Hiking around

Jordan and I went hiking today. The weather has been really nice, so we thought we'd get out and get our legs used to moving again. We hiked up. We hiked down. Yes...we hiked all around. We hiked in Duvall, Sultan, and Carnation Washington. Too bad the sun sets so early still, or we'd probably be out there all day. We hiked without Jack, sad to say, but we didn't really know where dogs would be allowed. Now that we know more about our town, we'll be sure to plan around it better next time.
Okay, here I am, on a log that I had to shimmy across to get onto. The moss? Its very cold and drenched with recent rain just in case you were wondering. Jordan likes these angled shots. What do you think?

Another shot from my hubby.

Jordan always gets me to smile by telling me he loves me. Corny as it is...it always works. I'm such a sucker.


Jordan and I found a hiking spot with cabins...so we snuck into one. I tried to fool around, but all Jordan wanted to do was meditate.


Just kidding. He was into fooling around too. but...I digress. Jordan took this other shot from the same park.


There are several railroads in the area that used to be covered railroads. They have since deteriorated and even been burned through vandalism, and ruined by high levels of water. We were at the end of one of them today. I took this shot.


I like some cool stuff that nature can do. Like here...all the curly q branches just got my attention. Probably not much of much...but somethin ta me.



OK, onto the money shots. These two shots are Jordan's, and I completely love them. We were hiking in Sultan, following a very scary trail into some seedy backwoods. Signs promised public fishing, so on we went. The trail was leading us nowhere, until finally, WHAM, here we were on the side of a cliff. There was an existing small narrow rocky trail that we continued on. There was a river down below flowing a beautiful green. We were hearing cries of eagles while we hiked. Pretty soon, we stopped. We saw an eagle in flight hunting above the river. We were switching out our lenses when we realized the cries of eagles came from about 20 feet overhead. Jordan and I were amongst three bald eagles. One in flight, and two perched overhead. He grabbed the new lens and swiftly shot through the narrow trail. He did it so fast that when it was all over and the eagles were gone he wondered how he got to where he was. I'll leave you with these final pics, then I'm off to date-night. The first pic is mine, of the general area we were hiking in. One eagle is in flight on the top right. I liked getting the fishing boat in here too, mixed in with the water...the mountains..the snow...ugh, we love it up here.

OK, photos promised from yesterday.

Here are some fun shots from the weekend that I think turned out okay for all the practicing we did on Friday with the camera. Saturday and Sunday weren't too full of photos. Maybe Jordo can post them on his blog, because I know he took some of his networking project. Jordan???

Jordo







My husband's hands









Ghost of a dawg. This was actually how the shot was taken. Maggie moved perfectly out of the shot and I got her ghost image.





Jack, not perfect, but perfectly Jack.





















My Dad's blue eyes












A local not-so-hot spot that I won't be going back to. This shot was enough.

Sew what?

This past weekend, my folks came up to visit! Mom came up to sew with me on her new awesome sewing machine ( I'm secretly calling her names behind her back for upgrading from my own machine. %#@$*&!!) My model of machine is fantastic and just right for me, or so I've told myself over and over again. Mom likes quick projects for right now, and she favors baby projects. She loves the fabrics, how soft they are and the colors. I think she just looooves to say "oh, how cute is THAT!" But I've been collecting some Amy Butler designs for a while and have been wanting to do the project that Mom and I worked on over the weekend. It's a baby changing pad lined with terry cloth, on some awesome bohemian chic fabric I found. There is also a diaper bag ( or knitting bag, or whatever bag) with eight pockets on the inside thanks to our inginuity. There was a fault with the design the way we saw it. Adding two side bottle pockets on the interior would have destroyed two, well, four total pockets, so we shimmied with it until we had saved those four pockets ENTIRELY and also added our final bottle pockets. We are soooo goooood. I love the fabrics I picked out. Mom commented about my choices and how loud they are. In the end, she loved what we ended up with. The pattern on pattern designs I selected came out just like I wanted them to. Now, this set is just about ready to pack away into the hope chest. I also got some other fabrics for a picnic blanket that I'll be working on today and learning to further enhance my quilting skills! I get to quilt the whole damn thing! Ya hoooo! Good thing I don't have to do any binding on the edges, it just turns like a pillow case inside out to hide the edges. I see no harm in still calling that quilted. Do you? The rest of it will have patterned quilting done throughout....just no binded edges. Anywaaaay....

