Duluth Furriers, Deer Hunting Drama and Snow Angels

Duluth, MN is known for it's winters that go on forever.  I have proof of these long winters.  Below is a video clip of my daughter and I on May 28, 2014 in Duluth.  Check out the ice!

 Duluth winters aren't just long but they are cold and snowy.  Below the picture on the top is a warning that popped up on my phone our second winter in Duluth. The picture on the bottom is of me just standing in our yard in Duluth.   

       

                                            

                    

    I have to say that Duluthains never fuss about the cold, however, when the temps hit 80 degrees you might hear a bit of fussing.                   

   

Deer waiting at our
neighborhood bus stop
one morning

So what does one do when the weather is so frigid?  You get creative.  I will tell and show you what Mickey and I do when it's cold.  

Just a backyard black bear

One day we decided to go snow shoeing.  We strapped the snow shoes on and went back behind our house which had a large nature park complete with bears, wolves and deer. 

Below is a video of Mickey showing off his amazing snow shoeing skills.

Once Mickey fell down, our snow shoeing days ended.  He broke both of his snow shoes and I'd rather do something else anyway.

There's always ice fishing as a cold weather activity.  Mickey has ice fished in Utah but Duluth is different.  We NEEDED an ice hut to ice fish in Minnesota.  We decided to rent one and that day it was about -20 out but we were toasty in the ice hut.  One question I have about ice fishing...... why?  We sat on chairs and watched a hole in the ice.  Tyler, Mickey and I enjoyed the day but it's a one and done for me.   Tyler was the only one to catch a fish and it was just tiny.  Check out the size of that minuscule fish Ty caught.  That's really tiny for a Minnesota fish and no one else even got a bite. Tyler was proud of his catch and posted this picture below after our ice fishing day.

Check out the many glasses needed to NOT
catch a fish.

Trying on hats for the cold weather is an excellent snowy day activity.  Once when Ty was in town we decided to take a look in the furrier store in downtown Duluth.  I couldn't believe all of the items of clothing made out of fur that this place had.

Below is a video of Tyler, Mickey and I in the store.  Ty tried on some gloves and I tried on a hat.  Mickey was in hell.

Below are more hats that we tried on:

 Ty has an uncle Eddie look about him

 

Mickey and I tried on some Russian hats that we liked so we bought them. 

This brings us to our next activity for the cold and snow.  When Mickey wore his Russian hat, he thought it made him Russian.  In the video below we are using science to entertain ourselves.

Sometimes Mickey and I would just take the dogs outside and hike behind our house.  Because of the extreme cold, I  found out quickly that the pads on my little dog Wilson would freeze quickly.  When this happened I would just stick him down my coat where he would stay snugly and warm up.  Mickey was always jealous of Wilson's warming up spot.

I also learned that when you put a snow covered dog down your coat, the dog warms up and the snow melts creating a puddle in your coat.  This makes for some cold hiking.  I decided that I would purchase my dogs some dog boots.  Dogs don't love dog boots at first.

Mickey loves hunting so he decided to go hunting with some of his Minnesotan friends.  Of course it's going to be cold outside and this video below is not dramatic at all.

There are a lot of creative things to do when it's freezing outside.  I'm not saying that they're always fun but this last idea we had is my personal favorite.  It's self explanatory.  Enjoy!

Nuff said.


*Dedicated to the wonderful Duluthians who brave the frigid winters and are the nicest people anyway.

Pedicures, Faulty Park Assist and Bladders

Pedicure toes

For mothers day my daughter Sid, daughter-in-law Amy and I decided it would be fun to go get a pedicure.  I drove that night to our pedicures.  After our pedicures we grabbed a snippet of ice cream and decided to head home.  We were just getting into the car when Amy noticed that my car had parking assist.  Parking assist is where you push a button on the dash and the car will park for you.  Amy loves cars.  She knows a lot about them and she had encouraged me to buy the car that I was currently driving.  This is the conversation that started:

Amy:  No way!  You have parking assist?

Me: Yes!  It works too!  I've tried it with Madisyn (another daughter and she was driving)

Amy: Do you use it?

Me:  No because I forget I have it.   I’ll show you how it works.

The magical Park assist button

I started explaining as I demonstrated how great the park assist works.   

"First you have to push the "P on" button to turn it on and then decide if you are going to parallel park or perpendicular park.  I am turning on the perpendicular park.  You put 'er' in drive and this car will sense when you are by a parking spot.  Then you just let go of the wheel and the car parks for you."

I did all of these things about 17 times.  I might not have been following correct parking procedures since Madisyn did it for me before.  

