As It Turns Out...

Katy Loves Fishing! Now, I never would have guessed that. Prior to July '09, I maybe went fishing 2 or 3 times (at most). Paul had me try it when we went camping in the Wind River Mtns in July. Over that weekend, I caught 3 trout (he caught none...shhh). Brook Trout, Brown Trout, and we believe a hybrid West Yellowstone Cutthroat/Brook. It was a grand time. It took until the 2nd one before I was willing to actually touch the things...and Paul had to remove the hooks from them. We caught and released, it was a lot of fun. I was (pardon the pun) hooked after that. We went fishing the following weekend at Frye lake and I caught 1.95 (got the 2nd one into land but it slipped off before anyone with a net reached me) more, can't remember what they were...and a chunk of tree. I lost my "lucky" lure that day...but so goes life. I have my own pole, tackle box, vest and net now. :) Oh! And I really liked camping. We "roughed" it (no showers or drinkable running water). That was my 3rdish time camping outside of cabins with Girl Scouts years in my past. The other times were with a friend in middle school where we left halfway through the night because of a wretched storm, and the other time with with the Branham's when we were in High School during a holiday weekend. I only stayed one night with them, got there in the evening and left in the morning...so it's really hard to count either of those trips. Clouie came with us when we went camping in the Winds. She had a nice time, though she was fighting a skin infection while we were there which we didn't know about until the last morning. Paul said he'd noticed her belly was pink before we left...but it was red by Sunday morning. Poor little monster. No worries...she's fine. We're hoping to go camping one more time this summer before there's too much snow in the mtns, but we're fast running out of time. We'll see what happens.

Let's see...other than that...we've crammed as much summer fun into the 6 or so weekends I've had off this summer as possible. We visited Devil's Tower, my favorite place, in early July. Great time. It's been years since we've been to the monument and it's still as breathtaking as I remembered it. The next weekend was the camping trip. Then Paul's family came to visit us the 2 weeks after we went camping. Their visit was really great. PaPa came with them, and even our nephew Matthew was in attendance for the first week they were visiting. His dad (our brother-in-law) came up to get him, so at one point, we had 5 additional people in our 1800 sqft house. It was a bit crowded that weekend, but truly outstanding. Paul's folks went to Salt Lake City during the early portion of their second week visiting us, so Paul and I had some nights with just PaPa. Or at least Paul did...I started evening shifts the second evening...but I did have all the day and afternoon hours with PaPa. After their departure, it was time for our trip to Yellowstone. We went for 5 days or so and it was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of critters, and did a good amount of fishing. Paul caught a small brown trout on his fly-rod. I had a nibble with my "fly on a bubble" but that was about it. Can't win 'em all. We did an easy-ranked hike while we were there to the Fairy Falls. They were really nice. We did the hike earlier in the morning, which was good because the trail-head was CROWDED by the time we got back to the truck. So what all animals did we see? We saw three black bears, two grizzlies, four antelope (at least), a bunch of bison and elk, a bald and golden eagle, a bunch of jumping trout, and two wolves. It was our first time seeing any of the wolves in the park. Paul was thrilled since he's always wanted to see the wolves. If only we'd seen a porcupine and moose...maybe next time. Amazingly, with all the elk we saw, we didn't see any bulls. We found it a bit peculiar after previous visits to the park, but we suppose that happens sometimes...depends on how their winter went.

So, lots and lots of trips and traveling this summer. It's felt nice to be home the past week, but I am about ready to take my way own trip back into the Winds to do some more fishing. But, I'm not in a hurry. If a lure gets caught on something when I'm solo...I'm S-O-L since I don't have waders. Plus, I've never unhooked my own fish...so that could be interesting if I'm alone. Chances are, I'll wait until Paul can go with me in a couple Sundays.

What else, what else. I'm sure I'm missing things. I have been volunteering at our animal shelter which has been an adventure all of its own. There have been some great pups, and chances are low that I'll go through a breeder again to get a pup. Not that I have any regrets on getting Clouie that way...she's such an awesome and bad beagle. Love her to pieces. It's been a great summer. I'm sad to see it ending already. We had some snow in the Winds yesterday, it was fun to see them snow-capped when the clouds lifted yesterday afternoon.

The fall will be busy as it always is. Will write more later. Take care all!

Feels good to be home...

It always feels good to come home again. Especially after being gone for around 10 days, and 6 of those days were "for work." We left in early June to go to our niece's graduation in Texas. She graduated at 4pm (central), and due to work constraints, we couldn't take a flight out until 6a (mountain) of that day. Graduation went well, it always makes you proud to see someone accomplish that in their lifetime. Paul stayed through the weekend and came back on Monday.

I meanwhile, left Sunday morning (after being in Dallas for around 25 hours) for the LEAD experience. After the months of planning and preparing, the week has come and gone. The experience was incredible. I made 14 new friends, and was pleased to get to know some of the facilitators better through the week. I have to admit that I feel pretty inspired to do some good work around town and the office after going through that experience. Last' year's class labeled it as "life-changing" when they went. Whether that is/will be true for me remains to be seen. Ask me again in at least a year, then feel free to ask me again in increments of 5 years. I believe I learned about elements of myself I wanted to change which may have a positive impact in those around me. I look forward to getting back to the office to see what can be done.

Paul met me in Denver on Friday evening after the experience, and we spent the weekend in the Denver/Fort Collins area. It was a great weekend and I was incredibly happy to see my husband and puppy (he brought Clouie with him for a multitude of reasons...number one being that I missed the pup!) when he got into town. We went to Bass Pro Shops on Saturday morning and made our way up to Fort Collins. Turns out that Fort Collins is a very dog friendly location, so finding a hotel that let us have Clouie was not an issue, and we were actually able to stay our our favorite place. After watching the Mets game and taking a nap, we took the pup out to some pet stores so she could walk around, and then hit up a local sports grill for dinner. A dog park was right around the corner from us, but we never got a chance to take the pup there. Today we got up and went to IHOP for breakfast. They had their strawberry festival going on, and I tried their strawberry pancakes. Incredible. After breakfast, we went to a fly fishing shop for Paul, and then to Target for me. We left soon afterwards and got back a while ago.

It was a great weekend after a wonderful week. I feel very well rested and ready to get back to work. I can't wait to see what the next year brings with LEAD and am hoping for a lot of positive advancement in both my personal and professional life. Take care all.