To market to market

Last Saturday Tyson and I went to Portland's Saturday Market. And honestly, I'm just not really sure what to say about it. We didn't buy anything because it just seemed like a lot of the stuff they were selling I could probably make at home. For a lot less. The only thing I would have maybe bought would have been some photography but I just didn't need any right now. But it was totally fun to look at all the um, interesting people wandering around. As you can see in this pic it was totally packed and like 600 degrees in the middle of the crowd.

The coolest part was definitely the one armed man playing the guitar. I totally wanted to take a picture of him but I didn't want to put money in his case (I know, I'm a cheapo) and I felt bad taking his picture without giving anything back to him.

Then I decided I was going to take his picture whether he liked it or not but when we wandered back to where he was playing, he was gone. Bummer! 2 minutes later he walked right past Tyson, even brushing up against him. Still didn't get the pic but I do admire his dedication to the craft.

I also admired the dedication of a guy who made tie dye shirts all day long. We heard him describing in great detail his love of tie dye to a couple of innocent bystanders. He was really really into it. We of course slinked away inconspicuously.

Here we are at the biggest bookstore ever. Maybe. I'm not sure actually but it really was huge, I think it took up a whole city block. Tyson and I meticulously took the MAX as close as we could get and then wandered for about 5 blocks before we found the place. Then we realized we didn't need a book so we went to the bathroom and left. Awesome.

Here I am in front of Nike Town. Contrary to popular belief, however, it was not a town, just a store. We were hoping Michael Jordan would be in there or something to make it extra cool but no. Just a store. And no, we didn't buy anything here either. I was actually a little afraid to touch anything because the whole place was so pristine and perfect.

Next stop, the waterfront. And look! We bought something. Nothing like a little carl's junior to give the day a little extra somethin' special.

Don't worry, it's another shot of the two of us taken by... us.

P.S. I really wanted to go swimming. But not in that river. It was dirty. Really dirty.

How to golf real good

By

Mari Lowder

Your resident pro amateur friend who has been golfing 3 times.

I've decided to put all the helpful knowledge that I have gained into 10 easy steps. Just follow these guidelines while you are golfing and you'll always look like a pro. Even if you stink.

Step 1: The first thing you want to do when you are getting ready to whack that ball into high heaven is take a couple practice swings. I believe that 2-3 swings is good. I don't know why. For me, it doesn't matter if I take 400 practice swings, I either get lucky or I don't. But since everyone else does it, I'm there. This leads us directly into...

Step 2: There may come a time when after all your carefully placed practice swings you will line yourself up just perfectly to hit that ball, focus real hard, and Swifffth... miss completely. This has been known to happen to me multiple times. On the same hole. This will leave you feeling like a fool. A complete and utter idiot for ever thinking that you wanted to play golf with your husband and DIL. But fear not. Remember those practice swings we were talking about? Just pretend that you've taken another one of those. Odds are that your friends aren't watching very carefully and will think that is in fact what you are doing. If you look around with this dumbfounded sheepish look on your face they will know that you missed. And they might make you count it as a stroke. Not good.

Step 3: Don't lose your temper. It will invariably make you 1000% worse than you were before.

Related Tangent: I lost my temper on hole number 3. Oh sure I didn't curse up a storm, break the club over my knee, and throw my ball into the pond. But I wanted to, oh how I wanted to. Instead I just kept topping the ball which moved it about 2 feet with every hit. Too short to count for anything, too long to be considered a "practice swing". And then when I finally got a good hit my ball landed in a grove of trees. Lets be honest, at this point I looked around to make sure no one was watching and picked up my ball and threw it towards the green.

What?

Anyway, many many strokes later I finally got it in the cup. Cup? Is that what it's called? Well whatever it is, I got it.

Step 4: Graciously accept charity. Occasionally we all have hole no 3s and the resulting score ruins the rest of your game... and the rest of your night... and possibly the next day. When the score keeper asks what you got, be honest, and maybe (especially if the score keeper is your DIL) he will be merciful and give you a 10 instead of the 23 you deserved. Take the pity and move on. Otherwise you will dwell on how you were doing so well before that blasted hole and you can never recover now. And the rest of your game will be ruined.

