This place is awesome.

New York is one of my favorite places. One of my favorite things to do in NYC is to ride the subway. Maybe it is because I don't get to do things like ride public transportation often but I love it! Central Park is less than a block from our hotel and that also makes me happy. I think a huge park in the middle of a city is always a good idea. It is also a good idea to have Kelly Clarkson come sing in said park! It was way cool to see Kelly(I refer to her as Kelly sometimes because we totally would be friends if we knew each other!) on Good Morning America. I also found it neat to see all thar goes into taping a live show. It rained a lot on us before the taping of the mini-concert and between breaks. For some reason, the rain seemed to stop for the show!

We also visited Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The Statue of Libery is phenominal close up. I saw her from the Staten Island Ferry years ago but being so far away from her lost the magic. Ellis Island was awesome and I was touched by the stories of families reuniting in America while I listened to the audio tour.

We also went to Times Square tonight and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was way fun and I had a delicious burger. I still eat slow due to my tooth(or lack of) but the time it took to eat was well worth it!

I am tired and should now sleep. Getting up at five is hard. Getting up at five in a different time zone is even harder. So worth it to see the concert but nonetheless I must now sleep. Later!

Start Spreading the News...

I am going to be in New York tomorrow afternoon. You all should come. Okay, maybe you won't but still: know you are invited.

Look for me on Good Morning America on Friday, July 31st. (THAT IS THIS FRIDAY) I will pretty much look like the picture above, except I will be surrounded by a bazillion people. You will find me in the crowd, right? I thought so.

Have a great rest of the week and if I have free internet I will update this. If not, expect lots of pictures Monday!

Bennie the Bass.

"I caught you a delicious bass." I caught this fish this afternoon. Go me. It was as fun time on the lake. I am trying to get ready for the trip to NYC. We fly out tomorrow morning. Going to be a blast.

Stuff.

I am pretty tired right now. That is weird seeing I just slept. Must be this whole: I just had a tooth yanked out of my jaw yesterday. All went well, there is no cracked tooth where it once was and fifty percent of my tooth problems have now been taken care of. I will still have to have a root canal sometime when I get back out to Utah. Lucky me!

I do have to say I was very glad that I had the nitrous oxide, even if it was also a very weird experience. I remember sitting there and actually being pretty conscious. I could hear what the doctors were saying but at the same time it was as if I was hearing them a few seconds after they had spoken. Everything they said just after I started the drug seemed very funny but at the same time I kept thinking: "Wow, do they know that they aren't very funny?" I also would go on "little vacations" during the procedure and then come back and notice things like "oh, they must have just gotten my tooth out," or "wait, they are drilling, maybe they don't have my tooth out." Then I went away for a while and came back and realized that they were putting the stitches in. It was a crazy weird journey and the whole time I was thinking to myself: "I still don't know why people would want to be in some weird state due to drugs." Seriously, it was not my favorite experience but I was glad I really wasn't totally there for the whole pulling of the tooth experience because it probably was pretty traumatic!

Here are some pictures from this past weekend. My aunt and uncle visited from Green Bay. It was nice to have them here. We had a pretty low key weekend and didn't do much but lounge around the house, which was nice. I wish I would have taken some pictures of them but I am a picture slacker sometimes.

Awesome Pie:


Yummy rootbeer that I had with some fab pizza:


My mom and I played ladder ball after dinner on Sunday. She is getting pretty darn good. We do this quite often in the summer! I love it:


This is a pretty cool picture where I actually caught one of the balls mom threw in midair:

Rain!

It is raining and I like it. This is what it looks like from my bedroom window while I am typing this. Splendid! Do you love the leftover Christmas decor? Yep, we believe in being early in this family!

"Alice Lake"

I haven't been doing much of anything, so that will explain the lack of blog material these days. I am just enjoying being a sloth and not doing much. I did go fishing today...enjoy the videos below of Perch Lake.

I didn't catch any fish but just being down by the water is fabulous. I saw a loon and a beaver at the lake today. Ah, Nature!

Loon Pic:


I also did a little bit of biking today out in the woods today. It was fun. I went with my friend, Bob. (aka Roberta). It was nice to chat with her and get to know her a bit better. Her and her husband also had me over for lasagne. It was so good. Good times with fun people and great food! I love it. I hope you had a nice day too!

A few more pics of fishing:

Deep Thought

I was going to blog...but then decided not to.

Good night!

Weekend of Fun!

