Jason DeMars
The life and times of the DeMars' Family
Life Gets TOO Busy
Jul 28th
It never ceases to amaze how busy we are, with all the great gadgets we have that are supposedly for the purpose of saving time the reality is they don’t. We spend time fooling around on our “smart” phones, laptops and watching TV. When we didn’t have these items we spent time talking to our family, neighbors and friends. Now, we have a phone with us at all times and we can call and text our friends no matter where we are or where they are. While it is great to be able to be in touch with people quickly I wonder if it really takes away from our relationships that we have face-to-face and our ability to connect with people about things that are important.
I know for myself I’m in front of a computer for 9 or 10 hours a day at work. I’m making a concerted effort to not be on the computer at home in the evenings so I can spend time with my family.
The other thing that we do is to have dinner as a family as many nights a week as possible. In the typical week we have about six meals (including breakfast, lunch and dinner) together as a family. This is really important for us, but my desire is to have more focused time with my family outside, in the living room and wherever we go.
This is wonderful, but there are also many responsibilities that I have and at times it can get overwhelming to keep up with everything. With my work, my ministry in Minneapolis, also at my church and responsibilities around the house it becomes overwhelming and very stressful. In the midst of all the busy-ness it is so important to manage my time well so that a part of my ministry is the time, quality time, I spend with Amy and Avery. It is absolutely critical to every part of my life to relate properly to my family and to minister to and care for them. If I neglect them then I will neglect everything else. My prayer every day is to find the right balance with everything I do so that I honor God with my life.
2010 Lamb’s Resort Trip
Jul 19th
My little family, consisting of myself, my wife Amy and daughter Avery along with our beagle Max, went on a camping over the weekend at Lamb’s Resort in Schroeder, Minnesota which happens to rest on Gitcheegumi which being interpreted means “big lake” or as we modern ancestors of European settlers refer to it as “Lake Superior.” I for one think gitcheegumi is a much better name like that of the lake my cabin resides on Minnewawa which from the ojibway means a good sound. But I digress, also, accompanying us was Amy’s sister Charity, her husband Peter and their dogs Sage and Annie.
We did the usual trips to the Coho Cafe in Tofte, MN (2 times) for breakfast and dinner or second dinner really as we had eaten about 2 hours earlier, but when you are sitting in a chair in front of a campfire or in front of the lake you work up a tremendous appetite. For breakfast we met a nice young man that worked there named TJ who was an exchange student from Turkey. Of course since they had organic coffee I drank at least 5 cups.
We also made the trip up to Grand Marais for shopping, which usually means going into shops that we never really intend to buy anything in before going to Sven and Ole’s to eat pizza. Its great excercise since we are about to go and consume thousands of calories on one of the best pizza’s in known universe. I had an iced cold press coffee (isn’t the fact that it is called cold enough?) and the rest got some sort of ice cream or smoothie.
That day happened to be the fourth of July so later we went to Bluefin Bay in Tofte to watch the fireworks which was an awesome display over Lake Superior, very fun to watch.
Avery thoroughly enjoyed playing in the dirt and getting involved in her favorite pastime which is putting small rocks she could choke on in her mouth continuously causing mom and dad the need to watch her constantly and say, ‘mommy have it’ or ‘daddy have it’ which we then take it and throw it on the ground. Her response is then to find either the same tiny rock or a different tiny rock and put it back in her mouth to which we respond by saying, ‘mommy have it’ and/or ‘daddy have it.’ She gladly responds in obedience, but continues in her favorite pastime. She also developed a new favorite pastime which consists of sitting on her bottom in Gitcheegumi or as our European ancestors renamed it Lake Superior which reaches the lofty temperature of 45 degrees and splashing to her hearts content thus creating a diaper that weighs roughly 69 pounds. It is also about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. She did really great with camping, sleeping outside, even taking naps outside. She is well on her way to be a professional camper as she did not get a late start like her daddy.
It was a rare occurrence over the camping weekend to find two things;
1. Avery without a dirt mustache
2. Me without sweat on my face.
It was an unusually humid weekend on the shores of Gitcheegumi which if I moved from my chair caused me to sweat profusely. Those who know me understand as I frequently start sweating when washing dishes in hot water.
Amy’s new pastime has become taking pictures of inordinately small things and make them fill the screen. She does a masterful job at this considering our current camera is meant to be a digitial video camera without a true zoom lens. Since she has taken up this art form it is time for me to invest in a better digital camera and a photography class for her so she can develop her talent.
We also discovered that it is a complete waste of money to purchase wood for the campfire at Lamb’s Resort. It is very wet and does not burn well and they only have birch. Of course, in Minnesota you can’t bring wood anywhere as the ash borer is on the lamb. So, we purchased wood about a mile up the Sawbill Trail at the world’s first wood supermarket. It was all done on the honor system and you received 299% more wood for the same price that you would buy it at the campsite.
On Monday we had a wonderful day relaxing around camp and then later Amy, Avery and I went to Coho Cafe for our second dinner which consisted of a modified reuben that was delicious along with a wild rice sausage and mushroom pizza. I highly recommend them both. Then on Tuesday morning we went to breakfast at Bluefin Grille and I unfortunately ordered the smallest item on the menu, the House Fritta that was extremely delicious, but did not come with toast or hashbrowns. So I ordered the hash browns separately and it became a more acceptable (and delicious breakfast). Then we began our sad ride home which consisted of Avery being fed up with being in the car for so long and me thinking and planning how I can save enough money to either buy a home or a Bluefin Bay unit on gitchigumi.