Step 5: Praise the golfers around you. When someone you are golfing with hits an especially nice one, let them know it was good. Praise them excessively in fact. If they are too busy thinking about their own awesome hit, they will probably forget to give you advice on your own swing.

Step 6: Make simple goals for yourself but don't tell anyone what they are. For example, on the par 3 course that we were at my goal was to get each hole in 10 strokes or less. I failed (see hole no. 3) but due to my acceptance of charity and me not telling anyone my goal, I felt like I reached it because on paper and in my head there was success. My next goal is to have my total score be double par or less. I think I can do it.

Step 7: Learn the terminology, sorta. If you are going to try and use the correct terms for everything, then you darn well better get it right. Nothing says fool like "sandbox". Not that any of us would say that. I don't really use terms like par or bogey. I prefer terms such as 8 or 11. Someday my friends, someday...

Step 8: Develop some sort of disability. Luckily our golf game came right around the time that the plague returned. So when I felt like I wasn't doing very well I just coughed a lot so that everyone could hear me and know that whatever I did wasn't my fault. Hit it into the trees? Sorry, had a cough. Missed the ball completely? My bad, my lungs are burning. Use it wisely friends. You can't pull out the big guns all at once.

Step 9: Keep your head down. This is the cardinal rule of golf. If you don't get in the habit of doing it you're gonna hear about it all day receive loving advice because that will always be the reason that you screw up. So just do it. Keep your head down. Keep it down now.

Step 10: Have fun! Golf can be fun especially when you don't feel like a fool. Just follow these quick easy steps, remind everyone you've never been golfing before and go "fore" it! Heh heh. (I actually typed that on accident at first but it worked out nice don't you think?)

Here is a shot of Tyson (who has been golfing more than 3 times)

Here I am during my 2nd time golfing

Ah, the happy golfers. We do enjoy ourselves.

Relapse

The Plague has returned.

And so I sit, coughing up my one remaining lung as I pretend that I'm not going to infect everyone around me.
I'm guessing Washington doesn't love me so much seeing as I have been sick THE. WHOLE. TIME. that I've been here.
It wouldn't be so bad if my constant hacking didn't leave me feeling like I was going to burst a blood vessel in my brain.
Or like I was going to lose control over my bladder.
But my abs have never been stronger.
It's all about the silver lining my friends.
Never mind that I haven't been able to sing in a month.
Or that I can't get through a full sentance without coughing in someone's face.
Or that you can smell menthol cough drops through my skin.

Sigh *cough*

Anyone up for chicken noodle soup?

scrapbook success

Ah the joy of creating something truly beautiful and unique. It is a pleasure which has no equal.

Not that I would know anything about that.

I just

a. Copy a page I saw somewhere else.

b. Create something that is not beautiful.

c. Do nothing because I am not creative.

-BUT-

In those special moments when it only takes me 17 hours to create a new cute page, life is good. So here is the project I have been working on. Actually, two projects. The first 6 pages are for a mini book that I'm working on which covers last Thanksgiving and Christmas. The last page is for a book that we are putting together for Tyson's Grandma.

Can you tell that I like the distressed look? It's pretty much my favorite thing these days. If you have any suggestions of new toys and techniques that I should try let me know!

Mistaken Identity

You know those super awkward moments that we humans just love to have?

Like when someone you don't know is waving at you, and you know they aren't waving at you, but it looks so much like they are waving at you that after several excruciating seconds of pretending not to see them you do the "who me?" thing and they nod so you do it again, just in case, and they nod again so you wave back with the smile that you only reserve for friends and teachers but then you see the person they are waving at walk out from behind you and you feel like an idiot so you have to write a run on sentance about it.

You know what I'm talking about.

Well that has most certainly happened to me. More than once. And it was an incident kinda like that which I would love to share with you today.

