However.

Several weeks ago, I stopped being able to get anything out of my Prime Time foundation primer, but I just knew in my soul there was still something left in the bottle.  So I set it aside until I had a few free minutes, because I was going to cut that bottle in half, don’t you know it, and scrape out all the renegade primer.

Because I didn’t want to waste any pennies unnecessarily.

Joey was gone to pick up a pizza, and some friends were coming over for dinner (if you can call it that when we eat order-in pizza) and to help Joey study for his ordination exam on Sunday.  But I had a few minutes before they arrived, so I dug the hand saw out of the tool chest and set to work.

Plastic wasn’t designed to be sawed through with a cheap hand saw, that’s the first thing I learned.

The second thing I learned, was that it’s a good thing I didn’t saw my left fingers clean off.  Plastic is slippery.  Not to mention extremely thick.

Ten minutes later, I had dented the plastic container and made a channel for the saw blade.  There were little plastic shavings covering our patio, and I was occasionally making un-ladylike grunt sounds while I tried to force the saw to go back and forth over the gnarled up plastic container.

Then, it finally broke through.

Halfway.

I brushed off the saw and carried my now extremely damaged Prime Time container to the kitchen…where I discovered that I could have just used a pair of kitchen shears in the first place and the entire project would have been over (and with quite a bit less danger to my left hand) about as soon as I’d begun it.

The good news is that I retrieved quite a bit of primer from the bottom of the container.  I think I probably saved myself $4.00 by doing so.  I deserve a medal.

And when Joey came home, he said…”You used a saw on WHAT?”

Hey, at least I didn’t fall on it.

“What do you think of going backpacking over Labor Day, because if I don’t get out of Dodge and see some nature, I THINK I WILL SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST.”

The response to said email was quite positive.  In fact, Joey said that not only should we do it, but I should be in charge of finding the location for us to do a mini backpacking trip.  I was all over it, ya’ll.  I was on the website for Texas state parks looking for ones nearby with walk-in primitive sites, I was looking for spots in Arkansas, and I was checking out Oklahoma.

What we’re looking for is not easy to find, nor probably normal.  We’re looking for Boundary Waters-type seclusion that’s close to Texas and backpack friendly.

It’s like looking for jeans for The Kid at Kohls – it just ain’t gonna happen (because they carry all the wrong sizes and The Kid is really picky).

And so, as we were driving home from church today, Joey said, “Well, what about Ouachita…how far away is that?”

“Four hours,” I told him.

I’d been looking for places that were about 2 hours away, so we’d get to maximize our outdoor exposure while minimizing our carbon footprint.

We had a route all planned out for Ouachita for our cancelled Memorial Day trip, and we’ve both been itching to do it.  It was so awful; back in May we had our packs all loaded and ready to go because we had been taking walks with them to get used to the way they felt.  One afternoon, the week following my surgery, I heard Joey unzipping everything and putting it away…just when we should have been gearing up to go.  But, as I recall, on Memorial Day weekend I was doing good to stand up straight for one minute together, so backpacking was most definitely out of the question.

As we whizzed down 75, our collective blood pressure shot up at the thought of potentially getting to go to the Ouachita after all. (And after all we’ve been through this summer!) So, the minute we walked in the front door, Joey pulled out the backpacking route file (yes, we have one) and whipped out the trail we had selected.  ”If we go here, there’s lots of reliable water and we could easily go in a day and then come out a day, too,” he said.

I stared at the map and the sites we had marked along the Kiamichi River.  He had sold me, but I couldn’t let him know it that quickly.

“Look it up on Google Maps,” I said.

Sure enough, 4 hours.

“If we went to be super early on Friday night, and got up at 4 on Saturday, we could probably be there in decent time and have a good day’s hike,” Joey suggested.

“Sold,” I said.  ”Let’s go to REI to restock the trail bars and Clif Rope we ate in Mexico.”

I really hope nothing happens to me to force us to cancel this trip.

