Picnicking, MSFT-style

Endless amounts of endless varieties of food along with the greatest lineup of blowup attractions greeted us at the MSFT company picnic this past weekend. Also, there was rock climbing, sports stuff, and the most pleasant weather available for our enjoyment at the mountain meadow farm the company rented out. We met up with our friends the Lemmons and had a great time doing all kinds of events.



Vanessa's favorite thing was a bungie cord thing attached to the backside of the rock climbing wall. You get in the harness and then they hold you down, stretch the cords, and then release you to soar straight up through the air.


After we had our fun at the picnic, we used up some old free movie passes and watched Harry Potter 5 - we hadn't seen it yet. Although I enjoyed it well enough, I can't say it was my favorite. I thought it jumped way too much from scene to scene and thus the story often seemed broken and jagged.

We finished the bulk of depopcornifying our ceiling, so maybe we'll start painting soon. It would be nice if we had a newspaper subscription so we could use it to protect the floor. Even without being painted yet the ceiling looks way better that it did with the popcorn. We sure made one heck of a mess though :)

"This is going to make a mess of Epic proportions"

To which Jefferson replies, "But I thought you liked cleaning," with a weak thumbs up. Here is a picture of what has unexpectedly become our next home-improvement project:
No, we did not get hit by a bomb, we are scraping the popcorn off our ceilings. Don't worry, there's no asbestos. We were looking at our friends, the Leitheads, blog of all the improvements they have done to their home, and in a moment of inspiration just minutes before he has to walk out the door for a presidency meeting, he grabs a spade from the shed and my spray bottle from the bathroom and goes to work. Nice, huh? It comes off pretty easily, though. I continued for about 45 minutes after he left while listening to Nickel Creek.
In other news, we DID break down and buy HP-7, finished it Sunday night. 'Twas good, but long. We abandoned our master plan to not buy any HP books until the Box Set comes out in September for two reasons: 1. we didn't want to have the end ruined (thought Jefferson had totally called what was going to happen) and 2. We figure it will be cheaper to buy the other books from Half.com at our leisure.
Peace out!

Lazy Bloggers

We finally have a moment to sit down and update our blog for all of our dedicated fans :) Since we last posted, we have gone on another hike with some friends, finished our second door replacement, read books, and of course, gone to work. We had some hot weather finally. When I say hot, I mean 97*. Now for those of you in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Texas, etc. keep in mind that we don't have any air conditioning, so it is just as hot inside (and we don't have AC at my work!). I am very happy that this week has cooled off, and even brought some rain.
I have been spending some time each evening working on getting back into school. Basically what I am doing now is submitting my transcripts to the dental hygiene schools in the area to see what classes they say I still need to take. In some cases, I am appealing their results and trying to get credit so I don't have to take too many classes this upcoming quarter. I think I will only need to take two, but even that will be challenging to do while working. At least I have Friday's off!!! I have been making steady progress, and hopefully this will allow me to apply to the four hygiene schools in the commutable area.
All of this school talk has prompted me to get Jefferson to keep learning stuff. We got Harry Potter 2 in Japanese for him from the library, but so far he has been WAY more interested in Dune books and movies. But that's fine; it's also a very good series. At least he's reading, right?
Work has been fun as usual. I love my job, (dental assisting) and we have the best patients. It is really good experience for me too.
My calling is still a pretty big time-taker-upper. I've been the music teacher in primary for a year now, minus three weeks when we moved into our new ward. I just feel like I am starting to settle into our new ward and the kids. Jefferson just got called to be a counselor in the EQP.
As I said, we finished our second door replacement. Here are the before and after pictures, taken just for the blog:

The white one is the new one. Aren't you glad the Jefferson stuck his head in there to give this blog some comic relief? That is for all you people who don't like pictures unless they have some one you know in them. We love our new doors. We have two other doors to replace, but before we do that, we are planning to get new closet doors-the folding kind to replace the sliding kind that we have now.
Our little garden is doing well. The peas are starting to blossom, the onions are getting thicker, and the carrots are getting taller. I am really excited that we have our first garden!
That's all for now!!

Nice to have relatives around

On Friday we joined up with Uncle Keith's family at the home of Esther and Jeff Hansen (Esther is my cousin) and celebrated their daughter Annika's birthday. It was nice talking with everyone and the food was delicious. Outdoor BBQs in Washington in the summer evenings are incomparable. The Hansen's showed us some pictures from their Europe trips and impressive would be an understatement. Also, we saw the blueprints for their new house which is under construction. Dual staircases in the entry way look very nice!

Sorry, we didn't have our camera with us so no pictures.

Independence Day

To celebrate the Fourth of July this year, I thought it would be nice to go hiking. One of my friends had emailed me some info about a nearby hike, so I thought Jeff and I should try it out. It talked about several lakes and views of Mt. Rainier, 2,000+ ft elevation gain, wild flowers and a new trail that made the hike easier.