Many many years ago my family went to this place called impression 5. We loved going there because it was basically a hands on science center for kids and had all these fun things for us to do. Well I was cruisin' around the place in some sweet 90's get-up I'm sure. I'm picturing an MC Hammer sweater, stonewashed jeans with zippers at the ankle (to make them extra tight of course) and two pairs of socks, one pair pulled up and one pair rolled halfway down so you could see two colors at once. Plus a scrunchi in my ponytailed hair. Of course.

Anyway, I was cruisin' around like I already said when I spotted my brother Adam sitting at a computer playing with the paint program. I stood behind him with my hands on his shoulders for a second watching him color in a picture. He was using the pencil tool to do it and I could tell that it was going to take him forever. So I, being the paint expert that I am, sat down next to him, put my arm around him, and asked if he wanted to know a way to make the coloring go faster. I was thinking that he could use the spray can, or the paint brush, anything but the pencil really.

He didn't respond to me so I said again, "do you want help with that?"

He looked up at me and said (in a strange voice I might add) "I don't want your help."

Finally, for the first time I actually focused on his face.

...

And my world stopped. (cue sound effect: needle sliding off a record)

It wasn't Adam. It was some other blond 5-year-old kid who looked just like him. He was even wearing the same shirt for heaven's sake! And then I slowly turned my head to the right. The kid's dad was sitting directly on the other side of me (how did I miss that?) and was giving me a who do you think you are/get your hands off my kid look.

Well I jumped up and mumbled "uhsorryithoughtitwasmybrotherguessnottheylookthesamesorrysorrysorry..." and then I took off breaking the sound barrier on my way.

The rest of the day I cowered behind my mom praying that I would not see that man and his kid again. I did but I pretended not to. My hands still sweat when I think about it.

Has that ever happened to you? Anything like that? Please say yes. And please share.

50 things I learned this weekend

1. Don't throw up in the bathtub. (I am not pregnant)

2. Don't throw up in the bathtub when the drain is clogged.

3. Don't put off de-clogging the drain in the bathtub. Do it. Do it now.

4. I may never eat a hamburger again.

5. I may never eat cake again.

6. I may never eat again.

7. Tyson cleaned the bathtub.

8. And the toilet.

9. Tyson is a good man.

10. Tyson still loves me after all that.

11. I beat Tyson in mini golf.

12. Mini golf is fun if you are winning.

13. Hole no. 12 messed me up though.

14. It messed Tyson up worse.

15. I watched 3 movies on Sunday

16. I felt like I was watching x-men for the first time.

17. I'm not good at remembering movies I guess.

18. August Rush and Finding Neverland both feature the same kid.

19. It made it seem less real.

20. Printing coupons from the internet seems like a good idea.

21. Until the printer doesn't work.

22. But the internet thinks you printed your one allotted coupon.

23. So now you are frustrated and determined to beat the system.

24. And you spend 35 minutes rewiring cables to make it work.

25. All for $3.50.

26. It was worth it.

27. We fought the internet and we won.

28. I think.

29. We waited longer than 1 min at the best buy in-store pickup so we got $10 back.

30. Which made our purchase of x-men III only $2.99.

31. Plus we got a free movie ticket to x-files.

32. We fought the best buy and we won.

33. Don't judge me for wanting to see x-files.

34. It's hard to crochet for 10 hours straight.

35. I have calluses from crocheting.

36. I may never finish the blanket I am working on.

37. So sad.

38. Family Circus isn't funny.

39. Does anyone think that it is?

40. It's ok if you do.

41. Maybe it's just me.

42. I don't think I can make it to 50.

43. This has gone on way too long.

44. Has anyone even read this far?

45. 45 is a good number too. Better than 50. I'll stop here.






See what I mean?

C'mon, everybody's doin' it!

I have seen this on A LOT of people's blog so I figured I would join in the fun.

1.As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember.

2. Re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave you a memory. If you leave a comment I'll assume your playing the game, and Ill come to your blog and leave a message.

If you don't want to do it, that's cool, I understand *sniff, sniff*

A wish fulfilled

I like the zoo.