Jason DeMars
Cabin Trip August 2009
Aug 19th
Amy, Avery and I recently went up to the cabin together as a family. To sum up the weekend in one word would be very easy to do. RELAXING!! We did not do much of anything. We read, played with Avery, ate and generally just sat around. It was wonderful and much needed.
Avery is now not only crawling, but she can sit up from her crawl. But not only that our little superstar girl can pull herself up on stuff which she absolutely loves to do. It’s amazing to see her doing these things so early. She is definitely a strong, strong girl. I’m anticipating that she will be walking much sooner than normal. Which is crazy to think about, but its wonderful to see her grow and learn so many new things.
It rained most of the weekend so that also assisted us along in doing nothing. Usually we spend a lot of time out by the camp fire, but this time not so much since it was rainy and muggy when it wasn’t raining. Rain or no rain the cabin is always a wonderful, wonderful time.
And what would a cabin trip be without doing some good old fashioned charcoal grilling?!! On Saturday night we had some steaks and on Sunday we had hamburgers. The burgers were delicious, but the steaks were so so. They were organic grass beef and the fat has more omega 3′s in them so it tends to taste a bit fishy. Its really, really good for us, but the flavor was not what we were used to. We also did my famous corn on the grill. If you want the recipe here it is. Simply take the corn run it under water and put it on the grill. It’s GREAT stuff and very easy to do. The water in it helps it steam as well it keeps the husks from burning.
Below you’ll see a video of the layout of our cabin on Lake Minnewawa in McGregor, MN and what the outside looks like.
Avery is Crawling Now!
Aug 3rd
This is one of Avery’s first times crawling. Her actual first time was on August 2nd, Sunday afternoon after her nap. She was playing with us on the bed and she was moving all of over the place when all of a sudden she started crawling for the laptop. I think perhaps she wanted to start her own blog.
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Inspiring Story of Two High School Wrestlers
Aug 3rd
This article is so inspiring to me. Read it and think about how you can make a difference in one person’s life and carry them on your shoulders so to speak.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=4371874
Enjoy!
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Camping at Lamb’s Resort
Aug 2nd
We went camping July 30th through August 1st in honor of my father-in-law’s birthday. Don and Mary stayed at the Cliff Dweller just north of Tofte, but spent the whole day with us while we were camping at Lamb’s Resort which is south of Tofte in Schroeder. Lamb’s Resort was a very busy place this weekend. It was packed with campers and with mobile homers. Amy, Avery and I went with all of Amy’s family. We had two sites right off of the lake and two sites just up from the sites on the lake.
Of course we spent most of our time in the campsites on the lake. There’s nothing like sitting on Lake Superior with a camp fire and good friends, 16 of us in all.
We arrived Thursday afternoon and to basically sum Thursday afternoon and evening up was it rained for a few minutes and then stopped for an hour or so and then rained for a few minutes. Only once was it a real down pour. Fortunately Peter Snow and Nate Morris brought up some tarps that we hung from trees over our picnic tables so that we and our food could stay dry. Great idea guys!
In the above picture you see Avery taking a little nap in daddy’s arms with Charity my sister-in-law looking on.
This was Avery’s first camping trip and she did really well. She didn’t get any good long naps, but she still was not a fussy baby. She just had short naps here in there in our arms and even a nap when she was in the Baby Bjorn while we were taking a hike on the Superior Hiking Trail.
On Thursday night she woke up a few different times and mommy was quick to get up and get her back to sleep. Friday night was daddy’s night to get up with Avery and she didn’t wake up the entire night, even once. She slept like a rock. She was tired, but it probably didn’t hurt that the waves were crashing in on the shore and the rain was hitting the top of our tent.
On Friday we went to Grand Marais after our hike and headed straight for Sven & Oles. Amy and I absolutely love the UffdaZah that is basically an everything on it pizza. It’s some of the best pizza in the world. There was a big festival in Grand Marais so it was very busy, but thankfully we came at just the right time to get a few spots to sit.
After that we went out and Amy need to satisfy her several week craving for mini-donuts. Then we walked over to watch the lumberjack competition which was quite loud, but fun to watch.
Here is the view I had when I was doing my devotions in the morning.
Of course each morning we had the Hoffman’s version of “camping eggs” which is scrambled eggs combined with cut up sausage and cheese, delicious. On Saturday morning we had Mary’s famous carmel rolls. We then packed up and did some more relaxing and we finished it up with a short hike on the Lamb’s Resort property. You can watch a few of the videos I took where the Cross River flows into Lake Superior.
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Avery Means Noble
Apr 25th
My 4 month old daughters name means “noble.” I’m sure she will be a noble girl. I love that word, its one that we use rarely in our culture now. We like cool, awesome and all that garbage. I love noble. It means “Possessing eminence, elevation, dignity.” We need more of that in our culture. My prayer is that I will live my life in a noble way that is an example to my daughter Avery, the noble one. She needs her father to be an example of what it means to be honorable, have integrity and live a life that is noble in honoring God.
I will be doing all within my power to live that way. As the old saying goes, the measure of a man is not in how big his muscles are but in the bags that are in his trousers showing how much he has been on his knees in prayer. The path to living a life of character is prayer to an Almighty God.
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