{12/52}: Leavenworth

This week I took my first trip to Leavenworth with my mom for our church's annual women's retreat. It was a great few days of laughter and fellowship with some great ladies, I think we all came away feeling refreshed and energized. It was fun to have a girls weekend with mom, and of course that would not be complete without good food and shopping :)

The weather wasn't as nice as we thought it was going to be, but it didn't rain on us while we were out and about so that's all that matters! This little Bavarian village has lots of little shops and a nice trail along the river, and of course awesome 360° views of the mountains. I'm going to be talking Cody into going there when there's snow on the ground!

Biggest mini golf course EVER. We got a putter, that's it! lol

I mean really, who chips with their putter?! Guess I need to work on those putting skills.... ; )

We had fun racing sundown and doing our best to stay out of the water! : P

Our hotel had an alphorn play each morning at breakfast--kinda cool!

Some photos from our morning walk by the river..

The view from a balcony at the hotel

All in all it was a good few days away :)

Next up on the list of exciting things happening around here: Baby Callon #3 arrives tomorrow!!!!!!!! SO stinkin excited to meet her and hear what the final verdict is on her name! Get ready little girl, auntie's camera is awaiting anxiously! : )

{2/52}: "Adventure" to Banks Lake

This past weekend I had my first real Keane and Cody style adventure. Over the last 4 years I've been with Cody I've heard countless stories, some more than once, of the kinds of trips these two have taken and the things that happen on said trips....and I've always been thankful I wasn't there.

Cody wanted to go out to Banks Lake and scout out some campgrounds good for the boat and look for places that we could just camp on the shore without having to pay $35 a night.

Side note--since when is it almost as much to sleep on the ground as it is to get a room at a Motel 6?! Throw in the Discover Pass and the National Parks passes you need and you're looking at $100 to camp for a weekend, not to mention the gas to get there in a loaded truck hauling a boat. Ridiculous.

I digress...

The adventure: I first have a disclaimer. Despite what I am about to say and being in a car for about 10 hours, I enjoyed the trip--but I had to give Cody crap about it. I was told hiking and possibly snowshoeing would be involved, and neither happened : )

It's about a 3 hour drive to Banks Lake, so leaving around 6:30 was the plan. Leaving actually happened at 8:15. Then we were (a little bit too) excited to eat breakfast at the Snoqualmie Casino...only to find out they don't start the buffet until 10am. What the heck?! Already "running late", we found a little restaurant in North Bend that was actually pretty delicious.

Along the way we passed by a lake that was frozen over and this had to be investigated. The conversation went a little something like this:

Keane: Do you think that ice is pretty thick?
Cody: I don't know, would you like to attempt to traverse it?
Keane: Yeah lets do it, we might lower morale and die of cholera though.

Oh Oregon Trail, how you have touched our lives forever <3  hahaha

Testing it out...

I had to join in the fun too, though Cody didn't want me taking my camera out on the ice : P

Yes, they are running back : P

They really did want to try to get to the rock in the middle, but I told them I had the keys and I wasn't coming in after them ; )

A few hours later we finally come to the Shell Station/Big Wally's Tackle Shop, the spot where knowledge had been said to abound about where to fish and where to camp. Well, Big Wally had the day off so after Cody made Keane smell some fish bait that he claimed smelled like limes but really was more like something that died and had been locked in a tupperware container for days in the sun, we headed off to Steamboat Rock.

We "hiked" up some rocks to see the other side of the lake, found a couple of campgrounds that had signs saying "no overnight camping allowed" so we were confused as to why they were even called campgrounds. Instead of going back south to Moses Lake and Potholes, we headed back north and drove by the Grand Coulee dam. That was pretty cool, I had never been by there before, but for whatever reason I didn't take a picture of it. Oh yeah that's right, we didn't stop and I was hungry and sulking that I wasn't going to get to snowshoe...and pictures through car windows are crappy.

At the top of our "hike" to see the rest of Banks Lake

The plan was to stop at Lake Chelan and look around there for some camping, but in our hunger we missed the turn and didn't realize we missed the turn until we were practically in Wenatchee. Oh well, life goes on and there was food in Wenatchee : P

13 hours after we left we made it back to Tacoma...with a slight idea of where we want to camp this summer *lol*

This was a minor Cody and Keane experience--I'll let them have the broken down in Idaho and the "there's no cougars, but there's mountain lions in them there hills" trips to themselves : )

Road trip, field trip, and everything in between!