I'm not even sure why since I can't even remember the last time I went but I do know that I have been wanting to go for a very long time. So much so in fact, that when Tyson hinted to me that we were going to be driving for a little while to get to our 1st anniversary location I seriously thought he was taking me to the zoo.

And I was totally good with that.

Well, turns out that he took me to snowbird where we spent the day playing on the alpine slides, zip-line, and rode a tram to the top of the mountain for a picnic. Never mind the delicious romantic dinner where I had lamb for the first time (tastes like chicken) and that he even got us a hotel room for the night. Let's be honest, a little better than the zoo right?

Right.

But I still wanted to go, so when Becky (SIL) called to see if I wanted to go to the zoo with Banana, J-dawg, and her how could I resist?

We got a good start with the sea lions and otters who were thrilled to see us and showed off the whole time we were watching them. Awesome!

Then we made our way over to the penguins. J-dawg had started talking about the penguins the second we walked through the gate and wanted to see them immediately so we skipped past the next few animals and went straight for them.

Problem: penguins don't smell very good so as soon as we walked into their little area J-dawg turned right back around and walked on outta there. I'm pretty sure he didn't see them at all.

So much for the penguins.

Banana and I looked at them for about two seconds before we moved on to the next thing.

The next animal on our list was the polar bear. Now I know I heard someone saying that the polar bears were doing tricks because J-dawg heard it too and we talked about that the whole way there. Imagine our surprise when we got there and saw this:

Some trick.

He was sleeping.

Oh well, at least the kids seemed to enjoy it.
Hey, what's that boy in the background lookin' at? She's not old enough to date mister!

Next, we went to the current feature which was the Dinosaur park!
The Dinos made noise and moved around which terrified the kids. Banana clung to her mother for dear life and J-dawg hid in the stroller the whole time.

When I saw them the next day they wanted to go to the zoo again. Why? To see the dinosaurs of course, their favorite part.

I'm sure my look of fear as I had Jurassic Park flashbacks didn't help either.

Ah, the elephants were so cute.

But once again J-dawg struggled with their, uh, aroma.

He's got both his fingers up his nose in case you can't tell.
Rhino.
Zebra.
Banana's life dream was to pet a goat so Becky took her over while I hung out with J-dawg. Did I mention that he doesn't like the way animals smell? He also doesn't like to touch them.

I would like you all to enjoy the many faces of J-dawg as I did while we waited for Banana.

Giraffe.

Becky asked if I wanted to run in this cage and see the Lorikeets. She said they were cute but the kids had seen them before so they weren't going to go in. Well, I didn't realize until AFTER I got in there that these birds are supposed to land on you.

What!?

Um, no gracias.

I like animals, I really do but I am not a bird person. Plus there were signs everywhere saying that whatever gifts the birds left with us (IE. on us) could be washed off with soap and water.

Sick.

So I took my picture and got the "H" outta there before a bird could give me a present.

Next step was the zoo train and I have to be honest that I thought we would be going around all the animals at the zoo, perhaps getting the "backstage pass" if you will to see them. Maybe a chance to pet a giraffe or feed a lion or something. I don't know.

Don't get me wrong, it was a really nice ride, it was just not in the zoo. We went on a scenic tour of backwoods Oregon at .045 mph. I think it's mostly a place for parents to take their children when they want them to fall asleep because about half the kids did as we puttered along. So did I in fact. Not really. It was nice to sit and relax and look at all the greenery surrounding us though. I did enjoy that.
Last, but certainly not least was the mighty tiger. El tigre wasn't really in the mood for pics today but I stole a shot of him anyway.
There is no lion at this zoo. Strange.

Flashdance

I was at the mall today with MIL looking at pans before we went to the temple. Traffic wasn't as bad as we thought it would be and so we had some time to kill before doing a 1:00 session. As we walked around I was mesmerized (as I usually am) by the flowiness of the skirt I was wearing. Even though it totally doesn't look like one, it always reminds me of a dress that someone would wear while dancing ballroom, which got me thinking about SYTYCD (So You Think You Can Dance).