My mom's hands working away.





Our finished project. The changing pad rolls up, has a tie to keep it rolled up, fits into another bag ( not shown, unfinished) and then placed into the finished diaper bag shown. Damn we're good for only having two days.












Dad worked on chores that needed doing around the house while Jordan was at work. He got our fireplace blower fixed! Dad, you are so talented! Thank you a hundred times over! We didn't have to replace any parts. Dad wired some wires together that were hooked up to the internal thermostat of the blower, so that the faulty thermostat was no longer in the equation. This means now that our fireplace blower is always on, if plugged in. Thats perfectly fine for us! We've built a fire everynight since it's been fixed. Thank you Dad, because for another reason. Jordan and I have been trying to repair and fix up our home after our burglary that we've put all our improvements to our home to the side. What you repaired, well, it sort of rekindled ( hehe, fireplace reference...I'm so punny) our own appreciation in the 'regular' chores around the house rather than he and I taking as many security management issues into account. Thank you for puttering with our home, climbing ladders to get to lights on our barn and so on. This was just for Friday! We still have Saturday to contend with!
Dad is also a perfectionist and just had to clean the window of the fireplace so we could all enjoy the view of our roaring fires. He really had to scrub at it to get it just right. Mainly I think it just looks like I made him work hard for his dinner.

Here's Dad after he's built our very first fire that will actually help to warm our home. He and his gal Maggie.


Saturday the guys worked on networking our home while Mom and I sewed the bag. Jordan, can you blog about what you actually did so that the details will be worked out right? Visit Jordan's blog for details. I will post this one photo. Basically the guys were climbing around in the crawlspace in our attic tugging networking cables from one end of the house all around. They climbed around in insulation, they drilled into ceilings and cut into walls. You'd never know it today as it all looks very well hidden and the outlets make it look really nice and finished. Where there was no crawlspace is where I captured Jordan...in the rafters of our garage being a monkey with wires. He scooted up ladders and climbed around our house with ease....well, until sunday morning when his muscles ached from holding tight poses and climbing around. Great job Jordan and Dad. Dad, your help was completely appreciated and needed to get this project done. Jordan has been wanting this done for quite some time and I'm so blessed to have you there to help him figure it all out together.



Okay, so we didn't just work work work all weekend...did we? We have some artsy photos and some funny photos. Which would you rather see first? I'll go with funny. This will prove we can all laugh at others...no wait...I mean 'ourselves.'
















Artsy will have to wait until another day...this blog has too many photos for today...guess I'm a little bit excited getting back into the swing of things, but hey...I gotta go sew! Mom, I wish you were here to help me again! Love you all, and miss you. Thank you again for making such a good time for us possible.

Point Brown, our weekend away

Jordan and I relaxed for an extended weekend at Point Brown resort. On our drive to Ocean Shores WA, to Pt. Brown, we had a wonderful sunny day to take in Mount St. Helens. We took the long drive. We stopped off at parks, had picnics and practiced our latest hobby. We have several shots for this weekend, but unfortunately with said robbery, I'm using an old computer. It's taking a really long time to load the photos, so I'm just going to post a few here to give you an idea of what we saw this weekend.



Spring is springing into action with the buds of pussy willows. These are one of my favorite trees ever. Course...I have about a hundred more with the same ranking. These two photos of plantlife were taken in a wildlife preserve around Aberdeen WA. In this preserve we saw two hawks, but other than that, it was just a peaceful two mile round hike.



I'm not sure what this plant is, besides being purdy. I liked capturing it while it's trying to make it's display of flowers.

But...lets head to the beach already! The resort is NOT one we'd recommend. Our room tauted amenities such as fireplaces, jetted tubs, pool rooms, exercise rooms, pools and hot tubs. The water was aweful brown and yucky, which we were warned to bring our own bottled water for drinking. We hadn't thought that would pose a problem with bathing. It did. The smell was of an expired aquarium. Pt. Brown resort is on a well....and well...we wouldn't recommend they remain on a well. The fireplace did not work. The pool was five miles away at a community center. The billards room and exercise facility were in another building, for which we were not given codes. The hot tub was a blessing, as it was clear warm water in which to rest our tired bones. We were grateful for the hot tub. The view from our room was fantastic though. I could post many pictures from our balcony, but this computer is too slow to make it entertaining to post many pics, so I'll keep it simple until we're able to upgrade.

