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We had sun last weekend and I made sure I enjoyed it! :o) Saturday I went walking with a friend and we were able to catch up on our lives and enjoy the beautiful weather. Sunday was just as gorgeous, so after church another friend and I went into the city and spent some quality time in the market place. We ate donuts, watched fish fly about, ate lunch in the park, admired the beautiful mountains, and bought fresh flowers for our homes. A perfect afternoon I must say!

So as some of you know, I have just gone through quite the life experience. Sunday I returned from Montana to find that we were getting snow out here in Seattle. Quite the shock, since that doesn’t happen too often! Up in Bothell where I live, we had about 3-4 inches. Monday morning I got up at 4:30am to make sure I could give myself plenty of time to get to work. However, I made it to work in record time, 20 minutes!! Well little did I know, that my trip home would be a whole different story! I left work at 4:40pm and didn’t see the inside of my apartment until 1:15am the next morning. 8 hours and 35 minutes of a commute for roughly 15 miles. Who knew a thing like this could happen. Now I understand all the stories about people abondoning their cars and relate to the chaos and fear. For about 2 1/2 hours of my trek, it was snowing heavily, and then the last portion it was just cold and the roads freezing over with ice. Thank the Lord I had a few carrots and an apple left over from lunch. Now my bladder was another story! It is amazing all the thoughts that go through your head when you really need to go to the bathroom, but not too sure what to do about it. I thought of a few ideas, but I won’t share. My next issue, was that my phone was on it’s last bar and did not have a car charger that worked and I was still hours away from home. Soon the roads were frozen and I was sliding into the next lane and couldn’t do anything about it except stop and pray. I don’t remember ever being this scared in my entire life. Finally I turned off my car, went through my trunk, found my car charger and got back in. I just prayed that my car charger would actually work this time, and thankfully my prayer was answered. I immediatly called my dad who stayed on the phone with me for the remaining 2 1/2 hours of my journey. We prayed and talked and told stories, and I felt as though my dad was sitting in the car next to me, which was a HUGE help. He was also able to get on line and try to see what was going on ahead of me. He was my eyes from afar. God truly answered our prayers and gave my tires traction and while other cars were spinning out around me, God kept me steady and moving through all of it. I have never been so thankful to walk into my apartment and see the bathroom and then my bed! Tuesday, I was thankful that I didn’t need to go to work and heard on the news at 7:00am, that some people were still just arriving at home. I heard it took one person 14 1/2 hours to get home!
Well, this marks another Seattle adventure to add to my memory book. Until next time, be sure your car is winterized!!!

Well it became a year since I moved out here on August 28. I can’t believe that it has been a year already. It seems like so much has happened. It hasn’t always been easy, and I miss my family and friends, but I have seen and done so much in just a year! A BIG thanks to everyone that has supported me during this transition. I should be home for Thanksgiving, so I will try to catch up with family and friends back in Billings.

So this time I am actually adding to my site a few days after the actually event. How amazing is that! LOL! Well 2 of my best friends from home in Montana came out for a visit. We packed in the sites! The first day, we hung out downtown Seattle and took in Pike’s Market, discovered Wasabi flavored Almonds, took pictures of interesting hairdos, spent money, ate in the restaurant that a scene from Sleepless in Seattle was shot, and then moved on to discover a few things in West Seattle. We took some great shots of the city from a viewing point, ate at a local eatery named Spuds (on the greasy side, but still tasty), and walked along the beach.
Friday we took in a whale watching tour. Now we didn’t see any whales (well I think I saw a Minke whale, but who knows) but we saw stellar sea lions, sea lions, porpoises, bald eagles, and Vancouver from our boat. It was a beautiful day out on the water! That night we went down to Queen Anne and went to a dueling piano lounge. Unfortunately they didn’t play the song Carol requested, but we did hear some great music and had a good time.
Saturday we took the ferry over to the pennisula and ate at a Irish pub in Port Townsend. They had yummy food and we even got a free dessert! It pays to have your order misplaced! We then headed up towards Hurricane Ridge and stopped along the way the take pictures of the beautiful scenery! Once we made it to the top it was amazing to look out over the Olympic mountain range and see all of the snow. What a spectacular sight!
On our last day we hit the outlet stores and spent some money. There were too many stores to choose from and we got tuckered out after a few hours. We were able to see some amazing views of the Mt. Rainier and Mt. Baker on our drives throughout the day. I am awestruck every time I see them. We headed back down to the Market place to pick up some fish and see some flying fish! Had to take in the local flavor one more time.
It was an amazing, fun-filled 4 days that I will remember forever!