5 more weeks of the semester left.....yipee!!! However that also means that the opportunities to boost my grades are becoming smaller and smaller, which always makes me nervous. I'm doing fantastic in biochem and wildlife ecology, but comparative anatomy? Not so much. I don't appreciate the teaching style or expectations very much, but I'm kinda stuck with it now : )  I never like being the average, but with the volume of terms/structures/concepts we've had to memorize for a single exam, I'm actually kinda thankful to be hovering around that 75% mark--half of the class above me, half below me. I guess that the best part is not only does he curve every test, but the overall grades as well. Now I just have to hope that the same people haven't been getting the high grades every time! ; )

It's been a very long time since I've written anything on here--I feel lazy for not keeping up with it, but, it's not like I don't have other things occupying my time : )  I do believe that I left off with my weekend excursion up to Boundary Bay in British Columbia at the end of February. For my wildlife ecology class (which I am enjoying MUCH more than expected!) we were assigned to write a term research paper on our choice of animal from a list Pacific Northwest species she had for us. I chose the snowy owl--no, not because of Harry Potter, I swear!--but because I think they are really really pretty birds and I had never seen one (besides at Northwest Trek) and thought it would be cool to learn more about them. Part of our assignment includes making a poster of our research to "present" (i.e. stand next to it and answer questions) during PLU's Academic Festival at the end of the semester. I thought to myself, I wonder how close to us snowy owls can be found? The mountains, maybe? If I was going to have to make a poster with pictures I sure wanted the pictures to be my own if possible : )  So, I sought out to find where I might be able to go see these owls in their natural environment. I stumbled across a blog of a man named Marc Hoffman (Songbirdphoto.com) who had recently seen and taken photos of snowy owls in British Columbia, so I emailed him to ask if he could possibly give me directions to where he was at. Thankfully he did and the following weekend I headed out to Boundary Bay/Surrey B.C. with  my best friend to see some owls!

Of course the whole experience was cool (I'm pretty sure Mel enjoyed it too lol), I was excited taking my first trip to Canada--but hands down the best/funniest part of the trip was crossing the border. I have the enhanced drivers license so I didn't need anything else, but Melanie didn't have that or a passport. We kept getting conflicting information about the required documents to cross the border from the Canadian side and from the U.S. side (we found out later the passport law had been in effect since 2009, whoops : P) so we were armed with her birth certificate, SS card, license, and who knows what else! I got super nervous when we got to the border thinking they weren't going to let her across, so much so that when the border guard asked "Where is home?" all I could think of to say was Washington, and even that took me a few seconds *lol*  Then when he asked what we were doing in Canada I told him we were headed to Boundary Bay to see the snowy owls. "....seriously?" was his response and I kinda laughed, said I was doing a research paper on them for school and decided to see them in person. "Well that's cool I guess.....but you're seriously like 25 years younger than anyone else coming across to go look at them!"  Coming back into the U.S. the border patrol asked what we did in Canada, told him the same story, and no joke, got the same response from him! So birders are all old huh? : )

Anyway, we got a good laugh out of it, no mention of Melanie not having a passport, and off to Surrey we went....after I had to give up my very large can of pepper spray--thanks, Canada, for sending two girls on without a weapon! ; ) We dropped some stuff at the hotel and then headed right out to Boundary Bay. We totally lucked out with the weather. Aside from it being SUPER windy on Saturday, the temperature was pretty tolerable and it didn't rain--can't complain about that on the coast in February. There were actually lots of people out on the trial looking at and taking pictures of the owls. I don't know what I was really expecting the area to look like, but I was definitely expecting trees/woods of some sort. We were just off the shores of the ocean, in a very flat and open area with lots of washed up logs and wetlands between the trail and the edge of the water. I hadn't done much research on the owl up to this point, but it turns out they are ground nesters and prefer vast, open expanses like these. It was beautiful. I love the coast as it is, but there was just something about the area that was really neat. And the owls--most were literally 25 feet away from the trail perched on the logs!!! So. Awesome.

This was a rare treat and I was so excited that I got to see them. The snowy owls experience what are called irruption migrations that happen when there is a large increase in their population (usually due to an increase in lemming populations in the tundra) and so there are more owls migrating south as a result. In North America their summer habitat is in the tundra of northern Canada where they breed and lay their eggs, and their winter habitat is usually in Central southern Canada, north central and north east of U.S. In irruption years (which happen it seems every 6-8 years, but isn't a regular pattern) they expand their migration range further south and closer to our coasts. Some years snowy owls have even been spotted in Texas!

The only damper on the trip was seeing the lenses the other photographers out there had that I REALLY wanted. I was very close to asking one of them if I could just look through their lens, just to get a taste of the giant telephoto that is definitely on my want list! Through the research I've done I think I'm becoming an owl person : )  Their behaviors are fascinating to me. I've even been in contact with the person in charge of the Massachusetts Audubon Society who has personally been doing research on the migration habits of snowy owls that he finds selecting their winter habitat at, of all places, Boston's Logan International Airport. He has found a way to affix GPS devices to the owls in a way that does not interfere with their normal behaviors and has been tracking the flight patterns from year to year from their summer habitat to their winter habitat. If you're really interested in the rest of the story just let me know : )

Other than that I have just been chugging away at school, work, and trying to get at my camera when I can, though the weather hasn't been the best. I have done a couple of photo shoots--one of an adorable little girl who was about 3 weeks old at the time, and then had some fun with my nephews Joey and Van one night watching them while mom was at volleyball. We did some Easter pictures and Van's 6 month pictures. I've also got a couple of photo shoots lined up the last 2 weekends of this month that I am excited about!

Hands down my favorite pic from NW Trek!

