe measured and determined she was 13-3/4"; I'd say it was 14". And over all, it was a great day fishing. We came home with 6 keeper trout (mine was the biggest!!) and we released and missed many more. It was the best fishing I have experienced in my few years of fishing. And yes, it pays to get up early for fishing; fish quit hitting once the sun rose high above the tree lines.

After such good fishing, all I wanted to do in the warm afternoon was to take a nap. But for our hometown Pioneer Days celebration grand finale, we had a little work to do. We prepped a pork taco assembly station for our company to snack while waiting for the firework display. It turned out to be a perfect evening to sit outside (we only have a limited number of days we can do that throughout a year). Big and little kids had fun with their sparklers. Of course, Joe was the biggest firebug, who showed off his own firework exhibition on our block. The city's firework display, which we ooh-aahed from our own front porch, was very nice, too.

Garden Extravaganza

Over this weekend, my work weekend, the rose by the shed opened to reveal once again such almost-out-of-place beauty. The plant itself is still scrawny, but has grown tall enough that rabbits shouldn't nibble off the blossom and the other bud. That's exactly what happened last year. And it's just amazing how much plants can grow in a few hot days with some warm rain. Only this evening we noticed our peas actually have gotten pods!! We thought they were only big enough to bloom before the weekend.

Tomatoes, too. Exciting!And the grapes in my hand!!

See how thick and green our grape vines have gotten... mmm, jelly, jelly, jellllliiiiy!

Happy Fourth!

Hope you had a great 4th of July weekend. Of course, I had to work on the 4th and 5th; Joe didn't. But we managed to go see a parade (as Joe says it's his long time tradition) on Saturday.The highlight of the parade was saved at the very, very end. A monster truck! Oh, wait! The highlight of this blog post is this picture: Joe dressed up for the 4th of July parade. I'll let you make comments on it.

Yes! We had a nice cook-out at Joe's parents' house on Saturday and went to see an awesome firework display at the harbor Sunday evening. Essentials of the 4th of July celebration.

Fishin' Fever

I don't remember if I mentioned here in our blog..., ever since I missed two LARGE fish one day in this trout season, I've been suffering a bit of fishing fever. Of course, I'm at work when fish are jumping, and I'm off when the weather sucks. Luckily Joe went on a road trip for work the other day and did some fishing (after fixing all copiers). Here's the fish caught in a total surprise, thinking "Joe's supposed to be at work!" A nice German brown.Tonight we had sushi rolls with the leftover fish for no special occasion. Then, we went fishing... again for no apparent reason. We figured Wednesday was a good enough reason!

No action photos... we didn't take our camera, more for good luck. We brought home three respectable fish!

The best of all, I caught this one!! It was not only Wednesday, but the day Kayo caught a keeper. That's something to celebrate about.

P.S. I have to confess right after catching my keeper, I unwillingly donated (lost) my lure to the river bottom.

Happy Father's Day: Part II

Our Father's Day dinner turned yummy and perfect. We didn't have to worried we wouldn't have enough food for everybody, but we WERE glad to have prepared as much food as we did! Very glad Joe grilled all 20 pounds of the ribs, yes 20 lb, so we got to have some leftovers. I know we keep saying this, but this batch was one of the best, again!! I even put ribbons to tie individual silverware and napkins.

Just before a serious digging began....

Guess what? We failed to document the chaos of our dinner table, which turned rather quiet for a while. A very good indication that everything was tasty. Of course, Joe's mom brought just as enormous dessert (carrot cake with creamcheese frosting AND lemon cream bars) as our dinner. Joe and I are still enjoying leftover dessert, quite happily. It was a wonderful Father's Day... now only if my dad could come here to try Joe's ribs.