So I am a little behind in my posting of events, but I am attempting to catch up! On April 13th I took the day off to hang out with the parents. We headed up to La Conner to check out the tulip fields. It was even more spetacular than I imagined! There were literally field after field of tulips. It was a cold and wet day, but that didn’t stop us from seeing the amazing variety of tulips and taking some fantastic photos. I will post a couple of pictures of the tulips. So once again I have discovered another wonderful thing to do and see out here!

So I am still alive, but I just haven’t written anything in a really long time! My parents have been visiting for a couple of weeks, so that has been great. I have been showing them around, went down to Pike’s Market, Snoqualamie Falls, outlet stores, and much more! I took a day off from work so that we could do some exploring together. We headed out to Whidby island for the day. The day started a little rocky when we woke up to snow but once we made it out to Whidby, it started to clear up and turned into a beautiful day! We checked out 2 of the lighthouses, toured Fort Casey, ate at the Mad Crab restaurant, walked around Deception pass and saw 8 eagles throughout the day! It was a wonderful day and I able to take some great pictures which I will get into my picture gallery one of these days!

Well the day started off as a perfect fall day. Salmon Days took place down in Issaquah. The streets were full of vendors selling all sorts of wonderful treasures. We made our way towards the stream and the big pools full of salmon. I could have spent all day just watching these salmon trying to jump up stream. After watching them there, we moved on to these huge cement pools full of salmon. The pools were full of salmon and they were jumping up and hitting the siding and those at the end were hitting the iron gate. One of them even jumped so high that he landed on the ledge between the two pools and one of the volunteers had to go and save it. As we stood there watching in awe of this brutal beating they brought upon themselves my mind worked up one of my dad’s famous mini sermons. These salmon are filled with this urgency, this need, and such perseverance. This is what we need as Christians. Yes we may get beat up in the process, but God has called us to spread the gospel and we should have the same urgency and perseverance just as the salmon do. Okay so back to the event. So we finally tore ourselves away from the salmon and returned to the vendors. There was this one wonderful booth that had flavored honey, so of course I had to stop and taste a few different kinds and ended up getting some strawberry honey. The next stop was at a local photographer’s booth and ended up buying 2 of his inspiring pictures. Now by this time I have been here for a month now, and you would think that I would know to bring an umbrella with me or at least have a rain coat or something, but no I haven’t learned that quite yet. So Tina and I had to find a vendor that had some hats. So we walked around the rest of the time in the rain, but at least our heads didn’t get wet. All the walking and rain made us hungry so we made our way towards the food and decided on Halibut and chips, which ended up being so worth it. So for someone who doesn’t enjoy seafood or fish I was very impressed and willing to try it again. And so ends another wonderful experience in my new home!

Tina (my roommate) and I started off our big day of exploration with a BIG, HEARTY breakfast @ the Redmond Inn restaurant (thank’s to my brother’s guidance & tutoring). A person can’t go wrong eating Biscuits and Gravy! Once our bellies were full, we hit the road and made our way to downtown Seattle. Our 1st stop was Pike’s Market. We didn’t see any flyin’ fish, but there sure was a crowd! We made our way down to the Pier and went through the Seattle Aquarium. It had just been re-opened after construction, so it was perfect timing. They have done a good job there and I enjoyed seeing fish that I haven’t seen before. Of course @ the wade pools I have to touch the starfish and sea cucumbers. We also got to see the reunion of Nemo, Father and of course Dorie. I also saw pregnant sea-horses which are male by the way. They are the ones that get to carry the eggs and suffer! So rather interesting. After the aquarium we made our way down the Pier and bought a few touristy (is that a word?) type items and Christmas presents (have to be prepared). On our way back through Pike’s Market I had to stop for some fresh flowers. I got this beautiful bouquet of flowers (which you can see in my picture gallery) for only $4.60. I don’t think I would find that kind of deal in Montana!
Well for now this ends yet another adventure in my wonderful new home!

Oh what to do?! I decided that I needed to see Snoqualamie Falls so my brother (who so graciously helped me move) and I made our way there. My brother showed me a nice back way to get there which saved on time plus we got to see more country which was a bonus. I just love the trees out here! Some of them are just so tall and huge but they are awesome. Anyway, it was a great drive out there and luckily we found parking and walked over to the viewing areas. A very impressive sight I must say. The waterfall is beautiful and the area surrounding them are beautiful. I know that some time in the near future I will need to discover a way down to the water so I can look at the waterfall from a different angle. So my first full weekend in Seattle was a success. So much to do and so much to see!