Monday, April 21, 2008

Moving - Yet Again

Well it is that time again when I dust everything in my house preparing for our latest move. The moving company called today and they moved up our pack-out day. The company will be packing us up and out on Thursday and that isn't all that happened today. We received a letter in the mail and our rental agency has changed so now there are stupid things we have to do to make the new agency happy. So our stuff will be moved out on Thursday and we are checking out of the townhouse on Friday at 9 AM so I have about 15 hours to get the house completely clean after everything is gone. Nick won't be able to help much because he is scrambling to finish up his instrument rating. He is scheduled to take the written test tomorrow and review with his instructor on Wednesday and hopefully get a review flight on Wednesday also. Thursday (the day the movers are coming) hopefully he can take the practical portion of his test and be all done. I have been helping Nick study for the past couple of weeks and we are studying even harder the past few days. I just finished serving Spaghetti for dinner and am now getting ready to start washing the walls. I really think that I'm going to be relieved when this is all over.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sunday

Today was our last Sunday in our current ward. I've been the primary chorister for the last year and the primary presidency was sad to see me go. As a going away present they gave me a vase with tulips from the area. The tulips are absolutely beautiful. They are a cross between a dark pink and a light purple, I absolutely love them.
Nick has been in a bit of a grump mood the past 4 days because when he is concentrating on something and it isn't working out quite right he gets moody and short with everyone. The reason he is grumpy this week is he got a Rubix cube and hasn't been able to solve it yet. The cube came with a seven step process on how to solve the cube. He adamantly refused to look at the "cheat sheet" and has been an ornery as a bear. Today he finally decided that it may be alright if he took a look at the "cheat sheet" - his mood is greatly improving. I also decided to help his mood improve as much as I could so I made him a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Making the cookies helps in other areas too because I need to use them up or give them away in the next 5 days.
The move is coming up so quickly. I've know the date the movers were coming for a long time but today it really started sinking in. I only have 3 days to get everything ready now. It's not like I've been slacking off but I didn't want to do too much because it really destroys the house. I guess that all the pictures are coming off the wall tomorrow and I'm still finding homes for things the movers won't take. One thing that I'm sad to be leaving is a almost new bottle of olive oil. I know that probably sounds stupid, but as many times as Nick & I have moved it get easier but sometime some things you have you can't get in the new area. I bought a great salad dressing at Safeway and I'm almost positive that they only sell it at Safeway. I think I may but another one and stash it away in the car. I just hope the bottle doesn't break when we start traveling.
Well I have probably complained enough. It will be good to be around family and friends and live in a real city again. We haven't lived in a real city in 5 years and I am very excited.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

More Pictures of Washington while Flying Today


First: Cloud cover off of left wing. Second: Puget Sound at 4000 feet. Third: Deception Pass bridge connection Fidalgo Bay and Whidbey Island 4000 feet. Fourth: San Juan Islands 3000 feet. Fifth: San Juan Islands (different area/angle) 3000 feet.

Cross County: Olympia to Bellingham

It has finally happened. Nick was able to complete his cross country flight after 3 weeks of trying to get it done. Every time we tried to fly there was icing and apparently if you fly too much through icing the plane can fall out of the sky. Today's fight was very cool because there were tons of clouds and we flew on top and through them; I am really going to miss Washington because it is so amazingly beautiful. There isn't too much to see flying through Utah, you either see a crusty looking shrinking salt lake, a couple of trees on a mountain range or sand, lots and lots of sand. We only have about a week and a half left up here and I am taking tons of pictures to remember as much of Washington as I can. Nick only has a few things left to do before he finally gets his instrument rating. We are trying to hurry thing up as fast as we can because we have to get it done before we move. The move seems like it is moving closer faster than it should; I think that ever time you are working with a deadline time moves a lot faster. Well here are some picture of today's flight. First: Nick is doing pre-flight on the Cessna 172 724TM Second: Just checkin' to see how I'm doing (between Everett and Olympia) Third: The state capital building in Olympia. Fourth: Cloud cover over Whidbey Island. Fourth: Nick checking the fuel sumps (just making sure we have enough gas).

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Nick's Saturday Landings


Landing in Olympia (First 2 pictures) Landing in Everett (Last 3 pictures)

Robber Dogs

Nick and I have way too much spare time. The dogs got a hold of a pair of my knee high nylons and they were shredding them. That’s something that is very normal in the house. We go through sock like crazy because our dogs have somehow found out how to get them out of the hamper. Anyway, Nick got the nylons away from the dogs but then he decided that it may be funny to turn the dogs into robbers by putting the nylons on their heads. We were laughing so hard and the poor dogs weren’t too happy about what we were doing but I had to take some pictures so we would always remember our robber dogs.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Flying with Nick

Today Nick and I took a flight to Olympia Washington. The weather was absolutely wonderful; this is the best weather we have had since September. Since Nick only had the plane reserved for 2 hours he and Brian (his instructor) decided that they could only do a short cross country flight (50 nautical miles with one landing). Nick wanted to go south so we flew to Olympia. I just love flying over the ocean because there are so many things to see. We flew over Bremerton shipyard and there were tons of ships docked. I also got some great pictures during the whole flight. This flight was pretty uneventful but Nick is one flight closer to getting his instrument rating.

Rosario Beach

On Thursday the 11th we took a drive to Rosario beach. I've been taking as many pictures as I can lately because we are going to be moving in the next two weeks and Washington is so beautiful that it is going to be a little hard to leave. There are tons of tidal pools at the beach but since the vegetation growing on the rocks is so delicate we weren’t able to look at the pools. We also saw the monument to Rosario and found out why they named the beach after her. It is an ancient Indian legend about a girl who is gathering some mussels and crabs and one fell into the ocean. She tried to retrieve it and someone grabbed her hand. The person said that she was so beautiful and asked her to come live in the ocean with him. She declined over and over and finally the man said that he would leave her alone. After he left for the last time all the springs dried up and the fish went away. The girl decided to save her family and village and went to live in the ocean; she was so happy and remained there always. Rosario was supposed to have beautiful hair and when you look at the seaweed swaying in the current it is Rosario's hair waving.