Besides the wedding festivities, Missi and I had a blast hanging out with the other members of the wedding party, many of whom I knew from my time at George Fox. It was definitely one of the best weekends we have had in a long time!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Great trip to San Diego
Missi and I took a great trip to San Diego a few weeks back to attend the wedding of my great friend Dave. Dave was my roommate at George Fox and he is truly one of my closest friends in the whole world. I was honored to stand beside him as he married Charity. Charity is an amazing woman and we are very excited for both of them.
Besides the wedding festivities, Missi and I had a blast hanging out with the other members of the wedding party, many of whom I knew from my time at George Fox. It was definitely one of the best weekends we have had in a long time!
Besides the wedding festivities, Missi and I had a blast hanging out with the other members of the wedding party, many of whom I knew from my time at George Fox. It was definitely one of the best weekends we have had in a long time!
An awesome example of a publicly misspelled word
Here is a sign I found just a few blocks from our house. Can you spot the misspelling? I know summer is here and school is out, but c'mon now.
Sorry it's been awhile...
Been tough to update the blog as frequently as I liked. Sorry for the inconsistent posting!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Samantha's Sixth Birthday Party
This post is a bit belated, but I wanted to share some photos from Samantha's birthday party. But first, a short aside...
If I were to ask you what type of "theme" most six-year-old girls would want for their birthday party, how would you answer? Probably you would say that most little girls would like to have a princess themed party, or perhaps a tea party, or maybe ballerinas?
Well, what about if that six-year-old girl has a ten-year-old brother who loves exploring in the forest? Well, in that case, perhaps the little girl would like to have a "forest" themed birthday.
And that's exactly what Samantha asked for. She wanted to have a "forest" party. So that's what we tried to give her - we hauled tables and chairs down into the forest, built a fort with all of her friends, and all of her guests painted a "plate" that was made out of a round of cedar log that I cut for them. It was a really great time!
Here are some photos:
Here is the forest party set-up. We have a huge forest area near our house and we set up a few tables and chairs in a meadow. You can see the "plates" that the kids painted. The "plates" were in fact slabs of cedar that I had cut with a chainsaw off a log and then sanded down and coated with polyurethane.
Here comes Sam running down to the forest with her friends in tow. Look at that look of sheer joy and excitement on Sam's face.
Here's the birthday girl.
Our beautiful six-year-old girl.
We were so fortunate to have our great friends John and Kirsti come to the party. They were up in Seattle from Portland and it was great to have them.
Sam painting her log plate.
Sam and her friends painting their log plates. It turned out to be a really fun activity.
Blowing out the candles
Make a wish and blow!
"Mmm....that tastes good!"
If I were to ask you what type of "theme" most six-year-old girls would want for their birthday party, how would you answer? Probably you would say that most little girls would like to have a princess themed party, or perhaps a tea party, or maybe ballerinas?
Well, what about if that six-year-old girl has a ten-year-old brother who loves exploring in the forest? Well, in that case, perhaps the little girl would like to have a "forest" themed birthday.
And that's exactly what Samantha asked for. She wanted to have a "forest" party. So that's what we tried to give her - we hauled tables and chairs down into the forest, built a fort with all of her friends, and all of her guests painted a "plate" that was made out of a round of cedar log that I cut for them. It was a really great time!
Here are some photos:
Here is the forest party set-up. We have a huge forest area near our house and we set up a few tables and chairs in a meadow. You can see the "plates" that the kids painted. The "plates" were in fact slabs of cedar that I had cut with a chainsaw off a log and then sanded down and coated with polyurethane.
Here comes Sam running down to the forest with her friends in tow. Look at that look of sheer joy and excitement on Sam's face.
Here's the birthday girl.
Our beautiful six-year-old girl.
We were so fortunate to have our great friends John and Kirsti come to the party. They were up in Seattle from Portland and it was great to have them.
Sam painting her log plate.
Sam and her friends painting their log plates. It turned out to be a really fun activity.
Blowing out the candles
Make a wish and blow!
"Mmm....that tastes good!"
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Epic Misspelling
Check out the North Carolina State Wolfpack's media guide for their baseball team. How did this get through the editorial process (assuming their was such a process)?
On another note, I've got a bunch of backlogged blogging to do ("backblogging?"). I climbed Mount Hood last weekend and I have a bunch of pictures of that event, and I still need to add a post on Samantha's sixth birthday. I'll try to get to those in the next week or so.