So then I starting thinking about what would happen if I just kicked my leg up as high as it would go. Would my dress soar up gracefully like the SYTYCD dancers' stretching into a rippling half moon? Would I look like a woman attempting a karate move in a green skirt? Do I even have enough room in this skirt for my legs to split that far apart? What if I ripped my skirt trying to pull a move like that? I snickered to myself, imagining that scene.

All these thoughts were going through my head when suddenly I had a flashback to another dance move in another time. I was oh... say, 10 years old or something and it was October of that year.

How do I know it was October? Well because, as was my tradition, I had made ghosts out of Kleenexes and hung them from my ceiling to celebrate the holiday.

Anyway, I had already gotten dressed for bed in one of my floor length nightgowns and I was standing next to the bunk bed in my room looking at one of my ghosts. As it turns out that ghost was right about at my head level. Hmm... I wondered to myself. I wonder if I can kick that ghost? I can kick pretty high... So I stepped back, lined myself up, and went in for the kill.

Wham!

I was suddenly on my back, staring at the ceiling, and gasping for breath. What the heck? How did I get here?

Oh right, remember that floor length nightgown? The one with the ruffle around the bottom hem? The one that has no give and/or stretch in the event that a young girl would try to kick something as high as her head? Mmm hmm, yeah. That's the one.

In essence I had clotheslined myself (or something to that effect) at the ankle and wound up flat on my back with the wind knocked out of me. Since the only thing more embarrassing than literally drop kicking yourself is having someone there to witness the debacle, so I jumped up and pretended the whole thing never happened.

Until now.

Due to the resurfacing of that suppressed memory I did not perform a SYTYCD move in the housewares department at Macy's. Instead, I continued on like a normal human being, grateful that only you, my blog friends, get to hear the inner workings of my mind.


P.S. I dropped a whole roll of toilet paper into the commode about 10 min. ago. How would Miss. Manners address this situation?

A hairy situation

So I was blow drying my hair the other day, flippin' my head around like nobody's business when

*slurp, grind, rip, POW!*

and my hair was sucked into the back end of that blow dryer.

Well I yanked that blankety-blank-blanker away from my head, shut it off, and threw it in a bathtub full of water.

Because that little tag told me not to.

Ok, no, I didn't do that, but I wanted to.

Aside from feeling like I had been scalped and betrayed by my beloved blow dryer, savior of frizz, and the acrid smell of burning hair filling the bathroom, not much damage was done. However, it did remind me of a story about my sister which I will now tell without her permission. I'm sure she doesn't mind though, do ya Em'? Its a good one.

Emily, Mom, and I were in the kitchen while Mom was cooking, all of us chatting away and going about our usual kitchen activities (Emily and I sitting while Mom did all the work) and by the way, this was *many years ago. Many many years ago. Before I had even considered turning a quarter of a century. Before I knew what that even meant.

Anyway, Mom was using a hand mixer to create something delicious and Emily, being the curious little one that she was, leaned forward to get a better look. Boop! A chunk of hair fell forward. GRIND! That chunk of hair got sucked into the beaters so fast there was no stopping it.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if your hair or your finger got in the way of the beaters? I don't wonder anymore. That whole chunk of hair just ripped right outta her head. There was no turning off the machine and unwinding her hair from those beaters. Nope, before you knew it, it was already too late.

Poor Emily, she cried of course (wouldn't you?) and rubbed her head for awhile but we couldn't really tell where the hair came from so we figured no harm no foul.

Later that night as we were finishing our dinner Mom stood over Emily and stroked the top of her head, moving her hair around a little bit. "{Gasp} Rog, come look at this." Of course that meant all of us kids had to clamber up and look too. There, right on the top of her head was a bald spot where that hair had come from.

Whoa.

Bummer for Emily. The only thing worse than having a comb-over at age 3 (or so) was the mini mohawk she had to cover as that hair grew back in. {chuckle} Ok, sorry. It's not funny. So, have you had any good hair stories? Did you ever have to cut all your hair off due to a rogue piece of gum? Did you cut your own bangs... when you were 2, or even 22? Anything catch on fire ever? Tell me your hair stories, I like 'em.