Hiya. This weekend the house was filled with guests. My four of my friends from Wausau came up on Friday night for a game night. We also had amazing pasties for dinner. My mom was a good host. Marla and Jenette stayed over that night and on Saturday we want shopping on the main street in Rhinelander, went to the logging museum, frisbee golfed, played air hockey and mini-golfed. It was a very fun time with friends. I am thankful that I have such great friends. They are lots of fun.

My grandma and Aunt Kathy were also here for the weekend. Last night we played a few mean games of Scrabble. I never win at that game. People always put pressure on me to be good at those kinds of games because I was an English major. That does not mean that I am good at finding words, goodness quit pressuring me! Haha.

The house is kinda quiet now that all of the company is gone. Summer is flying by and I do not care for that flying. This week will be kinda laid back and then the next weekend my mom is taking me to New York City. Cool, huh? Marla and Janette(Utah Janette!) will be joining us. We will be there from the 30th to the 3rd of August. Then I will have a few days here and off to Utah I go again. It really feels like I just got off that plane a week ago. Crazy that I have been here over a month. I will quit talking about this because it is depressing!

NYC will be awesome though. Look for me on Good Morning America because we are going to the Kelly Clarkson concert in Central Park on July 31st. Nice. I will be the crazy one with a sign that will have a picture of Kelly at the Orem concert. Nice. Marla will probably have a sign that says: "I do not know her." It will also have an arrow pointing to me. It will be fun. We also plan to catch Wicked on Broadway and see all the tourist sights. It is going to be a great ending to The Summer of Fun! I am way excited.

A week from tomorrow I will have my tooth yanked. It has been giving me issues, so I decided to have it taken out here. Mom wanted me to have it fixed before flying to NYC so I got an appointment. Hopefully having that done four days before flying to New York won't pose any problems.

Well, life is good here. Hope yours is too!

Thought you would like to see some of my status updates from Facebook from the last two days!

Alice is watching The Bachelorette and eating Wisconsin string cheese. Pretty good start to the day, I would say! :) (TUESDAY AM)

Alice "When was the last time you dropped the waterline and risked revealing yourself to someone who mattered?" This is from the great book: Be the Hero You've been Waiting for by Yvonne and Rich Dutra-St. John. Read this book. It WILL change your life!
(TUESDAY SOMETIME)

Alice thinks it is silly to shower before going to play softball but also feels she should. Who knows, looks like it could get rained out today. Game is at 7:15 at Sunnyvale Park #2 if anybody wants to watch!
(TUESDAY AFTERNOON)

Alice won! Okay so her team won...not just her. Go ADC GO!
(TUESDAY EVENING)

Alice needs to quit playing bejeweled.
(WEDNESDAY MORNING)

Alice is itchy on her ankles. I think something is biting me while I waste time on the computer.
(IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES)

I think you can learn a lot about somebody through their status!

Wisdom From Dad

My mom, dad and I were out at the firepit tonight enjoying a fire and
a beautiful evening and discussing how the DNR has a hard time keeping
track of the moving deer population when my dad said: "It is very
easy to count the deer in Wisconsin. You just count their legs and
divide by four!"

I thought you would enjoy that tidbit of information. My dad is a silly guy!

--

A little writing before you enjoy the two slide shows from Lake Superior!

I had a great time on a trip with my mom and sister this last week. We left on Wednesday morning to make the three and a half hour trip. It was a gorgeous day! We ate at a Restaurant in Ashland, WI. It was right on Lake Superior and the view was awesome.

When we got to Bayfield, WI, we decided to have adventure right away. We parked near the ferry to Madeline Island and got on the first ferry to the island. Madeline Island has about 200 year round residents. The population swells to over 2,000 during the summer months. It is definitely a touristy town. We went to the museum, hit the shops and went to Tom's Burned Down Cafe. Basically, the rumor is that Tom's bar burned down and the town wouldn't allow him to rebuild so he put up a tent and ran the bar from there. Pretty cool place.

We then headed to our awesome condo hotel room. It was right on the lake with a real cool patio that overlooked the lake. Awesome.

The next day we took a cruise around the Apostle Islands. There are 21 islands total and they are all gorgeous. The rumor on the name is that the people who first discovered the islands thought there were only 12 islands and named them for the 12 Apostles. The highlight of the cruise was Devil's Island. There were cool little caves on the side of the island and the lighthouse was nice too. We also got to see the lighthouse on Raspberry Island which was also gorgeous.

We then drove home with a stop in Boulder Junction where there is a man who makes really cool birdhouses and sells them on the side of the road for three and five dollars. Quirky little cute place.

