New Roof -- Part 1

As I previously posted, we're getting a new roof!   It's such an amazing feeling, knowing that the roof is being fixed and we don't have to worry about storms!  We had a couple estimates, and the contractor closest to our house won the job!  It helped just a tad that he's also from our church!   I really wanted to be able to share God's grace, and who better to share it with than another member of our church?   


We have a large house, and therefore a large roof.  It needs 118 bundles to cover the whole roof!  I went to Menard's to pick out the color I wanted.  We're going a bit darker, but it has a reddish tinge to it, which I liked.   Brian and his family started on the tear off yesterday (July 30), and let me tell you, they are a hard-working family!  Even mom (Charlotte) showed up to help!   When I asked about Charlotte helping, they all said she helps on the "not scary" roofs!  LOL  She doesn't like the ones with a steep pitch, and I don't blame her one bit!  I didn't even climb up on my own roof!  There was NO WAY I was going to climb up there!  LOL   


Yesterday started with the tear off.  Additional tear off was done today and the shingles are being delivered tomorrow!  Yea!   


There's really not much more to say about the roof, so I'll just include a bunch of pictures here.  They're pretty self-explanatory . . . but if you have questions, leave a comment and I'll be happy to answer! 

A piece of the plywood was warped really bad, so Brian removed it and put a fresh piece in place.  

  

Just in case you're wondering, I did NOT take the pictures from up on the roof!  I had one of Brian's kids (who was helping) take my camera up on the roof with him.   


Blessings to all! 


Julie

God Wants us to Stay in this House!

Well, it's official, folks!  God's plan is for us to STAY in this house.  I'm not sure why, or what's up with that, but I'm confident that it is God's plan, and that suits me just fine! 


The reason I'm saying that is because of the following: 

• In December, our furnace was causing problems and not running properly.  Because we had received heat assistance for the 2011/2012 heating season, I contacted the heat assistance people, and they sent out a technician to investigate.  Because of the problems with the furnace, it was not cost-effective to repair it.  Therefore, heat assistance paid for a brand new furnace to be installed!
  
• On February 21, 2012, after talking with our bank regarding the foreclosure (and sending them all the paperwork they required -- which amounted to almost 100 pages faxed to them), and with the sheriff's sale literally only a few days away, the bank agreed to work with us and we are able to keep our house!  Because of my new job and the job Greg has, we can finally pay our mortgage!  The bank has been amazing in working with us, and we are THRILLED to be able to actually PAY our mortgage!  
  
• Last month, we had a nasty wind storm here.  We had 40 to 60 mph winds for over two hours.  That storm damaged our roof.  This is the original roof on the house, which is about 17 years old.  I called the insurance company and had an adjuster come and look at the roof.   Yep, we need a new one!  The insurance company is paying IN FULL for a new roof for us!  WOW!!!!!!!   We hired a great contractor from our church (Abbotsford Northridge Church) and he's going to start on the roof next week!   How AMAZING is that?!  

I haven't been able to stop smiling!  I can't stop talking about how wonderful God is and how He has been blessing us and blessing our lives!  I knew God was going to make this an awesome year when Greg and I both found jobs, but I had NO IDEA how awesome it was really going to be, and we still have five months to go!   

Now, don't get me wrong.  We've had some rough times in the last seven months, but even during the difficult times, I praised God for those difficulties and praised Him for sending me those trials and tribulations, because it made my beliefs even stronger, and caused my faith to grow, and my prayer life to grow.  It caused me to become closer to Him and develop more of a relationship with Him -- just as He had planned all along!  

I am truly amazed at the way God has been blessing us! 

May God bless you all as He has been blessing us!  

Julie

P.S., just to elaborate here, we have "replacement cost" coverage on our insurance.  It differs from "actual cash value" in that insurance will pay to REPLACE what has been lost, rather than  what it's "worth" at the time of the loss.  I've always believed that this type of coverage is best, even though it costs more.  In the long run, if you have a loss from a storm, like we did, it will definitely be very well worth the few dollars extra it costs!   If we only had "actual cash value," we'd have received about $2,000 for the value of the roof at it's current age.  When it comes to the cost of a new roof, $2,000 won't go very far!  Thank you, Father, for granting me the wisdom to purchase the right kind of insurance for our home!  YOU are AMAZING!

ROADTRIP! Just me and Greg! It was AWESOME!

Ever since we moved up here eight years ago, we talked about the fact that we are so much closer to so many really awesome things in Wisconsin.  Stuff that was four (or more) hours away is now just a couple hours away.  The only problem was, with the store and everything else happening in our lives, we never had a chance to visit any of them.   We changed all that this weekend!  


