Engaged now!

It was romantic.
It was so unexpected.
It was perfect.
And it really started off our vacation in such a special way.

We then decided to hold a party before the summer was over - to invite our good friends and co-workers over to mingle, celebrate and enjoy some of Ray's great BBQ cooking.

Funny thing was, we ended up inviting WAY more people than our place can actually hold. We started to think of friends, old and new, who we would really like to re-connect with in this celebratory way and pretty soon we had an Evite list of over 50 some people.

When Evite suggested that we send a "reminder email" just a week before our party, I opted to skip it...and was just praying we could handle having as many people over as had rsvp'd.

Turned out really super.

Here are some pictures... and ALL of these pictures were taken by the next door Ukranian girl and who is six-year-old and has designated me as her "new best friend" - Sofiya - Hence many of the angles are coming from a little twerp about 3' 5" tall and from her own eyes of the party. LOL



Ray kept his station by the grill for most of the night.












Me blowing up balloons and putting last minute touches to our "party" balcony.












My singer and great friend Linda, and Ray's mother Pam. Pam brought with her a terrific fruit display, a lovely spicy pepper tray, and some pickled cucumbers that were a big hit.










Chit-chatting with my old roommate and some other Improv Friends.












Ray's good friend Nate, with his new little one Chloe. Sofiya became very enthralled with having the little baby around.











Myself with Linda and Chris, two previous students of mine. Linda is the singer galore and we'll be launching her website and booking her gigs this fall!














Some of Ray's co-workers. Sofiya learned how to Zoom in the focus during this party, and it starts to show. Very funny.












Me with Andre Washington - my last and best roommate from the Lake Shore Drive apartment. He was also the first one to ever hear about this "Ray" guy that I started to date.









And this is Ray with his oldest and absolute Best Friend, Jim. Jim also has a wonderful and charismatic wife Roseanne, along with two sons, but the following day was the first day of school - so they weren't able to make it. Jim and Roseanne have been a terrific couple to get to know and we've started the tradition of seeing the Opening Nights of the plays at Court with them together.





Annie and Kate - two lovely ladies who were once students of mine at SC, but now just really cool chics to hang with.













One of my new girlfriends and also alumni student. She's a powerhouse improviser on stage and just an all around positive and sweet girl to know, Heather Markey.










Me with Rochelle Winters - the producer from Wavelength and also very wonderful lady to get to know.











This is Jim Winters, Rochelle's husband and co-producer of Wavelength. I like this picture also because it demonstrates Sofiya's perspective being around all these adults.










And this is Me with Sofiya.

Her entire family next door speaks not a word of English, but it seems that over the last several months Sofiya's grasp of the language has blossomed and she wants to speak it all the time. She speaks it so well that she loses her Ukranian accent when she does use English. She's a cute one, of course. Very independent and self-sufficient this one!




And here she has Ray being silly too.















The party lasted for several hours and near the end, of course, we all ended up in the Kitchen carrying on dozens of different conversations. That's always a fun energy to have in your house.

So this was our very first time holding such an open-house type party for our friends. Kudos goes to Ray for getting so much of the place ready and clean while I had spent the last 7 days on the road with Wavelength doing shows.

This party also marked the end of the real summer for us given that directly following this party Ray has had to put in some very long hours installing the huge set for Court Theater's
opening production of "Caroline, or Change".

Meanwhile, I continue with my work teaching at Second City. I am going to be creating the music for Jason Chin's Halloween Musical this year - which is something I haven't had a chance to do in a long while, create original music for a musical. And, of course, the launching of Linda K and her amazing jazz voice. Linda and I have been rehearsing once a week for 3 to 4 hours for several months now and have a set-list of 40 of our favorite jazz songs. Infact, TODAY is her photo-shoot with a terrific professional photographer friend of mine Rance, so that we can get updated pro photos of her to include in her CD's and website listing. She already has a gig to perform some original political satire songs at Lake Shore Theater in October, which I know is freaking her out right now...so I'm not reminding her yet. One step at a time. She has a voice you can quickly become addicted to and I can't wait to get her up on stage, up on that mic, and give the world of people around her the honor to listen to it and fall in love!