And I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to get on the trail and splash through a few river crossings and get wet-footed in my Tevas.  There is nothing like hiking with freshly wet feet from crossing a creek, or portaging a canoe.  I’d rather be portaging, but when we live this far from the Boundary Waters, I’ll take the Ouachita Trail, thank you very much.

“OH MY GOODNESS!” I yelled.  “I have seen a bear!”

I’ve always wanted to see a bear, of course.

The bear was huge (like the size of a one-story house), extremely furry, and had a tail like a beaver.  Not the most attractive bear, but I wasn’t going to argue because I’d never seen a bear before. Suddenly, the bear swam over to my island and began mauling me.  I played dead, and all it managed to do was bruise me really bad.  I had large brown and purple spots all over my body.

Later, in my dream of course, I discovered that the bear had eaten poor Mom.  I was super upset and began crying and crying and crying, and woke up with a saturated pillow.

I have been traumatized all morning about this non real bear eating Mom in this not real dream I had.  So I asked The Brother, who hasn’t actually seen a bear either but seems real knowledgeable in these things, if bears could attack people in canoes.

Next item on the agenda: the Soudan Mine.  (Well, Mom, Sister, and Laura went to see some wolves at a wolf sanctuary but there are no pictures from that because the camera’s battery was dead.)

When we arrived at the mine, Joey and I accidentally got ourselves on the Physics Lab tour, and almost went down 3,000 feet into the earth with them.  Just in time, though, someone realized that we were in the wrong group and shoved us off to go find the other three.

Joey was disappointed, he wanted to see the Physics lab.

Twenty minutes later, after watching a really cheesy video on the mine made in the 80s, we were all wearing our fashionable red hard hats and ready to descend into the bowels of the earth.

Joey and I missed the memo that Brother was taking a picture, I think.

Not sure what I’m looking at here, but clearly it’s not the camera.

3,000 feet in a rattly mine shaft elevator later, we arrived at the main loading area.  We got into the mine train and shivered in our seats until they closed the doors and the train started moving.  (Then we really shivered! It’s cold down inside the earth.)

Brother and Pops had a car to themselves.

Me, The Kid, Stephen and Joey shared our car with Matt, he worked at the museum and tried not to laugh at us as we yelled and messed around during the 5 minute ride in the dimly lit tunnel.  Stephen looks miserable.

I got scared once.  Everybody else egged me on.

So there are about 50 pictures from inside of the mine and, if I were Brother, I would have posted all of them.  But they all looked like the same piece of rock to me, so I skipped them.  The tour was interesting, though.

When it was over, we all piled back into the train cars and buzzed back up to the elevator.  We got the lead car, so as the train chugged along we all sang – at the top of our Laird lungs – “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go!”  It was great.  (Well, Joey and Stephen didn’t have Laird lungs, but they still sang too.)

The only part I didn’t like was the horrible elevator shaft ride we had to take to get down there and back.  It felt like we were going 100 miles an hour, and we were at a 5% incline, so staying on your feet was a challenge.

Here we are in the sunshine again.

OK, so our tour guide was the cat’s meow.  He was really funny and unique and he could spin a story so well he’d make you cry.  (I know because I almost did.)  He was telling about how his dad used to work in the Soudan Mine and how he gave up his hearing to provide for his family, etc. etc. etc. and how kids these days are losing their hearing to listen to music loud on their iPods, and there I am trying not to cry, because Brother and The Kid are within poking distance…and they were still teasing me for my Dorothy Moulter waterworks earlier that day.  (Brothers, I tell you what.)

This is our tour guide.  He looks like a mountain man.

This is a Larry Car.  We took the picture especially for Gramps because his name is Larry.

The sign said “keep out”…so we got right in.

This is the place where the iron ore would have gotten dumped into the trains.  I didn’t go out there, though, because The Kid got distracted by this set of stairs just to the left of this picture, and he said “Let’s go down there and make them all jealous!”  So we did.