On another note, I've got a bunch of backlogged blogging to do ("backblogging?"). I climbed Mount Hood last weekend and I have a bunch of pictures of that event, and I still need to add a post on Samantha's sixth birthday. I'll try to get to those in the next week or so.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Change in blog policy
Sorry folks, but I'm changing the commenting settings to no longer allow for anonymous posts. We get too many weird spammers leaving comments on this blog as Anonymous so I'm making the switch effective immediately.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Two tidbits of awesomeness
#1. Check out this ad for Uzbek Airlines. Who comes up with their marketing slogans? "Good Luck" - really?!?
I found this lil' gem on the fascinating world of Twitter. If you're not on Twitter yet, check it out. If you are, follow me!
#2. Check out this bumper sticker that I snapped a picture of. There is just so much to love about this bumper sticker, but I think the best is the picture of the poor logger who is caught in the owl's talons, but he still is managing to hold on to his axe!
I found this lil' gem on the fascinating world of Twitter. If you're not on Twitter yet, check it out. If you are, follow me!
#2. Check out this bumper sticker that I snapped a picture of. There is just so much to love about this bumper sticker, but I think the best is the picture of the poor logger who is caught in the owl's talons, but he still is managing to hold on to his axe!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
A few photos from this weekend
Had a great weekend and decided to take a few minutes to post a few photos. The awesome Newton fam make their triumphant return to Seattle after moving down to Roseburg, Oregon last fall for a job change. They stayed with us one night and we loved having them and their great dog Jack with us.
On Saturday morning we went for a short hike right here in Newcastle and the dogs (and kids) decided that the water looked too good to pass up!
Suffice it to say, we're enjoying taking photos with our new camera!
Saturday afternoon Drew and I had a baseball scrimmage. It went OK but we still have quite a bit of work to do.
This morning I had a blast running the Seahawks 12K fun run with a few great friends from here in Newcastle/Bellevue. Brian, Chad and Curtiss did a great job and we managed to run at a much faster pace than we had had been training at.
If you're wondering what I'm wearing, you really had to see the whole get-up for the total effect. Let's just say there were spandex, short running shorts, and tube socks involved.
It was a great weekend!
On Saturday morning we went for a short hike right here in Newcastle and the dogs (and kids) decided that the water looked too good to pass up!
Suffice it to say, we're enjoying taking photos with our new camera!
Saturday afternoon Drew and I had a baseball scrimmage. It went OK but we still have quite a bit of work to do.
This morning I had a blast running the Seahawks 12K fun run with a few great friends from here in Newcastle/Bellevue. Brian, Chad and Curtiss did a great job and we managed to run at a much faster pace than we had had been training at.
If you're wondering what I'm wearing, you really had to see the whole get-up for the total effect. Let's just say there were spandex, short running shorts, and tube socks involved.
It was a great weekend!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Whew! That was a tough day...
But I loved it. What am I talking about? Last Wednesday I took the day off work (thankfully I'm not crazy busy right now) and did a version of the Cascade Triple Crown. The CTC is an attempt to climb Granite Mountain, Mailbox Peak, and Mt. Si in one day. That equates to about 22 miles of hiking and 11,000 feet of elevation gain. I heard about the CTC from a friend at work who loves to climb, and we decided to go for it to "commemorate" the fact that one of my best friends in Seattle is moving to the East Coast in a few weeks.
We had been advised to do Granite first, Mailbox second, and Si third. The reason for doing it in that order is two-fold. First, that is how the mountains geographically sit east-to-west. It was easier to start farthest east and then progress westward. Second, Granite is fairly challenging, so it was good to start with that one. Mailbox if definitely the most difficult, and Si is the easiest. We wanted to do Si last when we were the most tired.
We met at the trailhead at 5:30AM and started climbing Granite just before 6:00AM. There were four guys in our group, and the other three were definitely all in better shape than me. Granite was a great climb, fairly challenging in parts, but nothing too tough. We took a slight "detour" that we thought would save us some time, but ultimately slowed us down because we were climbing through snow up to our knees. It also got really steep and we didn't have mountaineering gear with us (crampons and ice axe). We did, however, have Yak Trax, and those were really helpful for Granite. If you haven't done this climb and live in the Seattle area, I highly recommend it. Great views from the top and a good trail. It was about 4 miles up and we gained somewhere around 4,000' of elevation.