We have a reporter/meteorologist on the news that does a piece called "Wandering Wisconsin."  He goes to all sorts of really cool places here in North Central Wisconsin.  Last week, the piece was on an area of the Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest called "Cathedral Pines."    This particular area of the Forest is also the nesting grounds for Great Blue Herons -- one of my favorite birds!  I see them often around here, but have never seen their nests, nor have I ever heard them.  It sounded VERY cool, so we decided (well, OK, I did), to take a "roadtrip" and go explore the Cathedral Pines and see the Herons!


I had to work Saturday morning, so we got kind of a late start, and didn't get on the road until about 1 p.m.  That's OK, though, as we had no other plans for the day.  It was about a two hour or so drive to the area of the forest we wanted to see.  The nice part about it was that it was mostly on a county highway, rather than an interstate, so it was a somewhat "scenic" drive.   A short drive out of Wausau, and we came upon a town with a rather unique name . . . I knew it was here, but Greg didn't.  I convinced him he had to stand near the sign so I could take a picture.  

Greg said he felt silly standing there and me taking a picture, but I'm pretty sure we are not the first folks to take a picture of that sign!  LOL


We still had a bit of a drive after stopping here, but finally made it to the Forest! 

I'm sure by now you're wondering how on earth to pronounce the name of the Forest!   It's pronounced "Schwa-ma-gon."  Simple really!  :-) 






The Cathedral Pines area of the Forest is outside of a small town called Lakewood.  We ended up driving about three miles too far out of town and went right past the road we were supposed to turn on!  DOH!  Oh well, what's a roadtrip without a little detour?!  We figured it out and made it to where we wanted to go . . . 

This part of the forest has some of the oldest and most unique trees in all of Wisconsin. According to the story I saw on TV, "In the 1900's logging companies cleared entire forests supplying lumber for construction. 

But when Lucy Rumsey, wife of the president of the Holt Lumber Company saw the towering trees outside Lakewood, that mentality changed. 

She used to bring her kids here and walk around under the pines and said the sounds of the breezes moving through the tall trees reminded her of a cathedral and she would teach them Bible stories there." "Because of her love of this landscape; that's why these massive trees remain."  

Apparently, these trees were just saplings when George Washington was born!   How cool is that?!  

We thought that there was a "auto tour," and the "hike" looked LONG from the picture above, so we decided to drive on down the road.  We figured out, after a couple miles, that this was not the "auto tour" and we needed to get back to that sign and get out and walk.  That's OK, because I got some really great pictures!  

The road was NOT wide enough for two vehicles, so it was a good thing we didn't run into anyone else!  Isn't it pretty, though?!  

This part of the road was quite a bit larger, and at least had enough room for two vehicles to squeeze past each other.  

We got back to the starting point and started over . . . only this time on foot!  

The pine trees in this part of the forest are HUGE! 

The tree on the left looks like it had been hit by lightning. 

We thought the ones on the right were really cool looking, with the way the grew kind of twisted around each other!

We followed along the paths, looking for the herons.  We could hear one of them, but couldn't find it.  Another person mentioned that he found one, and when we asked him how, he said they looked at the ground, and when they found a lot of bird poop, they looked up and found a nest!  LOL  Sooooo, that's what we did and lo and behold, we found some nests!  

You can see two of the nests in this picture.

In this picture, you can see three nests!  There's a fourth one, but it's somewhat hidden.  

In my desire to try and get a picture of one of the birds, I ended up going off the trail and following the sound of one of the Herons.  I turned around and had the daylights scared out of me!  Hanging in a tree was THIS: 

At first, I thought it was a dead skunk hanging in a tree, but upon closer inspection (but not too close!), I discovered it was a dead heron!  At first, I thought maybe it was a youngster that had fallen out of a tree, but it's not the right time of year for that, as the babies are just hatching.  Not sure what happened here, all I know is that it scared me half to death!  

It was MUCH better to look up and find THIS Heron sitting just above the nest! 

Once we left the Cathedral Pines area of the forest, we decided to head on over to the Mountain Fire Lookout Tower that was not far away.  Of course, we ended up missing our turn once or twice, but again, that was OK!  It was quite a scenic drive, so we didn't mind!  

The Mountain Fire Lookout Tower is the last remaining fire lookout tower in the Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest.   

Walking up the tower reminded me of the lighthouses we visited in the Outer Banks in North Carolina!  LOTS of steps!

  

Looking up the stairs from the bottom.  

I LOVE this picture!  

Of course, I had to get a picture of Greg climbing up! 

The view from the top!  There were no maps or anything at the top, so I'm not sure what/where those hills are in the background.

I know it's a little goofy, but I had to take a picture of the shadow of the tower!  I tried waving, but it didn't show up!  LOL

Greg's afraid of heights, but seemed to be enjoying himself here!  