We found this really cool railway hopper, which you can’t see much of in the picture.  But just know that it was impressive.

We look very mighty, don’t we?

We climbed up and were going to get IN the train car, but Brother’s camera battery died just then and we didn’t feel like finishing if it wasn’t going to be on camera.  So we climbed back up the stairs and asked if everyone was jealous of us that we got to go down there.  They weren’t, really.

The clock said 5:30 when we got in the car, and we had 6:00 reservations in Ely, at 30 minute drive.  So we hauled it and were just in the nick of time.

After eating a very tasty meal on at the Chocolate Mousse we visited the shop next door. Joey cut his toe on a display and was bleeding all over the place, so we had to dig out the first aid kit AGAIN.  Poor Joey.  Around 8:00 we packed into our stinky vehicles (damp tents and portage shoes smell like death) and drove to our hotel in Duluth.

In the morning, we tried to take a scenic drive but all wound up getting carsick.  We ditched that idea and headed for the touristy spots down by the harbor.  But first we all had to take coupley pictures.

Aww, cute.

Sick.

Sick.

Normal.

We headed over to the raising bridge to watch this ginormous boat go through.  We waved to all the people on the deck, and they waved back.  The thing was huge, like the entire size of DTS.  Maybe bigger, actually.

The bridge raised far, far above our heads…but I forgot to get a picture of it.  Sorry.  There was a long line of cars waiting to drive over it when it finally came back down.

I think this bird looks mental.

Joey bought me cotton candy because he knows how much I love it.  We ate it while we rode the fifty-cent trolley around to get a view of the harbor and Lake Superior.

My parents look pleased with themselves that they have all of their kids in one place at the same time.

We saw a place we thought we’d stop for lunch “The Original Coney Island”.  How the Original Coney Island wound up in Duluth, MN, I don’t know.  But it did.

The Kid drank his Mountain Dew with gusto.

Sister pouted.

I had to share Onion Rings with Brother and Laura and I only got three, mostly because Brother hogged them.

Everyone was supposed to be eating something in this picture, but Mom, Stephen, Pops and Laura missed the memo.  On second thought, I think Pops is chewing.  (I wonder if Stephen maybe didn’t like his meal?  He looks out of sorts.  Muahahaha.)

This picture gave Brother the willies.  So I posted it here so he’d have to look at it again.

Pops tried on some great hatwear in the Duluth Pack Store.

This one’s my favorite.

I hope Laura bought this hat because it’s cute!

Last stop in Duluth – the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!  We made Sister pose with this bear because she hates bears and thinks they’re scary.

I LOVE CHOCOLATE!

We buzzed off to Cloquet where we had Chinese and birthday celebrations.  Then we drove down about 40 miles north of the Cities where we stayed at a hotel and watched Michael Phelps’ team compete in the relay. We were screaming so loud I’m surprised we didn’t get kicked out.

In lieu of a cake, we had all picked out chocolates from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Duluth, we thought those would be tastier, but we still needed a candle, so we stopped by Wal-Mart (I know, I know, Cloquet didn’t have anything else). I found a big, round candle to set in the middle of the chocolates, which I planned to arrange tastefully around the candle so Mom could blow it out, then have something to set on her desk at work as a reminder of the event.

Unbeknownst to me, everyone was also planning to have one for ME at the same time.  Sneaky hosers.

So we arrived at the restaurant early and hid Mom’s presents, which I had wrapped in the car on the way to the restaurant.  I hid the chocolates, candle and the plate they would be displayed on and we all sat at the table waiting for Momsy to come in.

We ate the meal like normal and then, when she left we grabbed her presents and I arranged the chocolates and lit the candle with this blowtorch-like thing we had gotten from the server.

Mom came back in and looked very surprised and cute indeed.  Then everyone turned to me and said surprise to ME too!  YAY!

Mom looks cute here, mostly because she got the joke pulled on her and she pulled one on me at the same time.  She’s always cute like that.