Now picture this.....I was in the front with Amy.  Sid was in the back alone because she did not call "Shotgun! No battle".  We started cruising the parking lot, waiting for the car to tell us that a spot was found where the car would park assist us.  The three of us went up and down the parking lot several times. I had to keep stopping the car and back up to try again.  The car would not sense a spot for us to park in.  I noticed a couple eating their ice-cream and watching us like we should be put in a home or something. 

Finally our back seat driver, Sid, said, “Mom!  You don't know how to park assist.”  Right then the park assist dinged and it said on the dash that a parking place had been sensed.  I told Sid  that yes I do know how to park assist and to hold her horses and HANG ON  (like we were on an amusement park ride).  I let go of the steering wheel and the car went forward a bit then started backing.  I’m was getting all cocky and said, “See! This is how it works.  It’s amazing!  Look at the wheel turn all by itself and the car just goes right into the spot." 

Sid and Amy thinking they should wear helmets when
riding with me!

Right then Sid and Amy both screamed......STOP!   I hit the breaks and said in a very snarky and loud voice.......what?  I looked back and realized that we stopped just in the nick of time, avoiding parking on the cable, internet and power boxes of the pedicure place.  My car had park assisted us into a flower bed with cable and internet boxes.

Sid: Mom what are you doing?

Me: I thought it was parking us.

Amy: We just about took out the cable and power boxes and whatever those other boxes are in the bushes.

Sid: Right?

Me: I think we need to return this to the factory.  It's faulty. 

Sid:  Let’s go home.  You can do this later.  I’m getting car sick.

Me: I think because it’s dark outside, the car camera thinks the boxes are parking spots. Lets try this again over in that other area where there aren't any boxes or bushes.

Sid: Why?

I headed to the other end of the parking area.  The car just could not sense the parking spaces. Sid started to beg to go home but I was all powerful because I was driving and for some reason I wanted to prove that the parking assist worked.

Stop the madness

After driving past a parking spot about 9 times, the car finally dinged because it found a spot to park. I put 'er' into drive and let go of the wheel.   We were heading straight for a car on one side of the parking spot. All of a sudden Amy yelled out,  "Jesus Take the Wheel!”  

????????????????????????????????

I guess Amy felt that we needed a higher power to get the car parked.  I will say that Jesus did NOT take the wheel but I did.  I also hit the brakes.  We avoided a collision for the second time.  When the car was safely stopped, all of us looked at each other as the soft yet snippy voice of Sid from the back seat said, "Amy, that would never work.  You're a sinner."  We laughed until we cried and Sid wet her pants.  Then we headed home.   This was the conversation:

Me:  Amy, where did the "Jesus, take the wheel come from?"
Amy:  It just came to me plus it's a country western song.
Sid:  Guys!  I really wet my pants.
Me:  Sid you need to get that fixed.  
Amy:  I guess Jesus didn't take the wheel
Sid:  Like I said Amy,  you're a sinner.

If you want to hear the song that did not work for us, click on the link below:

https://youtu.be/lydBPm2KRaU

I guess I’ll have to read the owners manual to use park assist or I could take the car back to the factory?  Maybe they could fix Sid's faulty bladder at the same time.  

Sid and Amy high 5-ing because they made it home safely

Sing Your Talentless Heart Out!

Me singing to my mom in a special frying pan microphone

There's nothing like a beautiful singing voice.  My mom and my sisters have beautiful voices but that is a gene that went missing in my DNA.  When I sing in the shower, I sound amazing.  When I sing with earphones on, I sound fantastic.  When I'm by myself singing with the music turned up really loud, I sound incredible.  The problem is when someone records me and I hear myself singing, I just can't believe how bad I sound.  I'm the worst.

Mickey thinks he's an amazing singer. He's as bad as I am.  Mickey's go to Karaoke song is Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond.  Mickey thinks he sounds just like Neil Diamond when he sings it. He thinks he IS Neil Diamond when he sings it. Below is a video of Mickey singing Sweet Caroline at a district work meeting.  Neil Diamond?  The way he swings his hips at the beginning, I think he's thinking he's Elvis too.

My mom's singing group that she
played the piano for.  She's the one
on the far left.

My mom is a talented pianist and has a wonderful voice.  She used to play piano and sing in a group.  I don't know their group's name but they could really "doo whap" and "shoo bee doo" it up.  My mom used to listen to the McGuire sisters, the Lennon Sisters and the Anderson sisters.  I think she had dreams of her 5 daughters becoming the Melville sisters.  Only problem was that there was a "fly in the ointment".  My mom would have us stand around the piano and accompany us while we sang songs.  We could even do harmony.  Well, not really we.  Mom would say to us, "Sing loudly so the people in the back can hear you. Shari, sing with your nice voice".  You could say that I was the insect in her singing salve.  We would sing every so often in a church meeting or for a "progrum" as my mom called them.  I always tried to use my nice voice but I've realized that lip syncing is more my jam.  Check this out.......