So the Fall has lots of promise. And with all the work Ray is doing right now, I'm sneaking a chance at the calendar for one last few days of Fishing that we might be able to squeeze in. We'll see.

love to you!
Stephanie

New Season of Love

I never did finish posting ALL of the pictures from our long camping vacation. Partially due to simply having just sooo many to choose from. Also partially due to not being in the mindset of putting the great times we had this summer to rest.

But now that Ray is in the midst of the first show of the new Court Theater season, the summer feels like its coming quickly to a close. I've admittedly not felt prepared for this. I want the carefree freedom and stress free lifestyle of Fishing, Camping, and being the Northwoods to extend and extend and extend. But in the last week or so I've been seeing in Ray's eyes the reality of the time... my sweet handsome fella comes home now exhausted, sore, achey and a little brain fried. Its the beginning of the new Season for Court and the beginning of another year of Technical Direction and phenomenal stage work for Ray. Yes there are lots of worthwhile rewards to his work. I just feel a little pained sympathy for the fact that it takes a lot more right now to bring that sweet wonderful smile to Ray's deep thoughtful face.

So I'm going to post now some of the pictures from this summer. I hope you enjoy seeing them.


A beautiful evening fishing trip. We had much better luck fishing at sun-down, and it always made for better pictures too. I just love this picture so much.
This was my 22 1/4" Walleye catch. My very last catch of the trip. It took me many extra seconds as I was trying to de-hook him to even realize that it was a fish I'd never seen before! He acted a lot like a Northern Pike in the water and gave up a huge fight. Having caught this guy on a spinner-bait really takes the cake! I shouldn't expect a catch like this for many hundred more casts.

Looking studly?

Someone is a goofball!

Ray's longest, most amazing catch! That is one whopping size of a Northern Pike! We spent one whole day on a research lake north of Eagle River, Lake Escanaba. This lake provided the most amazing views of nature. We spent hours and hours casting along the banks and the winds were so rough that even with our anchors down we were being dragged north up the banks by the wind.
This is Ray's MUSKIE CATCH of our trip. Not as huge as they get, this was probably a young adolescent and we did throw him back in. Funny story to tell though...we had spent hours on this mostly desserted Lake (free of other fisherman) and had all sorts of mishaps with our reels, our lines and every kind of mechanical problem that drives a fisherman crazy. And putting up with all of it, we were still coming up short on actually catching fish.

No joke, we caught two "baits" (a Red Devil and a Spinner bait some other fisherman got tangled up in the weeds and left behind) and I caught an entire reel of synthetic mono-wire from a fishing pole that apparently some fisherman got fed up with and threw into the lake.

Ray also managed, somehow, to break the Titanium caster off his casting reel. When we later went into town and he bought basically an upgraded model of the same brand of caster, they said they'd never seen a caster break off like that.

We remained tenacious about working this lake and enjoyed the humor of all of our mishaps, including my decision to just start taking pictures of all the "non-fish" elements from the Lake that we were catching...like this huge log limb.

But eventually catching this Muskie for Ray really did cap off the day and made for the entire trip so worthwhile. We found him in this cove section of the lake where we were partially attracted to for giving us a break from the constant beating of the wind. And as we drifted into the shallower water, Ray looks down through the crystal waters to the bottom sand and asks me, "Doesn't that look like a dead Muskie laying down there?"
I go over to his side of the boat and look down
Yep. Sure does.

And the fish ain't moving.

Why would he be dead here? I asks

So Ray drops his lure into the water and lets it float down to the bottom and though it takes a few brushing up against the fish, sure enough we woke it up and watched it fish casually, and then scatter quickly away from our boat and into the safer shadows of the fallen logs up inside the cove.

Can't say exactly if that's the very Muskie that Ray ends up catching, but it made for a very new experience to see how nature exists when man is so undetected.

