NYC Baby!!

Memorial at Battery Park for 911. This monument survived the disaster.

The Bull.

Tree in Elis Island with the origen of common words we use everyday.

ground zero.

Lady Liberty.

New York City Library. I just couldn't help but think of Ghostbusters when we walked through this library. :)

Radio City. We toured NBC Studios too.

Shem on Staten Island with Elis Island and Manhanten in the background.

Stock Exchange.

The Subway. We took it everywhere.

Time Square. Sensory overload even in the mid-afternoon.

Yankee's game with Cheryl! :) They won with a walk-off home run.

After staying at the Finger Lakes we checked out church sites, said our good byes to the McLenans and then headed down to New York City. There we stayed with Cheryl, a friend of Ruth’s from high school. In New York City we did your typical touristy things including visiting, the Statue of Liberty , Elis Island, Wall street, ground zero, Rockefeller center, NBC studios, time square, New York Library, and China town.

I’ll just hit the highlights of some of our favorite Parts about our stay in New York, aside from just being able to spend time with Cheryl and Rob. First and My personal favorite was going to a Yankees game. I am not a huge sport fan myself but I really enjoyed this game. First, we had amazing seats so the players weren’t just little dots. Secondly, the crowd was really into the game. They all cheered and screamed, and if something cool was about to happen they all stood up in anticipation which means you would have to stand just to see what was going to happen. I have determined that East coast games are way more fun because the people really get into the game. My next favorite thing was china town. I love good food and that’s the first good Chinese cuisine I have ever had outside of Seattle.

One of Ruth’s favorite things was shopping at Century 21 where they sell designer clothes and accessories for realistic prices Ruth would call them AMAZINZG prices because she bought $450 worth of merchandise for only $60. I only call it reasonable because a purse should never be $200 regardless of who makes it. In the end we were both happy. Ruth got the styles that she likes and I liked that we didn’t have to mortgage a home we didn’t own to buy the items. Hooray! (Ruth speaking: and might I add that I love the purses too! I can’t stop talking about how much I like them! Aunt Barbara thought that they were amazing too.)

I have saved reporting the best thing about our New York trip for last. Did you know they sell soft served frozen yogurt that is laced with cocaine? No Really! We didn’t know this either until Cheryl introduced us to Yogurt Land. How do I know they lace their yogurt with cocaine? I have been able to conclude this after a careful analysis of the following facts. First Yogurt Land sounds very Hippieish and we all know Hippies lace their frozen yogurt with cocaine. Second, Ruth ate at Yogurt Land at least twice a day while in New York ( not really, but Shem won’t let me convince him that I only ate there once a day.). Now that we left New York she keeps talking about the Holy Land of Yogurt frequently followed by sudden muscle twitches. In fact, she has even discussed opening her own Yogurt Land in Seattle (no joke), and we all know that those who can’t afford to buy drugs end up selling the drugs to support the habit. All sarcasm aside it really was good yogurt. It’s a self served place where you can make your own cup of frozen yogurt with all kinds of toppings and then you just pay by the ounce. It’s a fun concept.

Niagra and New York with the family

Niagara Falls, Canada

Tree of Life

Angels in the beginning of the performance

Building the ship.

Warriors. My brother James was one of these warriors.

Destruction.

This week has been a lot of fun! On Thursday we drove with the family through Canada, over to New York State. Along the way we got to see Niagara Falls, which was a first for me. On the American side of the falls we met up with Rochelle and her family (who coincidently were doing the same trip as us except they left a week earlier and went the opposite way as us) and went on a short walk to the bottom of one of the falls. Now when I say the bottom of the falls I mean we were practically standing in the falls. The water pours down and then splashes off some rocks. We would stand in the torrent of water coming off the rocks. They give you cheap ponchos which were shredded to pieces by the water. It was very intense. I could feel the intensity of the water coming down and couldn’t help but scream as if I was on the thrill ride of my life!

After seeing Niagara we zipped on over to Palmayra, New York to see the Hill Cumorah pageant. James, Ruth’s brother, was in the Pageant and we got to see him running around in a loin cloth. This is not something I would normally condone but as he was playing the part of a Nephite warrior, I let it slide. Probably the neatest thing about the pageant was the special effects. They are performing this pageant on a stage on a hill outside, and they have Waterfalls, lightning, windstorms, earthquakes, volcanoes, and men descending from the heavens. It was amazing how creative they got to with their resources to make it all work.

