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Minnesota Vacation 2006 – Day 3

Posted by Marc in Family & Friends

Jul
31

Make sure you continue reading below. By special assignment to MarcBever.com, we have the Wabash Plain Dealer’s Sports Editor, and my cousin, Aaron Turner contributing to this post while he’s on vacation. Make sure you also read the post showing the pictures from Days 1-2 to read Aaron’s recap of Jason’s sunburn. Also, read the previous post to check out the makes of “All Hands on Deck.” If you enjoy Aaron’s contributions to these posts, please comment so we can make sure they continue.

Me, Todd, Matt, Aaron, and Jason jumping into the lake after sitting in the sauna. Below the picture to find Aaron’s story of what transpired.

By Aaron Turner
Hill Billy Editor

GREY EAGLE– “It felt like a sauna in there,” muttered Matt Bever, who carefully built the roaring fire inside the pot-bellied castiron stove.
It used to be a minnow house, may years ago, but some 1×8 tongue-and-groove barn siding, mixed with memory graffiti from years gone by, now houses the sauna.
“I really wasn’t sure what I was in for,” said Aaron Turner, of Roann, Ind. “I thought, ‘How hot can it actually get?’
“The answer soon became obvious — blistering hot.”
The process, one assumes, is as old as the sauna at Lafayette Resort itself.
What better way to cool down from a nice sweat than a dip in Big Birch Lake, just a 20-yard sprint away.
The routine started out with tempers flaring hotter than the fire itself. Sean, Turner’s 6-year-old stepson, was a bit rambunctious in the close confines of roughly 8×10 building.
The hotspots, so it seemed, was the upper level of the platformed sitting area. For the first go-round, Matt Bever, Todd Martin and Jason Warnock all chose the upper level.
“I didn’t know if I was going to sweat,” Martin said.
Soon, though, Turner realized that the gods of sweat weren’t smiling on him like they were Bever, Martin and Warnock.
So he switched with Bever the younger, Andrews, Ind., and soon became a shining figure much like the others.
After nearly five minutes, and an exit from Sean, the group made the dash to seemingly frosty waters of Big Birch Lake.
After a brief lake-water bath, the crew returned to the sauna, where again Bever said, “It feels like a sauna in here,” quoting Seinfeld because his own reservoir of wit was empty.
The routine was repeated three times before finally calling it quits.
The group did find out that amid the heat, one’s breath feels like fire.
“Todd blew on me, and it felt like fire,” Marc Bever, of Mitchell, Ind., said. “It was just weird how that worked.
“Even if you blew on your own hand, it was really hot.”
As a thundershow set in, the group retired after the final trip to the lake, noting that while lightning is exciting, it’s also a touch dangerous.
After getting rained on for the short sprint back to the lake house, which the group is calling home for the week, most went on their respective ways.
Marc began his websiting, Matt went to work on his book, The Partner, by John Grisham he started earlier in the day, Martin, of Claypool, Ind., played cards, Turner wrestled with the cutest baby in the history of the world, while Warnock, the most lightest complected of the group, took a vinegar bath as he is still trying to cope with a sunburn attained on the first day at Grey Eagle.
“Don’t fall asleep by the water for four hours the first day you’re here,” Warnock, of North Manchester, said.
“It’s still early,” Matt Bever said. “We’ll be back in there.”

Minnesota Vacation 2006 Days 1-2

Posted by Marc in Family & Friends

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Jul
31

This is what happens when you fall asleep on the bench by the beach for 4 hours…

By AARON TURNER
Hill Billy Editor

GREY EAGLE–Sometimes outsiders don’t fit in. That’s not the case with Jennie Bever-Warnock’s husband, Jason.
A group of cousins and married-ins made the 12- to 14-hour journey from several points in mid-central Indiana to the glistening waters of Big Birch Lake in Minnesota.
To say the group was anxious to begin the hijinx was an understatement. A drizzlin rain greeted the group upon arrival, but as soon as the skies parted and revealed just a hint of sunshine, the games began.
Warnock brought his family’s jetskis along, and promptly unloaded them into the water of the lake.
The group was tired, to say the least, and Warnock, who drove the distance, was especially so.
Being a gamer, though, he made the maiden voyage on the skis with cousin-in-law Todd Martin.
The day was off to a slow start as Warnock and Martin made a trip together on one wave runner. The duo was stranded in the middle of Big Birch Lake, and Matt Bever came to the rescue.
Martin, a rookie on the skis, couldn’t remount after getting thrown, and rode solo back while Bever and Warnock, brothers-in-law, rode double back.
That was enough for Warnock. Thirty hours of sleep deprivation found him falling asleep on the first solid item he came across — a rustic bench overlooking Big Birch Lake with 2×6 slats for the bench.
“If I can sleep on a cattle box in coveralls at the state fair grounds, I could sleep on anything.”
And he proved it.
For four hours Warnock rested in the sun, his head slightly cocked on his left peck and his right hand covering his right.
Four hours. In the sun. Direct sun. With reflected sun thrown upon him.
“He’s very fair skinned anyway,” cousin-in-law Aaron Turner, who has the cutest baby in the history of the world, said. “I guess several people tried to wake him, but it didn’t work.”
Martin said, “I pulled on his finger.”
“I pulled a towel out from underhim,” Warnock’s brother-in-law Marc Bever said.
But on he slept through four hours of late morning and mid-day sun.
When he finally awoke from his Rip-Van-Winkle-like slumber, the damage was done.
It’s not enough that he’s an in-law, but he was also the funniest looking of the bunch, complete with red face, chest, belly, legs, feet, back and shoulders.
For the first two days, Warnock was the receiver of many jokes. Jokes like: “Uncle John (the family’s uncle) called, he wants his Redman back,” coined by Matt Bever. “Red Lobster called, they want their mascot back.”
Bever also wore a red tanktop, bright red, and if it weren’t the “Pirate’s Cove” logo, the two could have been twins.
So, sometimes it’s tough being an in-law, but Warnock’s done just fine. As long as he keeps doing stupid stuff like taking a four hour nap in the sun, he’ll be just fine.
If you notice in the picture, Warnock’s wife is pointing, and if one’s not mistaken, laughing