Now just imagine yourself, sitting on a boat, listening to the soft callings of birds around you, the lapping of the water gently against your boat, the occasional summer breeze cooling your face, and watching the sun going down for the night.
This is the closest thing to heaven on earth, is what you end up thinking to yourself.

Ray has had to learn about my "photo-bug gene" and he's had no choice but to accept it. Which has meant, at times, getting a little frustrated by the distracting sound of my camera clicks when he's trying to battle with his casting-rod against some rough winds. He was always good spirited about it, and at times like these, found an opportunity to get just a little revenge.


"Vanity"

You know...you're out in the woods, there's very little opportunity to check yourself in the mirror and you only get to wear the clothes you brought whether they suit your "mood" at the time or not. This is something only the female species can truly appreciate. In the planning of our trip, I do everything I can to try to increase my odds for staying tidy and perhaps even pretty. Part of me says to just give it up. And perhaps I eventually will. But I'm still putting up the good fight and yet even with that, I end up with "not so flattering" photos.

Oh well. :-P

We were trying for a close-up shot of the monster teeth inside the Northern Pike. This is the reason that, in all my pics, I am wearing a chain-metal type glove on the hand that is holding the fish. A nick or bite from one of these fishes could rapidly turn bad and infected in the time it would take to get back to camp and to a hospital if stitches were needed. Of course we have First Aid in the boat and I'm still learning how to avoid hooking-myself as I de-hook my fish.

I can happily report that no serious accidents have occurred on this trip. However, I cannot report that no harm was ever caused to the animals. Infact, two of them were quite tasty!


For our own scrap-booking purposes, it's important to remember all the places we got to see and visit this summer. Here is the camp site that we rented for 5 days at a brand new camp site location just north of Eagle River. This is about 2.5 hours north of our regular site in Westfield Wisconsin, and about 45 minutes from the town Rhinelander where Ray's good friend and his family live. We spent July 4th with Steve, Eileen, their daughters and the whole extended family.

These people were actually the first close friends of Ray that I had met as his official "fiance'" and they couldn't have been more warm and welcoming. I have since referred to them as his "adopted family" where Ray seems to have been adopted as just another of the many Sons.

The kids took to me instantly and we were brought along to their family party, dinner out and fireworks display. Steve himself has an amazing Boat which we had the great fortune to go out to Boom lake on with him and have a grand tour. On the two occasions that we got to go fishing with Steve, who is an expert on the intricate nuances of these lakes, Steve himself caught TWO MUSKIE!

Please note, the Muskie is so rare of a fish to catch that's commonly referred to as,
"The Fish of Ten Thousand Casts."


So I'm probably up to cast #300 or something. But to watch Steve bring in two during that week was really so impressive. It gave us all a Big High out on his boat.

So here are some of the photos from the time spent with their family.

This is Dan, Ray's best friend.
He lives in California now.
He caught this Pike on our first
evening out on the lake together.
The next day I had to return to
Chicago and Ray & Dan spent the
week together for more fishing.

This is Steve - Dan's brother and
also Ray's good friend.
He and his family live in Rhinelander.
Here he is releasing the first Muskie
he caught on our first time out to
Boom lake.

Steve and his wife Eileen were so generous
in letting Ray and I stay two nights in their
guest bedroom...and to shower up from a
week's of camping in the woods. Really
terrific peoples.








Steve & Eileen

George - the family patriarch.
He lives in a beautiful wood cabin
house nestled in the woods and
along a small river bank that connects
with the Chain Of Lakes.













Ray with the Steve's oldest daughter, Gwen.

Me playing with the middle child, Charlotte.













And the newest little one in their family, Lukus.

Don't let this picture deceive you...we are only "rentals"
















Ahh, the crazy things I can get kids to do!

The Dragon fly who got caught in my line, somehow.

Did you know, the insect world this is one of the most fiercest species?
Thank goodness its no hazard to us humans.

Okay. Well my sweet Ray just got home from work a tad earlier than expected meaning I get visit with him for a bit before heading to work. This is great! I will continue my post later and include the engagement party we just had.

Love!