We also went camping near Ithica, NY at a place called Treemon state park. It was awesome and full of hikes and a very cool swimming area where we swam in 62 degree water just to sit under a waterfall. Ruth Loved jumping from the diving board while I wadded in because of my ankle... Eventually you became numb so the water wasn't all that bad.

Michigan with Ruth's Family

Mackinaw Bridge.

Shem and Lehi playing Carcasone. They both love boardgames!


Vacation life hasn’t stood out as much during our second week. Although a certain theme has seemed to enshroud our life out here in Michigan: Meat! We have eaten lots, and lots of meat. Thursday we had Chicken for lunch, and steak for dinner. On Sunday we had Steak, chicken, Brawts, and hot dogs (There were more varieties of meat that night then variety of side dishes, oh and the steaks were so insanely tender that you almost didn’t need to chew!) One Monday we had left over braughts, chicken, steak and hot dogs.

For the most part we have just been visiting Ruth’s family near Detroit Michigan. We have done lots of fun things like going on bike rides, watching Harry Potter 6, bowling, playing laser tag, board games, Guitar hero (a video game where you play the guitar), and of course... eating lots of meat!

Over the weekend we went down to near Cleveland Ohio, to visit one of my friends Nick Strange. On the way back I got a speeding ticket for $137. When we got back to Michigan and were trying to pay the ticket we found out that the county we got the ticket from has made headline news for the amount of revenue they make by traffic tickets. I can see why too because they only post the speed limit every 5 to 8 miles. Shem was just saying that he wished he knew what the speed limit was when we saw the cop car and got pulled over. I guess we are just one of the many people who pay the workers in that county. It’s nice to know that we are doing our civil duty.

More pics from Marquette, MI from Amy

We biked around Presque Isle.

Here is a freighter loading up with coal from the ore dock.

At the top of Sugar Loaf.

The "bear" cave that really was a hobo hut.

Hiking around Lake Superior.

We hiked around the water to get to this cove and then we signed out initials.

Walking in the water.

Hiking with Shem after he sprained his ankle.

Our First Week on Vacation!

Well school ended for Shem on June 25th, or something like that, and we packed and then we took off on vacation on Tuesday, June 30. We've had so much fun visiting with my brother and sister-in-law in Idaho, driving through Yellowstone, camping in the Black Hills near Mt. Rushmore over the 4th next to some crazy drunken pyromaniac hicks, and finally visiting with one of my friends from high school up in Marquette, MI.

While in Idaho we visited with Ken and Nikki and their new baby Marlie, she is so cute! We're so happy for them and it's so funny to see my younger, no-longer insensitive brother taking care of a newborn baby. We took a trip down to Provo, Ut with them and ate at one of my favorite Brazilian Churrascarias, Tucanos, for lunch. A Brazilian Churrascarias (or Brazilian Barbeque) is an all-you-can-eat place with all of my favorite Brazilian foods, after eating rice & beans, feijoada, pão de queijo, and kove, we stuff our faces with a variety of meats roasted on spits. Since waiters bring the steaming flesh to our table while we ate we able to fill up until we might burst! A goal that Ken and Shem seem to feel was an obligation. I, on the other hand, was exercising self control… okay so I really was just saving room for moose de maracuja. This creamy passion fruit moose is my absolute favorite desert and is hard to find! After gorging on the delicious crocuses of animals we went with Ken and Nikki to Sandy, Ut, for an internship interview with Del Sol. It's exciting to see them moving forward with their lives and finishing school. Nikki and I also had fun taking pictures of Marlie.

After hanging out in Idaho we left to drive 12hrs to Custer, SD in the Black Hills. We decided to take a route through Yellowstone and stopped and saw a lot of buffalo, and Elk along the side of the road and some bubbling hot springs and Old Faithful. I've decided the some people are just crazy and have a death wish or something because when we saw the Elk on the side of the road people were jumping out of their cars, walking in front of traffic and standing about 5ft from this huge animal with antlers as wide and tall as a 4ft person!