I used to sing to my kids in the morning.  I had a couple of special songs just for the mornings.  My kids never recorded me singing in the morning so no video. Go figure.  When I sang my version of Twedily Dee to Tyler in the morning, I could have him crying and enraged by the end of the 1st verse.  Good thing I didn't know the 2nd verse.  

I've always sung to my kids.  Sometimes they would cover my mouth as tiny children and say, "Don't sing".  My grandkids do this sometimes.  I'm used to it so I still sing to them. 

 Below is a video of my daughter Madisyn singing songs to me that I taught her while laying in bed for 3 months waiting for the birth of the twins.  (yet another blog). You will notice  that Madisyn thinks some of our songs are "yucky" or that she doesn't want to sing them.  She would also rather have Tyler's gum than sing.

Madisyn was a darling singer at age 2 but then she got older and taught Ralph to sing.  Not such a darling singer and she's stressing out Ralph. 

                                  

I never gave up trying to teach my kids to sing.  Below is a video of me teaching Maggey to sing at age 3. You will be able to hear my nice voice teaching her.  The end of the song is best. Can you imagine my not nice voice.  Also take note that I have a lot of help. Sid will back Maggey up and fluff her hair and Tyler gives us his rendition of opera in the back ground then Maggey will perform 'I'm Wishing' by Snow White.

                                  

Maggey actually has a great voice and can still sing. 

For years my daughter Sid would try to sing.  My other daughter Jensine would play this game with her that they called the matching game.  Jensine would sing a note and Sid would try to sing a matching note.  It was a rough game to watch. One day Sid told me she made a video of her performing on the guitar.  I was so excited to watch her play and sing.  This is the video she made...........

                                     

Sid has skills.  She is now teaching her son Wally some of her singing skills.  She has him listen to musicals and he's an excellent lip syncer. 

                                     

Whitey thinks he sings really well too but he's more of a bobble head, talking singer............

                                    

My grandma's would both sing to me.  My grandma Barker would sing a Swedish song that I never understood and a song about animal sounds called "Cackle, Cackle".   Yep! It should have gone gold.   My grandma Verna would sing a song called "A little boy went walking."  She sang it to all of her grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren.  Here's a video of my 98 year old grandma singing that very song to my grand daughter Navy.  Navy is her great great grandchild.  The video is shortened because the song was too long to post on this blog site but grandma remembered the whole song! 

                                       

We may not have the singing gene in our family but we think we have a few special musical abilities.  It doesn't matter if you have talent,  just sing your heart out. (and make sure someone records it)

Snorkel Nipple

A few years ago, Mickey and I took a trip to Jamaica.  I saw a sign by the side of the road while being shuttled from the airport to the hotel.  It said "408 deaths on this highway this year."  I kid you not. I sat there in the shuttle thinking, "If tourism is their biggest business, why would you advertise the fact that you may die before you get to your hotel."  That was my introduction to Jamaica.

Once we got to our hotel we noticed that the hotel seemed nice and we soon discovered that the food was exceptional. I also found that some parts of the resort seemed to be a bit in disrepair.  Our room air conditioner was not working properly so we phoned the front desk where they promptly sent up a repair guy to fix the AC.  He tore off a piece of duct tape and stuck it to the AC unit then said, "No problem man" and walked out.  I must say that the cooler seemed to work fine after that.  We soon learned that duct tape was the tool of choice for most repairs. 

A couple of days into our trip, Mickey and I were headed down to the beach from our room,  I felt like the elevator was extremely slow so I decided to take the stairs. Mickey decided to take the elevator so of course it became a race.  I ran down the three flights to the lobby and  stood by the elevator doors waiting for Mickey.  I waited for 10 minutes and noticed that during that time the elevator doors had not opened once.  I guessed that Mickey was still waiting for the elevator on the third floor.  Right about then I heard a woman scream and a bump/bang sound.  It was not a good elevator sound.  The elevator did the ding thing and the doors opened.  All I could see was the top of Mickey's noggin and a woman was making sounds of panic from the inside of the elevator. Mickey must have been comforting her.   

Heading towards the elevator and
 looking into the elevator to see the top of Mickey's
head.  Notice the people taking the stairs.

The elevator had overshot the stopping point so the duct tape guy got a ladder and lowered it down so they could climb out.  Mickey informed me that the elevator had, in fact, malfunctioned.  First it wouldn't move at all.  Next it bumped a bit and started down and then the elevator bounced a bit while trying to stop.  He said that he was trying to calm the woman down because she was certain that they were going to plummet to their death.  Just then the door opened and Mickey and the woman were looking mostly at a concrete wall and above it was the floor to the lobby.   I just figured that if the roads to the hotel didn't kill you perhaps the elevator would.  

