never a dull moment in the johnson-gonzalez household. paola taught phoebe how to do the 'airplane!' we have to entertain ourselves somehow in the cold, dark minnesota winters.

the camera can photograph thought.

it was COLD!

every year more than 12,000 CRAZY minnesotan's (and some other midwesterner's as well) make their way north to stand on ice and stare down a hole all in hope to catch a fish....in BELOW zero temps. this year, i was one of them. it's the biggest ice fishing extravaganza in the world; and it's right here in minnesota. all i can say is that it was COLD! (it warmed up to about -20F!) i had 3 layers of clothing/thermal wear on both top and bottom and also 2 pairs of wool socks. i added pocket warmers to both my feet and hands. i had two pairs of gloves, a facemask, a turtle tube around my head up to my eyeballs and a hat. the ONLY thing that you could see was my eyes. we stood out there. for six hours. on ice. and DID NOT catch a fish. in fact, not even a nibble! i put myself through this god awful pain of coldness to give my girlfriend a true minnesotan experience. i wanted her to see what REAL minnesotans do for fun, you know, those that don't live in the city, that live 'up north' in an even more FROZEN tundra than the twin cities. yeh, those kind of minnesotans :) about 20 minutes in i was regretting my decision.

under 100 fish were caught during the 3 hour official tournament timeslot. NOT EVEN 100 FISH WERE CAUGHT and there were 12,000 anglers on the ice trying to catch a fish. so when one of our buddies started reeling in a fish you can imagine the excitement. first paola saw. she said, 'jody, curt has a fish!' i looked over (he was right next to me) and started cheering. then the rest of our party gathered around and started cheering as he continued to reel it in. before we knew it, people from all around our area of the ice had gathered around, probably 20 -30 people had ran over to our hole by the time curt pulled the fish up out of the hole. of course the fish will die within minutes of being out of the water, so i immediately remembered i had a hot chocolate cup and threw it to one of the guys who started to fill a plastic bag with lake water out of one of their holes. as soon as curt pulled it out of the water, justin took the hook out, curt ran it over and put in the bag and ran as fast as he could to the weighing station, which was quite far away. a F150 truck is on the line, so you want to get there as fast as you can, because if you tie with someone else, the first person there wins. so let me tell you again, curt ran as fast as he could with a fish in his hands! he was in 3rd place when he brought it up, but by the end of the tournament, he was bumped to 5th place. still though, out of 12,000 people, he was one of 100 to catch a fish and then to place 5th....i think, is quite amazing.

gosh, the adrenaline rush from one of our crew catching a fish was incredible and seriously made the whole day worth it. it even has me considering doing it again next year :)

a sneak peek at colombia :) it was a BEAUTIFUL country. just amazingly beautiful! (i am going to post tons of pictures to my flickr account in the next few days) paola's family was SO hospitible and loving and giving. my spanish actually started to come together towards the end of the trip and paola's family was really impressed with my effort, which made me feel good.
i probably sounded like a 3 year old talking, but i don't care! we spent christmas eve, christamas day and the day after christmas with her family, then left for 3 days to the central andean range (the coffee region) and then came back for the 30th, new year's eve and left on the morning of the 1st. we stayed in cali for 2 nights with her cousin neto and his wife vanessa and stayed at a small community outside of cali, palma seca, with her uncle carlos and his family. carlos' house was amazing, they are both gardeners and agri engineers and had mango trees, lemon trees, chiriyoya and coconut and last but not least, avocado trees!! and they were the biggest avocados i've ever seen!! i ate so much avocado, in fact i gave my meat away in order to eat more avocado at two different meals and they looked at me like i was crazy, lol!!! but they were SO DANG good, who needs meat? carlos' wife also is a master orchid grower and it was so beautiful being at their house...i felt like i was in a tropical sanctuary.