We got home around ten and stopped for pizza at The Claridge. That is the bar where I spend time playing trivia in the summer. It was the first time I had stopped there and it was nice and kinda weird because one of my friends from here died back in January. We would always meet at The Claridge and play trivia together. I had not been there since Jim passed and it was weird to be there knowing that he would never be there again. SIGH.

Just having a quiet weekend at home with mom and dad. It is nice.

Watch the next two slide shows and ENJOY!

Road Trip and Madeline Island (La Pointe, WI)

Where We Stayed and A Cruise on Lake Superior

The Monster Within

Just a quick post from the balcony of my fabulous condo in Bayfield,
Wisconsin that looks over Lake Superior. It is awesome and you will
see plenty o' pictures from the adventures we have had while here.
This is a girls trip and it us way fun. I love my seester and mom!

The monster within is the intense anger that I sometimes experience.
Over the years I have gotten very good at keeping that monster in
check. When I do let the monster get the best of me, I often feel
stupid and embarassed. Yesterday, while playing softball and losing
23-3, I took a pitch that looked low and long. It was a strike so I
was out. I then lost it and threw the bat to the fence. It didn't go
anywhere near anybody but as soon I did it, I felt stupid because I
knew that I had lost control of my anger. I would not have been a good
example to my students of good sportsmanship. Hopefully I will be
better in the future. One of the umpires came up to me and said:
"usually when a player throws a bat, I would kick them out if the
game. But in a game like this, that would just add injury to insult."
I was glad he was nice to me. I think I may feel a little idiotic for
a few days!

--
Check out the blog at: www.softballalice.blogspot.com

Fourth of July Weekend!

That is the longest slideshow. I hope you had the time to watch it. If you are busy, I understand.

I had a lot of fun this weekend with family. My dad's brothers and him always get together on the 4th. My Grandpa loved the 4th and to honor him they decided that they would always get together and celebrate. Each year they switch off whose house they go to and this year was our turn in good ol' Rhinelander. A few of my cousins also came which was nice. We pretty much ate and ate and ate. Good times!

On Friday we went up to Wausau and watched a Wisconsin Woodchuck baseball game. This is a summer collegiate team. I remember when these boys were hot stuff. Now they just are little and young although they can still be handsome! My friend, Marla, met us there which was also nice! It was fun!

Saturday was the party and basically at our parties all we do is sit around and eat and drink and be merry. My uncles, a few cousins, dad, and brother- in- law love to play poker so they did that most of the day. That night we went to a parking lot down the road and watched the Rhinelander City fireworks. They were not as good as they were in years past but I think a lot of people probably noticed that this year due to the budget cuts everywhere. I actually think the little display at the ballpark on Friday was better.

Well, today I am off to fish for a while. I think real worms are going to do the trick today. Later, I may be driving down to Wausau to go to softball practice and hang with friends. It is a beautiful day. The wind is blowing and it is sunny. So it is nice but not too hot. I like it!

Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Rolly Polely Fish Heads

Warning***there will be a picture of a dead fish head in this post.

My friend, who graciously lets me stay with her in Wausau when I play late softball games, thought that my blog needed a special tribute to Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. In order to do this, she had this Michael Jackson stuff all displayed on her dining room table for when I arrived. I found it quite funny. You should hear my dad talk about Michael Jackson. He sure is sick about all the hoopla. I liked Michael. I thought he was kinda a freak in a lot of ways but I will always treasure his music and the memories of my life it brings back. The era of Moonwalking, will never get old! :)

Now onto Farrah. Apparently, I do not remember anything about Farah except that she was famous. I pretty much have a horrible memory and she didn't make the cut. I am sure if you asked my brother about her, you would get a totally different response because of the whole sex symbol thing. Yada Yada. Marla and her sister loved Farah, though. In fact, they would fight over who would get to sit on that bean bag, so their mom had to set a timer so they could take turns. Kids are funny.

Random dream: I had a strange dream about being a director of a play that had like 100 little kids in it. I didn't ever show up to the practices and another adult pretty much was the director but he gave me all the spotlight. It was weird. Thanks for coming to support me though Bills family. You were all there and Oliver was six months and walking and talking. Weird.

I went fishing yesterday and caught this......


Funny thing about sticks is that they don't put up much of a fight and really are pretty heavy at the end of the fishing pole. I have come to the conclusion that artificial lures are not for the birds and especially not for fish. Next week will call for nightcrawlers.

Here is a picture of the only thing resembling a fish I have seen since fishing a few times since being home. It is gross so if you don't like fish or dead fish on the shore you should skip the next picture. If you are all about the gore of life...enjoy!