The elevator was "Out of Order" for a few days but I swear I saw the repair guy with the duct tape fixing it one day.  I had already decided to take the stairs for the rest of the trip. 

A day later we went to Dunn River Falls.  The first thing they tell you when you arrive in Jamaica is to always use the shuttles provided by the hotel for the day excursions....so of course Mickey informed me that he had worked out a private ride from his new Jamaican friend, Javaun, that he just met in the parking lot.  Mickey said that Javaun had a "real nice" van and that he would take us to the falls. 

That particular day was blazing hot and humid and as I looked at Javaun's van I told Mickey we HAD to have air-conditioning and that his van didn't even look like it had seats.  Mickey asked if he had air conditioning in his van and he said, "No problem man."  This was not a good sign.

I get motion sick easily and I thought of backing out of the adventure but I did not.  I had taken my Bonine and I brought a bottle of water.  I thought I was prepared. We hopped into Mickey's new bestie's van and headed to Dunn River Falls. I will say that the ride there was nothing short of an amusement park barf ride.  Just a few minutes had passed when I realized that the road was a single lane with cars going in both directions. No wonder so many people die on the highway.  When a car came straight at us, Javaun would honk (yes the horn worked well) and the other car would also honk, then a game of chicken would begin.  About 10 feet from collision, one of the drivers would swerve into the dirt. This continued for over an hour and a half on the windiest road I've been on next to the road to Hana. (A whole other blog). 

The best part was the no air-conditioning part.  When we asked Javaun to turn up the air he would fiddle with the controls and say, "No problem man".  Not an ounce of air came out of any vent in that van but Javaun pretended it did.  I mentioned to Mickey that I didn't feel any cool air at all so Mickey's solution was to open the windows, that way the hot furnace kind of air could at least blow into our car sick faces.

The picture we took at
Dunn River Falls

When we got to the falls,  Javaun assured us that he would be waiting to drive us back to the hotel....yay.  I started debating with myself about whether or not it would be better and safer to walk back to the hotel and take the chance of getting heatstroke or kidnapped or ride back in the heat wagon playing chicken.  It couldn't decide.

When we got out of the van, Mickey told me that he was motion sick and didn't feel well.  I just looked at him.  "Ya sure?"  We headed to the falls where every tourist in Jamaica goes and walked up and down the falls.  We took our picture, found a huge spider, got accosted by the locals trying to sell their wares and climbed into the death van for the hell ride back.  That adventure was 30 minutes of beauty and 4 hours of misery, terror, nausea and heat stroke. We made it safely back to the hotel and I was so happy to get to our room with the duct taped cooler.

The cherry on the cake of our Jamaica trip was our snorkeling day.  While Mickey went to rent our snorkel gear, I waited on the beach. I was offered many Jamaican goods and services while waiting.  I succumbed to the hair braiding.  The pressure was just too much, especially after our van ride.  I almost purchased some of the weed that was being offered too. I was still motion sick after the van trip from the day before.  

My Jamaican braids

By the time Mickey returned with our snorkel gear, I was braided up and ready to go.  We headed into the surf.  The ocean was beautiful and the fish fascinating.  I was finding so many incredible fish that I had to point all of them out to Mickey as he followed me around.  I just kept swimming and pointing out fish.  Soon I noticed that there were others that wanted to see the fish I was pointing out.  I had a following.  Other snorkelers loved the exotic fish I kept finding.  I really thought I was popular.  The thing is, Mickey just kept following me too.  I was a snorkel star.  

Eventually, I stopped and popped up out of the water to take any questions that my followers had about how I found the most astonishing fish in the sea.  The first thing I noticed, though, was a light breeze blowing over one of my boosies.  Hum.  Why would that be?  I looked down to see that I had one bosom tucked nicely inside of my swimsuit and the other had popped right out into the open for all my fish fans to see.  I put the offending boosie back into my swimsuit and tripped over my fins to have a chat with Mickey.

Shari:  How long has this zipple been out for everyone to see?

Mickey:  Not long enough

Me before "the incident" and my
amazing snorkel skills
bubble was burst...no followers
gathered so far.

Shari:  I thought I was finding amazing and exotic fish.  Is this why I have a crowd following me?  It's not my snorkel abilities?

Mickey:  Nope.  It's not your snorkeling.

Shari:  Why didn't you say something?

Mickey:  Shrug.  But that was amazing!!

I snorkeled away thinking, "Idiots!  All of them!

Just as we were headed to shore, Karma struck.   Mickey swam under a rope that had a couple of jelly fish stuck to it. They stung him on the back.  

Mickey thought he was dying and I thought it was Karma because he let every tourist at the resort see one of my tatters.  The first aid station gave him some sort of salve to put on it and sent us back to our room with a roll of duct tape.  (Just kidding about the duct tape)

And that was our trip to Jamaica.