Mom, Dad and I travelled up to Wayne County today and met up with Uncle Ronnie, Aunt Bonnie, and Jackie, to hike the hunting grounds with Craig the forester. The property is divided into two parts by a road that runs along the creek. Craig felt that the forests on either side of the road were quite different and would actually require separate development plans to improve the health of each one. So I'll put up separate posts for each forest so that you can see the difference. I'm not sure if I'll get all of this done tonight, so for now, here are a few photos of the stream that runs along the road and divides the two halves of the property...

Hi everyone!

Kris and I went out to Eastern Washington this weekend to camp with some friends by Frenchman Coulee, close to the Columbia River. The area is the desert part of Washington, and is famous for a enormous, dry canyon and large columns of basalt formations that rise on either side (kind of like the ones above and below).


I loved the fluorescent green lichen.

Apparently at one point, lava filled the area and cooled rapidly, cracking the igneous rock into these towers as it was being formed. A flood later in history carried away the topsoil down the Columbia River into Oregon (where all the wineries are now). This exposed the rockface.

We did some hiking along and through the rock columns, and some of my friends (including Kris) tried their hand at some rock climbing. You can see in the pictures that its just perfect for climbing--lots of convenient toeholds and handholds.

I didn't try this time--I've done it before and freaked out because of the height--but Kris and I might hit the gym some more this summer and give it another go.



Kris climbing up the rock. I cheered him on from below :)



We camped below one of the rock faces (you can barely make out our tent in the photo below). The sunsets (and the stars at night) were just gorgeous! The desert landscape was so different from Yosemite.


However....you'll never believe what company we had! The second night we were there, we discovered a rattlesnake, coiled up not 30 feet from where we had our tent. He was just a little guy. We had set up camp too close to some rocks, and Kris found what he thought looked like a rattlesnake den (a triangle shaped hole snugged between two big boulders).

Needless to say, we moved the tent, and checked it good before we got in at night. We imagined there were probably rattlesnakes all around--we just couldn't see them--but we read that the Western rattlesnake is pretty docile compared to the Eastern one, so we hoped it wouldn't seek us out.

I'm ready for May to be over--it seems like its nothing but run-ins with venomous creatures!

Kitchen. Love, love, love the gas range.


Other side of the kitchen+dishwasher.


Windows are pretty big for a basement, I think.


Living space. Needs some sprucing up--I'm open to furniture arranging suggestions!

The bookshelf looking into the bedroom. I love the exposed wood beams (there are two in the apartment).

The bedroom needs the most attention, I think--I'm hoping to convert the wall where the bike currently is into a sewing area.

I'll post the last few pictures later.

Happy Easter, everyone! I can't wait to see you all soon.

Hi guys!

I'm going to start to post a few pictures, as promised. For today, a quick view of the outside of the apartment--the front yard and fence, the path leading around back to my apartment, and my new grill :)

More coming later.

Another fun day in Cali :) We toured wine country first, and stopped for a delicious lunch at a fun little spot in Sonoma:

Saw some little snowmen building a giant snowman, complete with an SF Giants cap :)
Hiding out with the snowmen:
Nice walk along the beach in Marin County:
Obligatory stop at Ghirardelli as we were passing through the city:
And of course we couldn't leave without splitting a sundae!
I was taking a close-up picture of the tree in Ghirardelli Square, and guess who popped into the picture?
Self-portrait in a Christmas ball :)
The city is beautiful when all of the buildings in the skyline are outlined in Christmas lights! I took this from the car as we were driving down Embarcadero on our way home...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We had a great time with Laura at the Cal vs. Huskies football game today, especially when the sun came out and we got a nice break from the drizzle:


See, there were even blue skies during part of the game:
And here we are this evening, out at a local pub (yes, that's a Pictionary board in front of us):

We miss you all and can't wait to see you for Christmas!!

Hi ya'll,

Scenes from Snowvember and my lovely snow day, just to gloat even a bit more.

Above is the scene from the bedroom window. The road's not covered yet, but I bet it'll be icy tonight. Temps are supposed to drop into the teens.

Backyard.


Poor Blueberry! All covered in snow.

Happy winter everyone!

UPDATE:

Here's what Blueberry looked like at 4PM, when I went out to clean her off for the night. The snow is sticking to the roads now! We probably have an inch or so, and are supposed to get 1-2 more overnight.

Here's a couple pictures of the cake Amanda made for the church's 40th Anniversary. It turned out really good!! Everyone at church loved it, and were impressed with Amanda's cake decorating skills!! Though I did help out a little!! ;)


The tables were decorated with potted chrysanthemums, so that's the flowers they wanted on the cake. The top layer was vanilla with chocolate chips, the second layer was all vanilla, and the bottom layer was chocolate. Yummm....

Ferry ride back to the states. Man, was the ride bumpy--but aren't we cute?!

Hi everyone!

A few pictures from our first day in Olympic National Park. Laura picked us right up from the airport and we drove down, across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, up to Port Angeles.


Laura was driving.


Pat hung on for dear life while we drove up to the top of Hurricane Ridge.


From the top you could see the peaks of the entire Olympic Mountain Range, including Mount Olympus. We hiked a trail that was a little off the beaten path, from nearby Obstruction Point towards Maiden Peak.


Despite the day being sunny and warm, there was snow along the trail.


Some of the trees looked like they were melting--we designated them the puddle trees.


A view of our trail as it snaked along the ridge. It was mostly secure, but some loose shale along the way made the long slide down the mountain somewhat intimidating. We went slowly.


The trail along the ridge.


A view of Badger Valley, kept guard by Tubby #1, a high alpine Olympic marmot that we found sunning himself along the way. He is perched on top of the rock outcropping in the foreground.


A view from our lunch spot.

We will post pictures from Day #2, Orca watching, once Pat has a chance to pull those pictures off of his camera.

Love you all!