Now, 2,000 ft elevation sounded like a lot, but didn't mean all that much to me, so I didn't really know what I was getting us into. The fact that you can't see the mountain from the parking lot didn't help either (all the trees blocked it from view). Needless to say, it was a hard hike, the hardest one either of us had ever done. I wonder what the trail was like before this new trail that made it easier? Despite it's difficulty, we loved the views and the challenge that the hike presented.



Once we got to Mason Lake, we chilled out for a while on a rock while eating banana bread, raisins and wheat thins. The water was ultra clear, and some people were swimming in the lake. I must say, I enjoyed the views while on the trail more than I did the lake, though everything was beautiful. Watching Mt. Rainier get bigger and bigger behind the mountain range beyond was telling of our increase of elevation.

The way down is what made me the most sore. It was most hard on the knees. We tried to take it slow, but it was so steep that I trotted most of the way down while Jefferson switched from walking backward-to help his knees-running and walking sideways. The way down seemed a lot longer than we remembered the way up to be.

Summary:

Total distance: 6.8 miles round trip.

Total time: 2.5 hours up, 1 hour down.
What we loved most: Mt. Rainier and chillin on the rock
What we loved least: weak knees
Are we glad we did it? oh, yeah!
Would we do it again? Not anytime soon

The rest of our 4th was spent eating at Baja Fresh (really American, I know), shopping at Fred Meyer for new shirts that were 50% off, watching Independence Day, and watching the Firework show in New York City on TV. We were going to go see Transformers at 4:10, but the theater pulled a shifty one and said that matinée times ended at 4:00. Just another reason not to go back to the theater.

We hope you all had a great Independence Day. We are very thankful to live in this country and are grateful to those who have sacrificed so much to secure and protect our freedoms. May God continue to bless America, our home sweet home!

They came, they saw, they conquered part 3

I know, I know, it has been a long time coming with this third and final post about my family's visit. This is primarily because our pictures are on one computer and I do most of my computing on the other computer. Anyway, on with the blog...


(Jefferson and Bill at the campsite)
After a rain-free night in the rainforest, we ate eggs and bacon for breakfast. My mom, Bill, Jefferson and I went on a short hike from our campsite through the "hall of mosses" while the girls got their beauty sleep and my dad cleaned up from breakfast. The hike was very nice, totally mossy and we took some fun pictures.

After we finished packing up camp, we drove to a place where my mom had made reservations for us to go rafting/kayaking down the Hoh River. None of us were too interested now that it was time to do it, so we talked to the people in charge (who had told my mom that the reservations were for 2:00, not 12:30) and got our money back. We decided then to drive through Forks and out to La Push on the coast. It was really cool out there with all the big rocks trailing out to sea. I had hoped that there would be more sand dollars like the place where Jefferson and I camped a few weeks ago, but alas, only small rocks.
After La Push, we headed east again, toward Crescent Lake. We stopped here for lunch of hot dogs and dang quesedillas cooked in the camper. At this point, my mom, dad and Hillary drove on ahead to go to a shop for my dad. He was determined to get some artwork or a sculpture from the Native Americans in this area. While they drove ahead, Jefferson, Bill, Miriam and I went on a small hike to Marymere falls. It was so worth it. The falls were beautiful and the hike was pretty easy-it took an hour round trip even though the information plaque said an hour and a half.


Took more pictures and then drove to the Lodge at Crescent Lake, since we were such quick hikers. This is one of my all time favorite spots. I love the way the water looks: it is very blue, but also very clear. The mountains are beautiful as they fade off in the distance. I'm not very eloquent, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. These are both at Crescent Lake
After we met up with the rest of the group (who did find a carving they liked) we drove to the ferry and headed home. The rest of the evening was spend showering, doing laundry and other such sundries. The following day Jefferson had to go to work, so we all drove to downtown Seattle and spent most of the day at Pike's Place Market. It was actually cooler than I had originally thought. This was only my second time there. But still, no one really bought anything except my mom who found a pretty good quilting store. I warned my family before they came that Washington is not the place you want to go shopping on vacation. Yes we have nice shopping centers, but our sales tax in 8.9%!!! Still we had a nice time going into the "freakin' crap shops,"as they are so aptly called by my family. We also had a great veiw of Mt. Rainier.


The next morning they had to leave and head for Idaho, where they spent a day visiting Vince, who is at BYU-I. After that, they finished the marathon trip by driving from Rexburg home to Las Vegas in one day. We loved having them come. Hopefully they will be brave enough to make that huge trip again someday. Either that or fly next time!


For a more complete look at our pictures from this and other trips, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffersoncriddle (sorry for sounding so much like a commercial)