*Disclaimer: I was pretty young when this happened and so if I made anything up I'm sorry. This was just how I remembered it, Mom, please correct me if I'm wrong.

The Deadliest Catch

Ahh, the smell of the ocean, the breeze coming off the water, the sounds of the waves licking at the shore. There is nothing like visiting the Pacific to do a little crabbing! Whenever we are here in the summer we make an effort to get all our gear together and go out to the bay at Netarts (knee-tarts) and see how many tasty crab legs we can get for dinner.

And is it just me or does Netarts sound like something you would call your brother when he is tickin' you off? "Quit it you netart!" Maybe you would disagree but I think it every time I hear it.

But I digress. This past Saturday we got our chance to visit the bay and participate in our version of The Deadliest Catch. Usually we watch an episode or two of that show the night before we go but we forgot this time. It's our good luck charm. And we forgot. Dun, dun, dun.... [think ominous music]

Well, the day started out nice enough. It was supposed to be 95 in Vancouver so we were excited to spend the day at the much cooler shore. Much cooler. Cold actually. It was fine though. I had 2 sweatshirts, 2 regular shirts, a life jacket, and a hat to keep me warm. I wasn't worried.

Tyson wasn't worried either. You can't tell in this picture but he is actually wearing shorts. He confessed to me later that he wished he had pants on. Guess I wasn't the only cold one. It really was a lovely day though. Usually visibility isn't that good and the sun is rarely out when we go crabbing. You can see that it is gorgeous out there.

Here I am enjoying the first of many cookies. I like to prime my appetite before eating crab. It makes 'em taste better.

Tyson was the man when it came to throwing the pots in the water. We baited them with shad and turkey. The turkey didn't go over so well but those crab were all about the shad (which smelled really bad by the way)

Ah! Our first pot came up! Crab! Unfortunately none of them were big enough to keep :o( So all of them had to be thrown back in.

Ah, here we see the first casualty of the day. See that yellow thing in the water? That would be the measuring tool that we use to know if the crab are big enough to keep. DIL (Dad-in-law) accidentally threw the measurer in the water instead of the too-small-crab that he held in his other hand. Tyson and DIL tried to grab it before it sank but to no avail. (you would think that these things would float wouldn't you?)

Well, MIL and I had a good laugh while they tried to retrieve it until we realized that without a way to measure these guys we would have a hard time knowing which ones we could bring home. And there is a hefty fine if you get caught with crab that don't fit the regulations.

So we threw out our anchor, ok yes, we anchored on shore, while DIL ran out to buy a new measurer (he bought 2 this time). We chose this fine moment to have our lunch.

Ok! We made it back out onto the water.

So, look at the picture here. See that Doritos bag that DIL has? Although it looks like he is savoring the last bits of a dorito well done, he's actually drinking water. We left the cups at home and had to get a little creative.

I couldn't breathe while I drank because the smell of watered down Doritos made my stomach cringe. I couldn't look while I drank either because you just couldn't get all those little bits out before you added water and the floaties... oh the floaties. It still grosses me out a little. But it worked!

Oh, and see the hat on DIL's head? About 10 min or so ago that very hat blew off his head as we were racing back to the pots we left behind when we anchored on shore. Luckily it floated longer than that darn measurer and Tyson was able to save the day and fish it out of the water.

Ok, the next casualty. As Tyson was grabbing the rejected crab out of the pot one of them got a hold of him. In spite of his ultra thick rubber gloves that darn crab still drew blood. It wasn't as bad as last year when DIL got pinched without gloves on, but it still hurt! Poor baby. (I'm still surprised he didn't get lock jaw or bird flu or something from that open wound on those dirty fingers. I guess that's the life during The Deadliest Catch.)

So, not to be outdone by his finger, Tyson's legs decided to have a say of their own. Think he still wishes he wore pants? And yes, since he was sitting the majority of the time his knees were the only parts of his legs burned. Ha ha.