My presents were wrapped beautifully but looked a little worse for wear because they had been squashed in the back of the van for over a week.  This one in particular had taken one for the team…both its handles fell off shortly after this picture was taken.

Mom and I blew out the candle on our “chocolate” cake.  Please observe the trendy “birthday candle”.

I can’t figure out what’s going on in this picture and neither can Brother.  Everyone is laughing very hard except me, Pops and Stephen…and I kind of look wilted.  So it seems like someone must have pulled some kind of joke on me, or I missed the joke….or something.  (Does anyone remember?)

Mom opened her presents and looked as pleased with each one as she does every year.

I opened mine with great fervor as well.  I got lots of books (two about Pandas, one about holiday traditions – yay! – and two Beverly Lewis ones).

One of Mom’s presents was a canoe frame for one of our Boundary Waters pictures, and a little “Family” piece to sit beside it.  It’s for her new office….since her old nick-knacks got washed away in that nasty flood.

It was a fun surprise and nice to be able to celebrate Mom’s and my birthdays with family.

Yesterday was my real birthday, and Joey wouldn’t tell me where we were going for dinner.  At lunch I went to Sambuca, which is a restaurant that I really like around here but poor Joey has never been, and I had my favorite grilled salmon with Gorgonzola sauce.

Yum.

Then, in Hebrew class, I found out that he had made reservations for us to have dinner at Sambuca for my birthday dinner!

Oops.

We wound up going to La Duni instead.  We smuggled my camera in and tried to take covert pictures at the table without using the flash, so they’re kind of dark.

I always like La Duni’s chips and salsa.  We asked our server (WHO WAS SO STINKIN’ CUTE!  I absolutely loved her) not to bring any more once we polished this bowl off because we wanted to save room for our entrees.

Joey’s mean and took this picture of me eating.

So I got two pictures of him chewing, one of which involved the flash…and then everyone looked at me.  I was embarrassed.  I’ll let you figure out which one I used the flash on accidentally.

We ordered limonada berries to drink and it was delicious.  I had to water mine down because it was a touch too sweet for me.

We forgot to take pictures of our entrees and dessert, but rest assured that both were delicious. We ate and talked  and laughed and ate some more for about an hour and a half.  Then we realized that we were going to be late to buy my present!  We only have one car, so he hadn’t been able to get to the store.  I didn’t mind, though, and we made it just in time.

Joey took me into Helzberg where he showed me a very lovely, dainty white gold and diamond cross.  He had picked out the exact same one my eye was first drawn to (he has good taste).  When we were first married and on our way to China, he bought me a silver cross to remind me that God is always with me, even when I’m afraid (I’m scared on airplanes and it’s a long flight to China) but..he sort of vacuumed up the chain on that cross a couple months ago.  He had planned to replace it and was waiting for me to forget about the other one.

Sneak.

He made me wait until we got home to open the bag.

WHAT COULD IT BE?!

Ooh, a sparkly box.

It’s a new and beautiful cross!

I really like the chain, it’s one of my favorite parts.  It’s really delicate.

Up close it looks like this.

Thanks Joey!  I love you!

My birthday words of wisdom this year?  (A tradition that I grew up with and one that Joey and I are continuing.)

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:  If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!  … Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.    -Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

This year Joey and I have learned a lot about community, especially in the body of Christ.  It may seem easier to do life by yourself, but it’s so much better to do it with others surrounding you to encourage, sharpen and point out things you would otherwise miss.

I’m so thankful for my friends who hold me accountable: Laura S, Laura W, Becca and Rachael.  They’ve taught me a lot about myself and God just through being together for the last year.  THANKS GIRLS!

(I sort of think The Kid is picking his nose in this picture but I can’t be sure.)

Pops usually digs around in the cook kit for awhile to find something that he knows he brought but can’t remember where it got put.

He usually finds it.