The black Hills were fun too, it was nice to camp although our neighbors weren't very nice at all. On the 4th July after seeing Mt. Rushmore we went back to camp to make dinner. We ate foil dinners and our neighbors had beer and beans. How do we know they ate beer and beans you ask? That's because one of the men kept shouting "Come and get your BEANS. We got plenty of free BEANS! Just $2 for your free BEANS! Hey you, get you *%&*$ up hear and eat some BEANS!" He pretty much did this on and off from about 6:00 pm to late in the night. By 10:00 pm we turned in for bed. At 11:00 pm our other neighbors started a fire that seemed to be so big that it looked like it was going to set the dry pine tree above it on fire. By 12:00 am the neighbor with the fire seemed to be getting irritated with the drunk Mr. Bean so she decided to keep her gun handy and then proceeded to complain about rude people and how guns are very useful tools when dealing with rude people. This went on for about an hour while we tried to sleep in our tent that was right between Anny get your gut and the drunken Mr. Bean. I was so freaked out that I woke Shem up and told him that I wanted to leave and pack up right then. I was sure the great Black hills bean bullet war of 2009 was about to commence any minute with us at the unfortunate referee in the middle. We stayed though, and the drunk Mr. Bean and Anny got your gun finally solved their differences by 1:00 am.

We still packed up early and went to church down in Rapid City where it turned out that about half the congregation was in the bathrooms right after sacrament meeting. They, like us, apparently needed to change from skirts into blue jeans before getting on the open road (great minds apparently do think alike.

After church on Sunday we drove to the Badlands in South Dakota and ate lunch while we looked at the cool rock formations. We drove to Minneapolis, MN and stayed the night in a hotel.

Resting in a real bed was nice, and then we were off to visit my friend Amy and her fiancé Justin in Marquette, MI. I've always wanted to travel in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the summer, but my parents prefer to go south, so Shem and I were excited to get this chance to see the beautiful U.P. We had so much fun with them, Amy took us through what she calls "Boot camp" and we hiked a lot and Amy and I had fun taking pictures of the scenery. The U.P. looks a lot like a very flat version of the Washington coast with fresh water. There are also some sandy beaches where the sand is quite fine too. We hiked up Sugar Loaf the second tallest "mountain" (aka bump in the landscape) in Marquette which only took us 10-15 min. Even thought the elevation wasn't enough to swing a neesle at you could see the entire area for miles! It was quite breathe taking. After Sugar loaf we hiked along Lake Superior. At one point we took off our shoes and scrambled along the bottom of a cliff in the water to get over to a cool little cove where the walls were made mostly of this weird red and white clay like stuff. It would be interesting to note that the term "scrambled" is in reference to myself and not Shem. He might as well have walked on the water for as much as he got wet! On the way back, however, Shem twisted his ankle. He did not twist it in the water while scrambling by the cliff because, as he says, that would be too cool of a story. Instead he was stepping off a rock when he rolled on ankle on a rock or root. After he was able to endure the pain enough to talk we found out the twig that snapped under his foot was actually the sound of one of his bone popping in and out of its socket. Needles to say, as it was a pretty bad strain Shem was out of commission for the remaining two hikes. At least he still got to bike around Presque Isle and eat some yummy white fish and trout that Justin cooked. Last night I also took some engagement pictures for Amy and Justin and I'm quite pleased with how great they look! I'll post some on the photo blog.

So we've done a lot so far and right now we're in the car driving to Mackinaw City and enjoying the views of the Lake Michigan and the bridge to the Lower Peninsula. The U.P. is just so pristine and that Shem and I have begun to scheme our next big adventure of sailing thought the great lakes. Although that one probably won't' happen for several long years. We should be in Detroit in about 4 ½ hours. We are getting sick of being in the car and can't wait until we are there were we can play without driving for a whole week. Woo hoo!

I'm a slacker blogger

I don't have any cool photos (expect for the two up there) or stories to tell (I'm sure I could make up a story), or big and exciting news to share, but I thought that I'd post since there are some of you who do read my blog. :) I thank you for that. :) (I feel loved and important to each one of you).

As you may have noticed I've done a little bit of photography these past few months and my friend Christie has been so kind as to be a model for me and share her beautiful baby with me to take some pictures. I've had so much fun and I feel like I'm above the learning curve and I feel very confident shooting in manual modes and meetering and using my camera like I've been taught (all the numbers before seemed a bit overwhelming with film...some things didn't click back in 2000, maybe it was hormones, but now it all makes so much artistic and mathematic sense! I've enjoyed reading and studying my photography books and I bought a handy notebook that I take notes after I do a shoot and when I want to get a certain look. For example I want to take some beach shots in the evening (or morning after June 17th) and I just took a bunch of notes on what ISO to use, shutter speed, and aperture to get the right exposure. You see it's like science and art all together!! And really cool gadgets!! I'm in love...well with my second love, photography. :) Shem is still my first.