Jordan caught this photo of one of the surfers out on the Pacific Coast in his head to toe wetsuit. I love this photo. There were at least four surfers out our balcony catching waves. It was fun to watch. I have known people to surf the coasts in WA and OR, but I've never gotten the chance to see it.



We walked the length of beach from our resort to the jetty and back. So...here we are!



Jordan must be tired from all this walking and photo tak'n.


This photo is from the wildlife preserve. All of these signs stating the high voltage were split like this.


Our last morning in Ocean Shores, we were hanging out on our balcony and began to smell fuel. There were two firemen/women walking the length of the beach. No one else was on the beach, and we thought due to the ocean swells that were intense that morning. Only one couple with their small child was on the beach trying to fly a kite. The firemen/women stopped to chat with them, pointed at the ocean and finished up the conversation and left. Come to find out, they were asking the family if they smelled diesel. As we checked out of our resort we asked about the smell and the front desk clerk told us that a fishing boat had crashed in the early morning into the jetty. We were off to see what had gone on. We felt so sad that this happened. This was probably more than one family's income at stake, and here it lay....all crumpled up in the rocks. I'm sure hoping they had insurance, and a savings account. I've learned from our burglary, that even with insurance, you can be out of sorts for quite a while. First, you pay the deductable, so you're out that money, then you wait for the claim to come through. If this guy's boat was making a living for himself, he's probably out of work until he can replace it. We could somewhat empathize for this sort of loss.

Booby traps, Weapons, Security systems, Pitbulls, and and and ???

Last week, after our last posting, our home was broken into. We were burglarized. We are picking up the pieces, restoring our broken bits of home, and our faith in man-kind. We are not living in paranoia. We have constant thoughts of pity for the folks that felt they can only get by in life by taking from others. We think it's pathetic. Optimists we are, we are happy that this robbery was not much worse than it was. There are circumstances out there that would have made this much more painful. We could have had loss of life, injury, or a missing dog and there could have been more vandalism than what occurred. We have not restored any missing items, and even looking at my blog photos is somewhat painful. The pictures featured on our website are mostly all that is left of photos we've acquired since we've moved into our home. We feel blessed we can come back to our blog and visit our good times. For now, it's a reminder of what a loss we've seen, so we're not visiting too often, plus, not having a PC or digital camera of our old caliber makes it tough to want to keep up.

A stranger entered our home, rummaged through our "stuff" and stole. They were somewhat calculating, inviting themselves into the backyard, to either check for us in the backyard, or check the back doors and windows, or both. They left the gate open.

They tried our front window, with no success....our screen was removed.

Our front door was busted in, breaking through our deadbolt, and chain. These were the first impressions our friends, John and Heather had of our home. They were in town for the evening visiting us after a job interview for John. We were further blessed by their presence during a time when we needed the distraction, and welcomed the support through dealing with the local police and helping us to restore the door and it's frame. Thank you John and Heather for helping us to remain somewhat sane that night.

So folks, I've not been really wanting to write about this event. I hate reliving it. I hate wondering what else we'll come home to when we leave our home. True, it's only stuff...we KNOW this....and before this event, I truly did believe that if someone wanted our stuff more than we wanted to further protect it, then they could have it. I had a friend in high school, Vicky. Her folks had always left their front doors unlocked. They did this so any of their kids' friends could stop by if they needed a place to go to. When I asked about someone stealing from them her reply was simple. "They must want our stuff more than we do." They never had a break in. I took that philosophy with me through two car break-ins, and now through our home being broken into. I can say that the loss of stuff, isn't all of it. Now, Jordan and I, well...our conversations revolve around this event. Our routines that were just getting set have been disrupted, there are feelings of loss and fear. We know these feelings will dissipate over time, we're confident our subjects of conversations will eventually stop being about what weapons to acquire and what booby-traps to set while we're away.

Please enjoy our past photos and blog posts.