About 11:00 after breakfast is cleaned up and everyone’s tired of sitting around, we go on a day trip!  Our first (and pretty much only) day trip was to the Hoser Islands, which we named after Sister.  Then Pops started calling them the Sister Islands and that kind of stuck better than the Hoser Islands.  The Kid, Joey and I had made an expedition to them earlier that morning and had found….WILD BLUEBERRIES!

Everyone knows that’s the primary reason I go to the Boundary Waters.  I love wild blueberries.

So without much fanfare, we loaded everyone up into three canoes and paddled out to the Sister Islands, where the four of us girls picked blueberries until there were none left at all.

Wild blueberries are easy to miss, they grow low to the ground in sunny places, usually on a good, exposed rock face.  They’re tiny blue jewels and they taste like nectar.

LOOK AT THEM!  Oh I just want to eat them all up.

Once we finished picking all the blueberries on the island, we realized we needed to move on to exploit the natural resources of another.

The Kid is always disappointing I guess.

We didn’t find any more blueberries on the other Sister Islands, so we headed back to camp around 3:00 and I learned how to chop wood with a hatchet.

I wouldn’t say I’m very good at it.

This is grave punishment indeed.

I’m fairly certain that I’ve been removed from The Will far more times than I’ve been reinstated, so my chances are not looking good.  When Mom saw the new and improved “DOUGLAS” that we/Joey made for Pops following the demolishment of his old office in the Evil Cedar Rapids Flood of 2008 she declared that Joey was permanently in The Will and not allowed to be removed anymore.  (Due to the large quantity of editing and compilation that the new and improved “DOUGLAS” took.)

I’m not sure how Pops feels about this, seeing as he wasn’t consulted first.  Joey has been totally taking advantage of his non-exempt status.

On Monday afternoon of our trip to Boundary Waters, Pops felt that it was wise for us to put up the rain tarp.  His weather report said it was going to rain on Wednesday and we all wanted to be ready!  There is nothing worse, folks, than being stuck in your tent during rain.  It’s much better to be stuck under a rain tarp and wearing rain gear…at least you can move around under a rain tarp.

The tree situation was sketchy at best, so everyone but me scoped out which trees would be best to hang the tarp from.  Laura got right in the action and held the tarp up while the guys tried to guesstimate how high to tie the knots.

I really like Brother in all these pictures (light blue shirt) because he looks very concerned and intense throughout the whole process.  It gets better later.

Joey, my fearless husband, refused to put on shoes.  Observe:

Those are Brother’s feet on the left and Joey’s on the right.  I’m sorry for those of you who have a foot aversion, just forget you saw this picture.  Anyway, keep the “no shoes” thing in mind as you keep reading.

Another classically concerned look from Brother.  I can just imagine his thoughts: “Oh, will we find a branch to tie the rope around?  What if we can’t?  Can I build one one of rocks and sticks and duct tape?”  The possibilities are endless, really.  Brother is an engineer and he’s always thinking of crazy stuff.

Stephen stepped back a few paces and got the view from a different angle.  His insights were valuable.

There was a branch up just out of reach, so Joey suggested that he climb the tree to tie the rope around it.  Then some wiseguy (probably Joey) thought “Oh, how about just climb on Pops’ shoulders and do it from there!”  Please take careful note of Brother on the corner of all these pictures.

Poor, poor dad.

Brother steps in to save the day….

(I think he’s trying to ensure that he gets a “double portion” of The Will someday.)

I can just see my dad wondering if he’s going to survive having Joey stand on his shoulders.  POOR DAD.

With very little incident, Joey tied the rope around the branch and that side of the tarp was hung.  One more to go, and the tree they’d have to use for this last corner was looking even more tricksy than the other one where Joey tried to kill my dad.

Joey tied the rope to the purple Nalgene bottle, just like MacGyver would have done, and threw it up over the branch.  The Nalgene bottle got stuck.  Very, very high up in the tree.  So, Joey climbed it….barefoot.

