The Adventure Continues

Well Folks,  time here is flying--and dragging at the same time oddly enough!  I haven't posted lately because (1) there hasn't been time and (2) I haven't had much to update you all on!!  Things have gotten significantly more exciting though--so I thought I would give some recaps of events!!!

Our work has changed a bit now that the hunters are gone.  Our job for the first half of the week has been pretty exciting---wait for it....wait for it.....we have become champions at picking up PINECONES!! Wooooooooo!!!! On Monday and Tuesday...and Wednesday we raked, and painstakingly picked up pine cones and sticks by hand so that we could make this the LOVELIEST little place ever.  When we began this task, we thought it would not take too long. Oh how wrong we were.  We have been picking up pine cones for days.  It has been a blast :)  

The gnats are really terrible here right now.   I think you all will get a kick out of this story--we were weeding and picking up pine cones next to one of the cabins and the gnats were absolutely TERRIBLE.  Caitlin was getting really fed up so she pulled up her hood, tied it as tight as she could and put on her sunglasses.  That worked for her for awhile but she couldn't breathe that well.  I tried to do the same thing, but the sweatshirt I was wearing didn't have a draw string.  So I just ended up pulling it around my face and biting it.  That was hard to breathe with too!!  So we got really annoyed with that and were running around in circles screaming.  :)  Yeah...it was a pretty sight.  So we decided to come to our room and try to come up with something to help.  Well, I have these really cute scarves that are light weight and it turns out that you can see through them a little bit!!  So I wrapped Caitlin's head up in one of the scarves and it was wonderful!!  She looked pretty funny, but we didn't care.  So I grabbed another one of my beautiful neon scarves and tied it around my head.  We walked down the stairs and Luke had been looking for us to relay a message from his mother.  He saw us and was like---uh...what are you guys doing?  You look ridiculous.  We started laughing and told him that we were trying to save ourselves from the gnats.  He said, "you know, we have bug nets that you can wear."  That was the best news we had heard all week!!!  Those things work wonders!  Whoever invented them is my hero :)  We will have pictures on the way of the evolution of our head-wear.  It was pretty funny. :)  The nets have been our best friends ever since.  Gnats still get in every once in awhile but they do made a huge difference! 

The pine-cone-raking-picking-cleaning etc has been interspersed however with random odd jobs.  For example, we carried flowers to the greenhouse, watered in there, learned how to work the hose, and other various jobs.  We were also recruited by Josh and Jordan to help them move a whole ton of pipes and debris to the opposite end of the property.  That was  a good time.  It was actually great to be doing more work like that.  The time went by a whole lot faster!  

The best part about this week (except for the discovery of bug nets around our heads) is that we finally got to go out in the boats!!  Both on Wednesday and Thursday night!!  Jordan took us out on Wednesday and we went and saw a whale carcass, and the beautiful sunset!  It was amazing!! We also had the opportunity to go FISHING!! Yay!!  I caught my first sea bass!  And it was teeny!  Haha..Caitlin caught one at about the same size and it was huge!  It was pretty fun to fish there though.  Jordan is one of the guides when the season starts so he gave us some pointers and would tell us where the fish were etc.  So we caught quite a few!  We just threw them back, but man, it was fun!!  We also went to Russian Island.  It is a little island that is just down the way from us.  It is a pretty cool place.  I guess we will be going there for some summer barbecues and parties.  On July 4 we here that we have a huge firework show on the beech there.  It will be pretty cool :)  While we were on Russian Island, Jordan took us up on a peak and we he taught us how to shoot.  We shot at seagulls and I don't think I even got in their vicinity!  I will have to practice :)  We saw some otters and watched the sunset from the boat.  It was really cool.  

The lovely whale carcass--I was pretending to throw up and it grossed Caitlin out :)

Sunset last night.  Isn't it beautiful? :)

We went out the next night with Luke and Jordan and we went fishing.  It was really fun.  The awesome thing about fishing here is that you just let down your line as fast as you can until you hit the bottom and then reel up a few times.  Then you just put it up and down and up and down and before you know it, you have a fishy!  One time I just barely let it down and within like 7 seconds I had a fish!  I didn't even get it down to the bottom!!  It was amazing!  Another time, I had a fish but I got it to the top and it got off--but he was still interested in my line for whatever reason so I played with it at the top and watched him try to get it until he finally gave up.  That was kind of fun to watch!!  I will really enjoy going fishing for the even bigger stuff!!  The guys were telling me that they are excited to take me fishing for halibut because I will freak out.  Its also funny to see me fish for these big fish because my arms are so weak and my pole goes everywhere.  So it will be interesting to see me with the REALLY big fish!!  

Night 2 of fishing--so stinking fun!!!!

So that's most of the really exciting stuff folks!!!  I will keep you posted when there is more to report! Stay tuned!! :)