Here we are at the trailhead getting ready to head out
Two of the guys I climbed with on the way up Granite
This picture does a good job of showing the type of terrain we faced heading up Granite thanks to our "shortcut"
On the climb up Granite Mountain
At the top of Granite
One down, two to go!
Mailbox Peak gains about 4,200' of elevation, but it does it in around 2.5 miles, so you can imagine what the terrain is like: STEEP! The trail heads up and just doesn't level out. My legs felt pretty good after Granite but Mailbox was pretty tough. The other guys powered ahead and reached the summit 5 or 10 minutes before I did, but we all made it.
They aren't joking! Mailbox is very challenging!
Here is the iconic "mailbox" at the summit.
Made it to the top. Looks like I was eating something when this photo was taken.
I was feeling pretty tired heading to Si, but it isn't too bad of a climb. It's about 4 miles up, and also gains around 4,000' of elevation. The first two miles up Si were no problem and I was leading the group at a good pace, but the last two miles of the hike were tough. Part of the reason it was tough was because something I had eaten (probably the energy gels) were not sitting well in my stomach (this is another story in itself - ask me about it sometime). But we made it to the top, and managed to make it back to the cars around 7:30PM, making it about a 13 hour day of climbing.
Here is my buddy signaling to his wife down below. She was able to see us on top from their house!
On top of Si - it was all downhill from here. My smile is a bit deceiving as I was feeling pretty wiped by this point.
Here I am writing this 3 days later, and my legs still don't feel like they've fully recovered. Missi asked me if I had fun, considering the punishment I inflicted on my body, and I can honestly say it was one of the best times I've had in quite awhile. The guys I was with were excellent, I love being in the mountains, the weather was perfect, and I love pushing my body hard. It was a great day!
We had been advised to do Granite first, Mailbox second, and Si third. The reason for doing it in that order is two-fold. First, that is how the mountains geographically sit east-to-west. It was easier to start farthest east and then progress westward. Second, Granite is fairly challenging, so it was good to start with that one. Mailbox if definitely the most difficult, and Si is the easiest. We wanted to do Si last when we were the most tired.
We met at the trailhead at 5:30AM and started climbing Granite just before 6:00AM. There were four guys in our group, and the other three were definitely all in better shape than me. Granite was a great climb, fairly challenging in parts, but nothing too tough. We took a slight "detour" that we thought would save us some time, but ultimately slowed us down because we were climbing through snow up to our knees. It also got really steep and we didn't have mountaineering gear with us (crampons and ice axe). We did, however, have Yak Trax, and those were really helpful for Granite. If you haven't done this climb and live in the Seattle area, I highly recommend it. Great views from the top and a good trail. It was about 4 miles up and we gained somewhere around 4,000' of elevation.
Here we are at the trailhead getting ready to head out
Two of the guys I climbed with on the way up Granite
This picture does a good job of showing the type of terrain we faced heading up Granite thanks to our "shortcut"
On the climb up Granite Mountain
At the top of Granite
One down, two to go!
Mailbox Peak gains about 4,200' of elevation, but it does it in around 2.5 miles, so you can imagine what the terrain is like: STEEP! The trail heads up and just doesn't level out. My legs felt pretty good after Granite but Mailbox was pretty tough. The other guys powered ahead and reached the summit 5 or 10 minutes before I did, but we all made it.
They aren't joking! Mailbox is very challenging!
Here is the iconic "mailbox" at the summit.
Made it to the top. Looks like I was eating something when this photo was taken.
I was feeling pretty tired heading to Si, but it isn't too bad of a climb. It's about 4 miles up, and also gains around 4,000' of elevation. The first two miles up Si were no problem and I was leading the group at a good pace, but the last two miles of the hike were tough. Part of the reason it was tough was because something I had eaten (probably the energy gels) were not sitting well in my stomach (this is another story in itself - ask me about it sometime). But we made it to the top, and managed to make it back to the cars around 7:30PM, making it about a 13 hour day of climbing.
Here is my buddy signaling to his wife down below. She was able to see us on top from their house!
On top of Si - it was all downhill from here. My smile is a bit deceiving as I was feeling pretty wiped by this point.
Here I am writing this 3 days later, and my legs still don't feel like they've fully recovered. Missi asked me if I had fun, considering the punishment I inflicted on my body, and I can honestly say it was one of the best times I've had in quite awhile. The guys I was with were excellent, I love being in the mountains, the weather was perfect, and I love pushing my body hard. It was a great day!
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