He stood both feet on that rotted off branch.  I was sure he was going to die or severely injure himself.  (But he waited two days before he did that, which was nice of him.)  After several tense moments, he got the Nalgene bottle unstuck and the rope strung just the way it needed to be for the rope.

He shimmied down the tree and cut his feet up.

Then I bandaged him up.

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather (before the rain) and swim across the channel.  The water in the lake was freezing cold, so Stephen braved it and dove in the water first.  The challenge was to race to him…if someone refused to get in the water, they got dunked.  (Which is way bad punishment.)

See above, Pops is losing…but as you can also see he has a very good running start.  Me (in the 70s suit which you are not allowed to laugh at – it was very functional), well, I look just plain timid to get in the water.

Oh look, Jenna totally lost.

And, if you squint, you can barely see us on the shore of the channel.  It took FOREVER to swim/float there and back.  We were all very, very tired.

Once the contraband was purchased, we had to hide it in our luggage and hope that Pops didn’t decide to get curious and go poking around in our packs and bags. He didn’t.

We arrived at Duane’s quite a bit later on Sunday evening, contraband still hidden in our bags. The original plan had been for each person to pack their own Pepsi in, but Pops was just too all over the place.  There was no way to get the Pepsis around without him getting wise to us, so we had to come up with Plan B. Brother, because he is strong like an ox, volunteered to put all the sodas in one of his extra stuff sacks and carry them in his pack.  ALL OF THEM.  It was like an extra seven pounds.

The next day, when we arrived at camp, Joey and I put the stuff sack of Pepsis from Andrew (because his tent was right next to Pops’, and Pops had been poking around in there for something earlier – ACK!) and buried them in one of our packs.  One thing we could be certain of was that Pops would not touch the packs Joey and I had brought in.  So we were safe.

The next day when we were swimming we began to ponder how e to get our Pepsis cold.  Brother was working on a plan that involved rope, a heavy rock, and the Pepsis.  The idea was to submerge them in the middle of the lake, maximizing the water’s cooling potential and giving us ice-cold Pepsi to drink with our pizza (which Pops and I traditionally make when I’m along).  We had somehow convinced the parents that it was a good idea to have our main meal at lunch, the thought of caffeine after 5:00 was making us kids nervous about our chances of sleeping that night.

The parents were none the wiser.

So, about 8:00 on Wednesday morning, Joey, Brother and I went out “to get water from around the Sister Islands”.  Really what we were doing was submerging the Pepsi, but we didn’t want Pops to see what we were doing.

Once the Pepsis were tied to a very heavy rock and the rope was fastened to a floating log, we got our water and went back to camp.

Four hours later, Pops and I began making pizza.  I totally screwed up the first pizza, but it somehow turned out OK.  We always forget how we did it last year and so the first attempt is kind of the sacrificial lamb, but it all winds up working out OK in the end.

First you spread the dough on the camp stove, attempting to not burn your fingers.  Like so.

Then you have to flip it so the other side gets done also.  Toppings are added to the side that’s cooked and it’s best to throw a cookie sheet over top to melt the cheeses.

Voila!  Perfect pizza.

But, despite our activity and attempts at distraction, Pops noticed some people were missing.

“Where are Joey and Andrew?” Dad asked.

“Oh…around,” I said.  I could see them just paddling back up in the canoe. They had retrieved the Pepsi!

Then…

“How does everybody feel about PEPSI FOR LUNCH!” Joey yelled, coming up the hill, holding a dripping wet sack full of Pepsi and Mountain Dew.

Brother began snapping pictures with the camera he had brought along for the occasion.

A cheer arose from the ranks.

“What?!” Mom gasped, cute as a button.

“HEY!” Pops’ jaw dropped really far and he looked very surprised.  “How did you get those in here?”

We related our adventures to Dad, who laughed at our antics and was kind of surprised we managed to pull a fast one on him, I think.  Everyone’s morale was raised about 20% by the appearance and subsequent consumption of the Pepsi.  Much pizza was also eaten, because it was tasty.