Minnesota Vacation – Evening Day 4

Posted by Marc in Family & Friends

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Jul
2

My Niece/Nephew

Posted by Marc in Family & Friends

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Jun
28

Here is the picture of Jennie and Jason’s baby.
One he/she appears to be sucking it’s thumb, the other is pointing to the elbow and knee

Pictures/Tyler’s Graduation

Posted by Marc in Family & Friends, My Photos

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Jun
19

Getting ready to leave Sunday morning after going to Uncle Blake’s for Tyler’s Graduation Party.

The Gang
Originally uploaded by Marc Bever.

Here are some pictures from Tyler’s Graduation Party (photos from Mom, Aunt Linda, and a few by me)

Tyler’s Graduation Party (June 2006)�
Here are some other photo albums that I hadn’t created until yesterday:

Smoking Some Pork and Chicken (March 2006)

National Farm Toy Show (November 2005)

Grandpa Bever’s (October 2005)

Labor Day Fireworks in Indy (September 2005)

Craftsman Truck Race at IRP (August 2005)

July 2005 including Aaron’s Wedding

Rude Reunion – Grand Targhee and Yellowstone (June 2005)�

To see all my photos, click My Photos on the left, or just click here.

A new sport in the making

Posted by Marc in Family & Friends

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May
30

I missed out on this. I was sitting around the campfire when they took off.

A new sport in the making
By Aaron Turner, aturner@wabashplaindealer.com
Sunday, May 28, 2006 10:13 PM EDT
My family has a rich tradition of togetherness. I’m closer to more of my cousins than I am with the best friends I claim in life.
And I like it that way.

Something we’ve always done is the famous adage: “The family that works together, plays together.”
And we do our share of both.

We’ve baled hay with Grandpa Jim since we were wagon-wheel high, or so it seemed.

We’ve shown hogs at the 4-H Fair together, and done most things together.

Well, for Memorial Day Weekend, we got together.

Grandpa has a campsite hollowed out in his woods in rural Lagro, and this has always been a gathering spot.

This weekend was no exception.

Now “The Woods,” as we know it, lives in legend for all of us. It’s a place of solitude, a place of story telling, a place for campfires and s’mores.

It’s also, usually, the starting point for most of the trouble we, the cousins, get into.

I’ll not deny that we get into our share without it, but usually it stems from some idea cultivated in the wooded wonderland.

Saturday, my wife (Kristi) and son (Baden) stopped by there after visiting Heather Fox’s open house.

Now Baden is on breathing treatments because of bad cold he’s been fighting, so without electricity, we couldn’t camp as is the normal custom.

But what time we were there, was worth it.

It started out just like any other visit. Baden didn’t last too long in either of our arms before being picked up and carried away.

We had beef and pork, thanks to leftovers from Jeremy Warnock’s graduation. His brother, Jason, made the mistake of marrying into our family.

Anyway, after dinner, some of my cousins and I took a walk to check out the newest acquisition – a pellet gun.

For some reason, I had an empty can with me, so I was the thrower in the clay-pigeon-like endeavor.

Two hit it, several didn’t.

After that, we started up the hill for one of the hay fields, waist-high on my 6-4 frame.

It was there that the game began.

One of us had an empty dip can.

So my cousin Todd tossed it at my nephew, Levi, which struck with a surprising “tink.”

From there, the game evolved.

Now Levi, even though he’s nine, promptly picked it up and rifled it back at someone else.

And so it went with snuff can getting thrown around a hay field by a bunch of idiots.

Levi was there just because he tagged along, and played because we were.

And Neil (Bever) was there, and was, I’d say, probably the favorite target.

Neil’s a soon-to-be sophomore.

The rest were relatively grown men, ages 21-29.

Eventually it became sort of dodgeball-like, where if you caught the dashing dip can, you were rewarded with a free throw at the one who tossed it at you.

As weird as it sounds, it was pretty fun.

Even though not one of us walked back to the campsite without welts, it was a blast, and by far the most exercise I’ve had in quite a while.

I can’t recommend this game to anyone, due to liability reasons. You just have to be a bunch of half-crazy hillbillies with a knock of picking up pain-inflicting games.

—

Aaron Turner is the sports editor for The Plain Dealer. His views do not necessarily reflect those of this newspaper. He can be reached for comment at aturner@wabashplaindealer.com.