Although Tyson appreciates every opportunity to improve his farmer's tan, I prefer to only expose parts of myself to the sun that would have been shown in 1830. Therefore, only the backs of my hands, my ears, and my chin were fried. Very very attractive.

Well, things pretty much improved after that. We only ran over about 7 buoys and broke the key to the boat motor off in the ignition right before we went home. What a funny day.

Last casualty of the day? 6 delicious crab: 5 rock, and 1 dungeness.

I love crab.

Summer reads

So, since I've had just a little bit of extra time this summer I've had the luxury of being able to read a ton. As a result I thought it would be a great idea to share what I'm reading with you, and see if you have any suggestions for new books for me! So here is my reader review #1

The Host.

Yes, the long awaited Stephenie Meyer alien invasion book. Let's be honest, I wasn't so sure I wanted to read this one but since it was Stephenie Meyer, I pretty much had no choice. I mean, sci fi? Alien invasion? I dunno...

But then again didn't we all think that only weirdos read books about vampires...?

Look where that got us.

I actually got this book for my birthday, May 12 in case you forgot, but I held off on reading it for a couple months because I had too much going on with school and work. I really didn't feel the need to be consumed mind, body, and soul by a book for the next day or two. Well... as it turns out I didn't need to be so worried. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a way good book but it didn't capture me in quite the same way that the Twilight series did.

Who's excited for Breaking Dawn!? Raise your hands!

Me too.

Anyway, I would recommend it if you are looking for a fun summer read and although I do know lots of people who just loved it, I was more on the liked it a lot end of things. So, have you read it? What did you think? I heard a rumor that she (stephenie) said that she wasn't going to write a sequel to it, but don't you think she left it open for one? Or did you think it was a fine ending the way it was?

Tell me your thoughts my dear friends. And read the host if you haven't already.

In other news... I passed the praxis, hooray!!! The agony of waiting for my test results is finally over and the prognosis is good. I can't even tell you how relieved I am that I don't have to pay $130 to take it again. So there you evil test-makers! I beat you once again!

Mt. St. Helens

A little while ago Tyson and I were lucky enough to get to visit Mt. St. Helens.

I was so excited that I started taking pictures as soon as I could get a good shot.

Or, even a not so good one.

For example:
I swear, it's right behind those trees... My timing was clearly a little off with this one.

Here I am looking down at a lovely river of, well, ash I think. There was a little water down there too. The whole time we were driving up Tyson kept telling me how you could see moose or something from the telescopes at the visitor center.

Guess how many we saw?

None.

Tyson is all about the Mt. St. Helens

These humongous flying ants were EVERYWHERE! Every time I saw one I had a flashback to that scene in Indiana Jones. You know, the one with the nasty ants? {shudder} Since I did not want to be taken to their lair I chose to run away from every one that I saw.

Except this one.

While we were there I took a sweet helicopter ride!!!

Oh, can you tell that I'm inside?

Bummer.

Well, Tyson took a sweet helicopter ride!!!

You can still tell we're inside?

Dang.

Ah, Helen herself.

Inside the visitor center there was a seismograph machine set up to measure the vibrations where we were. I was lucky enough to witness one of the straightest and least cool lines ever recorded by a seismograph machine.

I consider myself lucky.

Here she is again.

Here is a tree that they built the visitor center around.

Not really.

But maybe.

I forget what they were trying to exhibit here but isn't Tyson cute!

We got to watch a movie about when the Mt. exploded and right after the movie was over they opened up the curtains and there she was!

We wanted to get a few more shots before we left and I'm glad we did because as we were posing for this picture we felt a rumble beneath our feet, and a plume of smoke billowed out from the remains of the mountain.

I wanted to run but Tyson wouldn't let me.

He said it was our duty to take pictures and preserve this moment for mankind (as if they didn't have 3,000 cameras pointed at the mt. at all times from the visitor center alone)

He also said if it was gonna blow we wouldn't be able to get away fast enough anyway.

So I faced what was quickly turning into an ashy hot mess and stared into the face of death.

Just kidding.