This past weekend was a pretty packed--and finally gorgeous!--weekend. Saturday I spent the first half of the day with my wildlife ecology class at Northwest Trek. It was the first time that I had been there were the majority of the animals weren't moving or hiding : P  We all had a good time even though we had an assignment to complete while we were there...but I did mine on the snowy owls they have there so I didn't mind too much : ) Then right after I headed to Keana's house for Joey's 5th birthday party--complete with delicious cake and everything Lego-themed, she did a fantastic job decorating. Joey didn't really pay attention to what he was opening for presents...it was an open, look for a second, toss it aside and open the next one lol  Later on when I asked him what we had gotten him he said "he forgot"--silly kiddo, I helped him build the firetruck legos we got him anyway ; )

This was after cake, chips, earlier jello, some frosting covered marshmallows, and hot dogs... ; )

Cody and I finished off the weekend at my parents house for some BBQ hot dogs and grilled pinapple (YUM) while the weather was still nice....and this morning its back to the typical spring rain. It was nice while it lasted, hopefully we will get sun before July!

Until I have more pictures to share, hope you've enjoyed those in this post! : )

Another Catch-Up : )

You'd think with almost 3 weeks off of work I would have found time to sit down with an update, but apparently I've found other things to occupy my time : P


First thing's first....as of December 23rd, I'm officially an engaged woman! : ) We are super excited, but the wedding won't be until next summer. Cody thinks I'm slightly crazy for having as many things as I do already planned, but I can't help it! I'm SUCH a planner, and that's probably the one area where Cody and I are the most different (that and our sleeping habits, but that's a completely different story lol). He's very much a take it as it comes kind of guy, where as I usually have a good idea what I'm doing for at least the next two weeks ; )


Many have asked for the proposal story, so I thought I'd share it here--as happy of a story it is, I kinda get tired of saying the same thing over and over : )

So here's the story--he acted like he didn't have a plan for that night when I asked him the day before what time we were going to leave and what I needed to wear. I just kept getting "I don't know, what would you like to do?" I even told him that not that I expect to do big and elaborate things for our anniversary but that I was kinda disappointed that he didn't really take the time to plan something....oh little did I know ; )  

We headed up to Seattle (I didn't know this was where we were going but just figured we would). We took the exit for West Seattle so I had a feeling we were going to Alki Beach. He said "I'm assuming you know where we are going now, I thought it would be fun to recreate our first date". On our very first date we went to Seattle and ate at this restaurant called Tango for dinner, then killed time at a couple bars before the show started at Jet City Improv (hilarious show by the way!) and the ended the night walking around the park on Alki beach.So we were doing it a little backwards but that was okay, I thought it was completely adorable. So we're walkin around, I of course had my camera so I'm taking pictures of the skyline. I wanted to get one of us with the skyline in the background do I set up my camera on the sidewalk and messed with the timer, running back and forth a bunch to redo the picture till I was satisfied : P After about 15 retakes I was finally happy and we started walking back toward the truck. I assumed we were cutting it close to making our dinner reservations and he said "No we've got a little more time we can walk some more." Okay. A little before this I was just reminiscing about our first date, told him it was the first place he held my hand and the first place he put his arm around me when we sat on the beach. We walked over to this grassy area close to the water and he says:"So this restaurant that we are going to is a pretty quiet, low key place but I think you will like it. It's also a pretty classy place, and the ring that I gave you before isn't classy enough.."He got down on one knee, said "Oh my gosh I'm nervous now.." hahaha  and the rest is history! ; ) I of course said yes, and I can't wait to marry my best friend : )

The absolutely adorable ornament Cody's sister Keana got for us : )

Christmas this year was very laid back and enjoyable--as it should be! Cody and I went to his sister's house on Christmas day, and then a week later had a second celebration with my stepsister and her kids from Oregon when my brother was up here visiting. I can't seem to find the pictures that my mom sent me at the moment...gonna have to get them from her again : P

Van thinks my ring is pretty too : ) 

Some amazing fiance got him a charter fishing trip on the Sound! hehe

A few days ago I flew back from my two week trip visiting my Dad and family in Oklahoma. As much as I like spending time down there it's hard to be away from here for that long, thinking about all the projects and such that I want to get done before I start school! Nonetheless, it was a good trip--got a few rounds of golf in, got to spend some time with my grandparents, and lots of relaxing time laying on the couch or playing cards : )

Dad's new toy -- 2012 Ford Raptor....it's pretty fun : ) 

Pretty blue skies out at the ranch in Jay, OK 

I had a little friend on the ride....ironically his name was Cody *lol*

Grand Coulee Damn in Langley, OK -- fun fact, it's the largest-spanning damn in the U.S.!

Gorgeous sunset on the drive home from Grove!

My grandpa loves rebuilding cars, and he's been working on this 1964 Volvo for at least 4 years now. When my Dad and I drove down to his shop, he needed us to help him set the electronic speedometer he installed, so I got to go along for the maiden voyage to read him the directions...Dad followed just in case we broke down : P  He does everything himself, including the upholstery!

Before

After

 So fun! I thought it was pretty cool to share the first ride with him since I don't see him but twice a year <3