Reagan's First Marching Band Performance

 

She's in marching band!  This makes me beam!  Good job, Gremlin Marching Band!    

Northern Lights

    I have a new phone and a new lens for my good camera, and I have been wanting to try some night photography, so was just waiting for the next round of Northern Lights to hit.  THIS time, I would not sleep through them.  THIS time, I would be prepared, batteries charged, willing to do more than step out on my front porch (if I got out of bed at all).  THIS time, I was determined to actually SEE the things that I had heard so much about over the years.  There's nothing worse than waking up the next morning and seeing everyone else's fantastic pictures of the most magical thing that happens up here - auroras.  THIS TIME I would be ready! 

    I am too cheap to pay for an aurora app, and the free versions I have do not send alerts.  But I did get an email from spaceweather.com warning of a G2 storm, so I had an inkling that something was coming.   OK.  I'm ready.  Let's do this thing.  As soon as it was dark, I grabbed my good camera, a tripod, and stepped out on the porch.  And saw trees.  Because our house is surrounded by trees.  Maybe there was a bit of a glow above the trees, maybe?  Could've been the lights of town, though.  But I would not give up this time!  So I woke up my sleeping husband and asked "which direction would I look to see Northern Lights?"  "Towards the neighbors house" he said, super happy that I'd woken him up for this particular question.  "Don't wake me up again."  OK.  Look towards the neighbors house.  So I got in my car, and drove down the road, and then turned around to point my car towards the neighbor's house.  There was a glow on the horizon.  Maybe this was it.  I leaned out of my car window and took these stunning pics: 

ARGH.  This was not the epic night I was hoping for!  After about 15 minutes of sitting, waiting, and taking terrible pictures, I hear footsteps approaching my car in the darkness.  Uhhhhhh..... someone out for a walk?  I didn't panic.... until someone shined a bright flashlight in my eyes.  What the what?

    "MONICA??? IS THAT YOU?"  It was my neighbor, protecting his home from stalkers.  "I'm just waiting for the northern lights!"  I showed him my phone with the aurora forecast.  "See?  They're supposed to be out tonight!"  

    "Do you know how many creepy people hang out on this road at night?  You should not be out here!"  Apparently, I was one of those creepy people.  I learned later that he was packing a gun.  I got off easy with a stern warning.  OK.  Fine.  I would go home, and admit defeat.  I climbed back in bed, disappointed.  

    About 10 minutes later, my neighbor's wife texted, apologizing for her husband's behavior.  No need to apologize.  I appreciated that he was protecting our road.  But she wanted to make it up to me.  "Wanna go check out Chassell park?"  It was 11:00 pm.  Of course I wanted to leave the house (in my pajamas) and go to the park!  

    Well, that was definitely the right move.  Because as soon as we stepped out of the car, this is what we saw:

Oh my goodness.  I have only ever seen the Northern Lights a handful of times in my life, and never like this.  Never so vivid and definite and dancing and beautiful.  It was stunning!  These pics are not edited in the least, and taken with my iphone.  I tried my good camera, too, but my tripod wasn't very stable, so they aren't in good focus.  The phone pics turned out much better.  Take a gander at these!  It was just so so so so so cool!

Beth left me there to run home and wake up her kids, but the best of it was over by the time they came back.  

 Such a great evening!  Beth and I returned at 5 am to see if they were still out, and they weren't by that time.  Oh well.  We were being greedy, hoping for twice in one night.  They were stunning and incredible, and I am so grateful I got to see and capture them! Totally worth the lack of sleep!

Late Summer Sail

 Our time left to enjoy the water is dwindling.  Have to take advantage of every beautiful day that we can!  Reagan is not a fan of sailing (I don't know whose child she is) so Rob and I took Second Wind out by ourselves.  The wind was the strongest we've managed thus far, and we were speeding pretty good. We're getting the feel of this boat, and gaining confidence!  

The yacht club was out racing.  We're not quite proficient enough to participate in such things.  

Look how much that boat is heeling over!  That gives you an idea about how strong the wind was.

We grilled our dinner on the boat.  It was a bit caramelized.  Still great to enjoy a meal while sailing!

The mooring is beautiful at sunset, with the colors reflecting on the water.  

Afterwards, to end such a great night, we ended up in the ER, because I have a blood clot in my arm that was killing me.  It hurt a ton, and reached from my wrist to my armpit.  It felt like my arm was about to explode, so thought we should just get the darn thing checked out.  So dumb.  Rob dropped me off and went and got himself some ice cream, because that's how a night of sailing should end.  The ER wasn't able to do anything for me, because the ultrasound techs don't work on the weekends and so there was no way to confirm the location of the blood clot  (I could tell the doctor exactly where it was!) so it was pretty much a wasted trip anyway.  When Rob came back and I explained the status of my blood clot to him, the idea of it made him woozy, and he ended up on the floor.  Seriously.  

After about 10 minutes on the floor, of me checking his vitals and him refusing to let me call the nurse, he asked for me to get out of the bed and laid down.  Which one of us is the patient again?  We eventually got him up and out to the truck to lay down.  Note to self: don't talk to Rob about blood or anything pertaining to blood.  It doesn't end well.  

The blood clot was impeding blood flow so much that it was diverting to superficial veins that were then popping, leaving a bruise.  I could watch it happening in real time.  Super fun.  

Getting old is fun.

Late Summer Flight

 

ELK Pickleball

 We got a grant for pickleball equipment, so have been playing a little pickleball at our new local courts.  I have to admit - it's pretty fun!