So, that was our little roadtrip today!  This was one of the very few times we actually went somewhere without the kids!  Erica had to work and didn't want to come with anyway, and Abby was busy working at the neighbors and getting ready to leave for camp on Sunday.  We had a really wonderful time and brought home more information on the Forest with more areas to visit.  The Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest is kind of divided up across the northern half of our State, and there's quite a bit of it in the Northwestern portion of the state.  That's a bit closer to us, so we will be visiting that area and learning more about the forest and it's inhabitants!   

Blessings to all! 

Julie

Changes are Acomin'!

There are lots of things that are going to be changing around here.   We gave it a great shot, and spent a lot of money that we don't have and the store is not only not supporting itself, but it has really never paid us anything.  We've put so much time and effort into it, and it's just not paid off.  It's time to close the doors, so to speak.  The website is now gone as I can't afford to pay for it, and it's about time for this forum to close, too, as there's just no interest and really never was a lot of interest.  The one thing I'm worried about right now, is my blog.  I don't want to lose all those years of entries!   Don't worry, I'm not going to give up blogging completely!  I'm in the process of copying and pasting all the previous years' worth of entries (and have asked support if there's a way to export it, to avoid that time-consuming job).   I'm moving my blog over to Google Blogger --> http://mrsmik.blogspot.com/    Be sure to bookmark that link!  I'll still add a few reminders here, but as I'm slowly copying stuff over to there, I will begin new posts from there, as well.  

I also started a Google Picasso account, so that I will have all my pictures, videos, blog, etc. in one place.  I've also learned my lesson about blogging, in that I will be keeping all these entries on my computer, as well, so, as technology changes, etc., I will always have my blog for my kids and grandkids to read. 

If there's something you're interested in from the store, please let me know, as we'll be offering some GREAT prices on all the merchandise we have left!  

So, head on over to http://mrsmik.blogspot.com/, for the latest information on the happenings in the Mik Family!  

Balloon Rally & Glow!

On Saturday, we did something that I've wanted to do for a LONG time!  Ever since we moved up here, I've been hearing about the Wausau Balloon Rally & Glow that happens in Mid-July at the Wausau Airport.  For whatever reason, we've never gone.  Well, all that changed today!  After all our hard work at the Fireworks Tent, I decided that we needed a treat!  We didn't have a lot of money to spend, and this event was FREE, so what could be better?!  


There was also a "Rib Fest" to go along with the Balloon Rally!  How cool is that?  There were four vendors, or competitors . . . here's a few pictures 

It was very cool to watch them cook the ribs and see their setups.  It's really nothing like what we've seen on Food Network!  

We tried the food from the first vendor in the first picture.  I had a BBQ pulled pork sandwich ($8) with a side of cole slaw ($2) and a side of baked beans ($2).  Erica had the same sandwich as me, with a side of baked beans, and Abby had the Rib Sampler ($8) and a soda ($2).  Yes, it was expensive, but all four vendors had the same pricing (conspiracy? LOL!).   The rib sampler was pretty small . . . only three ribs!  You could also get a half rack (6 ribs) or a  full rack (12 ribs), but those were way too expensive!  Greg didn't want to eat anything, and saved his appetite for pizza when we got home!  LOL  

We ran into my cousin Jeff and his lovely wife, Ellen just after we got our food.  We ran into them again, later on, as they started filling the hot air balloons!  

Jeff is such a ham!  I haven't seen him or Ellen since my dad's funeral, so it's been three years.  We ended up using them as a "home base" as we all walked around and checked out the various balloons and other happenings.  

Bi-Plane rides were being offered  . . . but we decided that was a little too rich for our budget. The bi-plane was pretty cool, though! 

We got some really great pictures of one of the balloons being set up.  These folks were really nice, and even let me come to their side of the ropes to take some pictures! 

A big fan is used to help blow up the balloon: 

As you can see, the basket is on it's side.  It's not easy to get these things up!  The pilot has to crawl in the basket on it's side to get things working.  Once there's enough air in the balloon, they turn on the fire!    

Here, you can see the balloon starting to rise up off the ground: 

The pilot is keeping a close eye on his balloon!

I love those pictures of the flame!  

We had a brief shower, which cooled things down a bit, and gave us some awesome storm clouds!  










This is a picture of the inside of the balloon being "raised" in the pictures above.  I love the smiley face!  (The smiley face is at the top of the balloon, so you can only see it from inside.)

FIRE ... up close and personal! 

Once it was dark enough, they had the "glow" part of the rally! 

Here's a couple of short videos I took of the balloons: 

At the end of the night, there were fireworks!  This was one of the best shows we've seen in a LONG time!   All in all, we had a GREAT time!  It was great to see my cousin again and to spend time with the girls -- something we don't do often enough.   


Hope all is well with everyone! 


God Bless! 


Julie