So if you're in the area and you want some beach shots or any pictures taken call me, email me, whatever and I'll hook you up!

School is almost out and Shem is less stressed these days. I can tell because he has been leaving for work later which has been making me leave even later because I have someone to talk to in the morning now. :) His students are making those awesome trebuchets (sp?) like they did last year. I've noticed that when he spend time on the computer (like we normally do, he's on his and I'm on mine working of course) he's looking up Ham radio stuff for his near space project he's saving up for. I love how excited he is about it and I can't wait to see him build it in the next couple of years. He has also recently taught me how to do the finances with Microsoft Money so that I can take over that responsibility in the future (well at least be an educated part of it) and I love how patient he is with my frustration at my own spending habits and the fact that our monthly food bill has been so high!! I can't handle that kind of stress seeing out budget be blown on food! :) I'm learning and he's a patient teacher.

Oh, back in April I lost my job and today I just got my job back with the Issaquah School district. They called me during my 3rd period, which was weird, but I welcomed the good news. :) Ironically enough I just finished my application to Bellevue School District, so we'll see what happens with that. Making a few thousand more would be nice, but starting someplace new might not be worth the hassle.

Off to bed now...

March Madness!!

This month has been crazy for Shem and I and no it hasn't been because we're keeping track of our March Madness teams either! I'm finally starting to feel like I have some control over my life after being so busy and Shem is starting to see some light at the end of this tunel of grading IB labs. He thinks he'll be done around midnight tonight! :)

I've been busy with RS and thankfully after deciding that I just don't have the time to put into the calling I was released. It feels good to have some more free time, but at the same time I miss the work and in some ways I feel like I should've just stuck it out. However, after considering how down I was getting from not being able to do other things that I enjoy, like cook dinner, clean (I really don't enjoy it, but a clean house is so nice) grade my students assignments, work on some curriculum, run, and on the weekends spend time with Shem or feel free to help family or go out and take pictures, I'm glad that I was released. I feel more balanced now and I've even started doing things for myself! Last week I started accupuncture and so far I love it! It feels so good to just lay there and relax and I'm looking forward to my next trip tomorrow!

Shem has been crazy busy like always this time of year. He's been so good at getting things done at home like our taxes and helping me cope with all of my stresses. He recently just had a huge project at work where all the IB kids in a science class get together for a day called "Group four" and they solve a mystery/crime. The teachers create the plot and set the whole thing up and it was actually really cool! I don't know much about it, but Shem came home one day with a bunch of bullet shells so I think they had something to do with the project. I'll have to have him update the blog with more details. Right now he's grading away trying to get his labs finished before tomorrow and then he'll be a free man!

Shem diligently grading his IB Labs.

Some Students working on Group Four.

Shem's Dad's Passing

A few weeks ago Shem's Dad passed away on January 18, 2009. He had sugury on a brain tumor the day after christmas and everyting went perfectly after the first surgury, then about 36 hours later he formed a blood clot in the spot where the tumor was. We were there with Dawn (Shem's Mom) when Jeff complained of having a bad headache and before the nurse could come to help he had passed out. We were rushed out of the room and they called a code 199 and he was back in the O.R. Well, the next few weeks were hard, we did all that we could to try to wake him up, but we could tell that he was going to go after a while and after looking at another MRI we saw how much damage the swelling in his brain had caused and things didn't look hopeful.

Anyway, even though we've lost someone we love so much it was a great blessing of all of us to have the comfort of the spirit with us and for the blessings that were given which gave us so much hope. We loved his memorial service and all felt up-lifted after celebrating his life. We'll miss him so much, but we know we'll meet again.

New Gadgets!!! I LOVE my camera!

Ever since I was about 14 years old I've been interested in photography and I always enjoyed going on weddings with my Dad or Uncle Clint as their assistant. In college I started to study photography, but soon put that aside because I felt like I didn't need to pay my way to learn how to take pictures and I wanted to put my college education to use so I decided on education-at the time I felt like I needed a career that I could support a family on (well hardly as a teacher) if I ever needed to (i.e husband passing away etc.). I also wanted to keep my hobby as my hobby, my escape from life I guess. In short I love taking pictures and over the years I've thought a lot about making it a side business etc., but for now it's going to be my hobby until I get good enough to make it a small side business-something that I can do with kids running around my house and a husband to take care of. So here are some of my "Around the House" photos. I've developed them in Lightroom 2, however, I've just been playing around, so some of the exposure and colors are off, but I'm still so geeked about what I can do!!