First things first though: the new 35W bridge is almost done. Will knows all the details of it, so if you are really interested, email him or Google it. He was just telling me today that they joined the two ends of one of the sides of the bridge last week and are supposed to join the two ends of the other side of the bridge some time this week. Ok, enough of that (though I do find it impressive that they are ahead of schedule - no Big Dig here).
Ok, Will and I just spent our last weekend away from home before I get put on the travel restriction of no more than how ever far away my doctor decides I can go. I am now 33 weeks pregnant (oh, by the way, I'm pregnant for those you who didn't know). I'm feeling great, though I have to admit that I got frustrated with my lack of energy and ability to do some of the things I normally would be able to do this weekend. Here is a picture of me from last week - some of you have already seen this, sorry for the repeat. Notice Lucy trying to be in the picture, but sadly not succeeding.
Ok, back to this weekend. We spent our last pre-baby weekend up at the cabin at the lake. We do plan to go up there for a week in October, so I will be sure to post stuff then as I'm sure that will be a whole new kind of adventure for us. So, the purpose of this weekend's trip was to build a small deck outside of the teeny cabin. The cabin is 8x12' so adding an 8x8' deck makes the cabin living space around 66% bigger - very luxurious! So here is the deck Will ended up building, while I re-webbed an old lawn chair (which I forgot to take a picture of). This is where I started to get frustrated - some of you may remember (from other people's blogs) that I built the majority of our gigantic deck up at the lake last year, yet this year, I was much less useful. The belly just doesn't lend itself to a lot of bending over and whatnot. We still need to add a couple of steps onto the deck and into the cabin, as well as a railing or something, but this is still exciting to have.
Also, for those of you who have been to our property, you may remember that we have a large driveway area of gravel. It is now becoming a lovely northwoods meadow! At first I was kind of disappointed about that because my first thought was that the guy who did the driveway for the previous owners did a bad job and we ended up paying for it when we bought the property, but actually, I'm quite happy with these plants that are filling in the great void. It was full of tall grasses - taller than me, daisies, asters, bulrushes, wild geranium and other wild plants and I think it will look really cool some day. The first picture is looking from the meadow to the cabin and the next is looking the other way.
Notice the tall, tall patch of grass - maybe I don't want a whole meadow of grass that tall. The sad thing is that Will's cool rock wall is getting obscured, however, with the changing seasons we will be able to see that again soon.
It was a really great weekend. We couldn't have asked for better weather - it was sunny and warm the whole time, except for a thunderstorm that came through yesterday evening and lasted for part of the night. We did have lots of bugs, which was a surprise, but everything is late this year up here so we shouldn't have been too surprised. We managed to get two swims in. True to form, it took me about 5 minutes to jump in the first day as I stood shin deep in the water thinking about how cold it was going to be. But the second day I just went for it and was very happy with myself. Lucy did not like to have us swimming - she doesn't swim, but she did kind of wade out a bit towards us. Also we had the whole lake to ourselves! It was so quiet and wonderful. Will did some fishing - he caught a Brook Trout (which was a suprise) and this morning he went and got us two Lake Trout to take home (he let the Brook Trout go). I did lots of relaxing and little odd jobs here and there.
Here is how we ended our trip:
Yep, we hit a deer. We were driving home and were between Two Harbors and Duluth around 3 pm when it happened ( we were so happy with ourselves too, because we actually left Kemo within 30 minutes of when we said we were going to). There were two cars up ahead of us and one was driving very slowly and it seemed kind of erratically in the right lane, so the other car was passing it in the left lane. So Will slowed down and moved over to the left lane to pass the erratic driver, when I looked up there was a buck in the left lane right in front of us! It apparently stepped onto the highway from the median (which is a really deep ditch) right after the passing car in the left lane went by. Will didn't see it until we hit it, we believe it was blocked from his view by the beam between the driver's side window and the windshield of his car. I just said something like Oh No! and covered my eyes and then there was a loud thud and it was over. Will pulled over and got out and I sat in the car freaked out a bit. The car behind us stopped and said the deer flew 10 feet in the air over our car. Thankfully it died immediately and those two guys pulled it out of the right lane for us so we didn't have to deal with it. The tow truck driver that took us the rest of the 12 or so miles into Duluth said it was a big buck. It was very scary, but we didn't get hurt and thankfully the airbags didn't go off - otherwise I think we would be hurt. Actually hitting the deer wasn't jarring at all - it was very strange. So, our insurance company set us up with a rental and we left the car in Duluth and 3 hours after it happened we were on our way home again. And just for those almost-Grandmothers-again, Clocker Baby is doing fine, doing lots of flips as I type and giving me terrible heartburn tonight. I go to the doctor on Wednesday and will let her know about the accident.
Ok, that seems like a long post and now we are both ready for bed. I have to admit, I am looking forward to our own bed and bathroom. Our futon was actually a lot more comfortable for me to sleep on than I expected, but having to go to the bathroom 3 times a night is a lot nicer and easier to do at home! Sandy