(I like this one because Mom is actually drinking Pepsi in it.  She usually refuses except for two occasions: late night drives where she has to stay awake, and when she eats pizza.)

This picture is golden.  I’m probably in trouble when Pops sees it, too.

And then, several hours later, Joey fell on a saw trying to cut the log we had used to mark where the Pepsi was in the lake.  I kind of blame it on caffeine.

It was Wednesday afternoon.  Everyone was hyped up on caffeine due to the successful Pepsi Day we had celebrated earlier (post forthcoming) and the rain, which had been falling all day, wasn’t dampening anyone’s spirits.  Dad, Stephen and Brother suited up in their rain gear and went out to go fishing.  Mom, Sister, The Kid, Laura, Joey and I stayed back at camp and played games.

Before long, the rain stopped and Joey got bored.  There were two beautiful birch logs laying down by the landing, and he was itching to make us some firewood for the evening’s fire.  So, hatchet in hand, he went down and began hacking all the branches off to make the sawing process easier.

I went down to visit him and I gave him a kiss.  I did not realize he was holding the axe in a very axe-murderer fashion until I heard a lot of giggles and obnoxious whispers coming from those sitting under the rain tarp up the hill.

Doesn’t he look sinister?  Oh…the foreshadowing.

Half an hour later he had the branches off the logs and was getting ready to saw them into the appropriate sizes for a fire.  He was really getting the hang of it, too, and was getting quite speedy.

I glanced down to check on his progress and noticed he was kicking one of the logs.

“Don’t kill it, honey!” I teased him.

Then…as if in slow motion…I saw him jump in the air.  Both feet left the ground.  The saw was still in his hand.  He came down on the log he had sawed halfway through (thinking, of course, that this would save him time and he wouldn’t have to finish sawing the rest of the way) and the log rolled out from under him.  He fell right on the saw he had been holding when he jumped into the air.

“JOEY!” I screamed.

He was sitting on the ground, looking shocked.  Then I noticed it.  Blood, everywhere.

“OH MY GOSH!” I panicked.  I started shaking and flipping out.  Joey just sat there, oozing.

Mom, Sister and Laura flew into action.  The Kid ran to get the camera.  Mind you, no one in my family really ever hurts themselves so we weren’t sure what to do.  But Joey, Mr. Boy Scout (who should have known better, made his way up to one of the seating logs and began giving directions.

“Flush it with betadine.  Good.  I think the bleeding is slowing down… can someone give me some gauze?  Thanks.  Can someone cut this tape?”

I laid my head on his shoulder and bawled whimpering, “You’re going to die!” and other helpful things every so often.

Finally, he was patched up.  The bleeding appeared to be stopped.

We ordered him to sit in a camp chair and not move.  He remained in this position for about twenty minutes and then rebelled against us and began walking around camp.

Here is his disgusting injury shortly after we got him bandaged up.  At this point, we were unsure what to do…should we stay in the BW and assume his hand would be OK?  Or should we pack it up and try to leave the next day.  The guys were still out fishing, so they hadn’t come back to hear the dreadful and disgusting news yet.

Shortly after Joey got patched up, I quit crying.  Then, suddenly, for no reason at all.  I fell apart.  I began crying over absolutely everything and nothing all at once.  The sibs and mom were trying to comfort me and not laugh at me at the same time.  It proved to be a challenge.

Laura’s look tells the story.

“Sister, you must stop crying.  Joey will be fine,” Sister said.  Please note how Joey is smiling in this picture.

“BUT HE MIGHT DIE!” I wailed.

Then someone mentioned we ought to start dinner.

“It….might…be….OUR LAST DINNER HERE!”  And I began to cry all over again.  Hopeless, really.

Laura escaped to the lake.  She was wise.  (And she was probably looking for turtles, which really liked our campsite.  We had a really huge grandfather sized one who came up now and again to check us out.)

Poor Mom.  She’s just not used to injured, bleeding children.

And here I am crying again.

And again.  This went on for, oh, about two hours.

The men came back from fishing, victorious.

Mom met them by the landing to break The News of Joey’s injury/accident/really stupid idea to jump on a log while holding a saw.

Pops got worried.

He examined the situation and determined we’d better call our outfitters to see if they could pick us up tomorrow since we’d better leave to get Joey to the hospital.  He, Brother and The Kid took our fastest canoe and the cell phone and rowed with great might and agility to the nearest, highest point: the portage into Lake Insula.

Nearly an hour later, they returned.  They had successfully gotten a cell signal and were able to contact our outfitter who would pick us up tomorrow at 3:00.  I began to cry again because I didn’t want to leave early.  (I was a basket case.)

Mom made dinner.  I cried.

Joey stood around looking pale and like death wearing an improvised sling out of Laura’s long sleeved t-shirt.

Using the fish they had caught earlier, Andrew got a lesson in filleting a Bass.

Dad caught this ginormous Walleye.

After dinner, The Kid noticed the turtles were lurking around near our landing.  Stephen grabbed the fish stringer (with the fishy carcasses on it) anchored it to a real huge rock and threw it into the water to bait the turtles.

Of course, now that the turtle all knew we were there, he didn’t come.

We waited…

JACKPOT!  Finally Mr. Turtle came and started munching on our fish carcasses.  Andrew, risking life and limb, pulled the stringer in closer and closer to the shore so we could get a better look at him.  He wasn’t the huge grandfather one we were hoping for, but it was still cool.

Fast forward to 4:30 the next afternoon.  Joey and I sat in the waiting room of the Ely hospital and we looked awful.  Still wearing our BW clothes (which were not clean by any stretch of the imagination), and me with pigtails in my hair, we had to look like the biggest jokes in the world.  Oh, and did I mention that we didn’t have ID, insurance cards, or any methods of payment on us at the time?  Because we didn’t.

They called Joey back and, in no time flat, he had been given a tetanus shot and had his hand soaking in an antibiotic solution.  For an hour they soaked his hand.  Finally, the doctor came in to do some stitching and I had to leave – I’m extremely squeamish.

The doctor said that the cuts were deeper than he first thought they were and that it’s a good thing we came out early to get him stitched up.  Otherwise…well, who knows what, but it’s a good thing in any case.

And that, my friends, is how Joey got five stitches on vacation.

This is NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART…but if you like disgusting things, click this link to see Joey’s injury before stitches.  I can barely look at it without passing out, though.

]]> http://jennawoestman.com/2008/08/25/and-nowthe-story-of-how-joey-got-five-stitches/feed/ 3 jennawoestman http://jennawoestman.com/2008/08/25/row-row-row-your-boat/ http://jennawoestman.com/2008/08/25/row-row-row-your-boat/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:03:09 +0000 jennawoestman http://jennawoestman.wordpress.com/?p=1629 ]]> While on vacation, Joey and I made boats using an axe, a couple of buck tools, birch bark, driftwood, and long grass.  They probably took us three or four hours to complete, test, remake the sails and test again.  It was pretty fun…and it was all Joey’s idea!

First, Joey found some drift wood that he could split into narrow planks.  From there, he sawed the ends into a nice point and smoothed out the rough edges.  This part was the most time consuming of the entire project!

I stripped the bark off this branch and then cut it into two small posts, which were going to be the masts for our boats.

Then I had to braid grasses to make ties to fasten the sails onto the masts.  The grass tasted, well, like dirt.

Here are our masterpieces!  Mine’s the one on the left.

We took the boats out on to the lake where I gently placed them in the water…

MINE FLOATS!

Oh wait, just kidding.  MINE SANK.  Joey’s floated, though.

And here is my wilted reaction…just after my boat sank.  Stupid boat.

We left Joey’s boat to float off into the wild blue yonder.  It was still upright by the time the sun went down and we couldn’t see it anymore.  Clearly he rigged mine so that it would sink and his would float.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself…