Tulips!

Even though I've seen the tulips in our area many times, I just love going out to them, soaking in their scent, and of course, taking lots of pictures. Since I take so many, I decided to put them into a slideshow for your parousing pleasure. If you prefer to see them larger (They are a lot nicer when you can see the details of the flowers) and at your own speed, click on the caption box or the 'yellow guy' and then click on the text 'tulips for blog'. It will take you to my Picasa web album.

Weekend Overview

Yesterday I went to a festival (for about 20 minutes) where there was a salmon tossing/catching contest. If you caught the salmon 3 times, then you'd win some smoked salmon to take home. It may sound easy in theory, but they're pretty slippery little suckers!

After that, I got groceries at Trader Joe's and then went to some craft shops for needles and yarn. Since I'm on somewhat of a break from school, I'm trying to learn some new knitting techniques. I just made the hat that I'm wearing this week. It was my first time cabling. It's also the first thing that I've made for myself so far. The other two are baby hats. I don't know if I'll give them away or keep them for possible future children. You can't really tell from the picture, but the one on my right hand is a lavender color.

While I was shopping and watching salmon fly through the air, Ryan was at a Walk Thru the Bible workshop all day (I know 'thru' is misspelled; that's how the group writes it.). It was a guys only thing, so I couldn't go. : P It was great though because we have an international student friend who is wanting to know more about God, so Ryan invited him along too. It was a New Testament overview. I've done the Old Testament Walk Thru back during my Biola days and enjoyed it. They do a lot of hand motions to help you remember what the different books of the Bible are about including genre and who it was written to. I think that this was helpful for our friend to get an introduction-though pretty in depth for someone with no biblical background-to the New Testament. He has also said that he wants to come to church with us every week and this morning was his first time. He slept through half of it because he's gotten about 4 hours of sleep the past few nights, but hey, it's a start!

Now it's Sunday night....I'm blogging and going to write a pop quiz for my students, and Ryan is working on his Calculus homework (something that you can pray about for him). He got a 98 average in his Pre-cal class, but this teacher is not as good and he is struggling to understand. He's worried about doing well as this class is a requirement for the business school at UW, where he hopes to transfer next Jan.

Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival

Last weekend, we went to Seattle for the Japanese Cherry Blossom festival. We were only there for about an hour and a half (until it closed for the day), but we were able to see some Japanese musicians, dancers, and taiko drummers (our favorite). If you've never seen taiko drumming, there are two short clips below. I like how they 'dance' while they drum...plus they look like they're having such a good time!

Afterwards, we went to The Melting Pot fondue restaurant. Because it was happy hour, we were able to eat cheaply at this 'pretty pricey place'...cheese fondue (with bread and veggies), two salads, and water for about $16! Of course the water was free. I just wrote that part because I didn't want anyone thinking we were boozing big time since it was happy hour. I'm too cheap. I'll stick with a glass of two buck chuck at home!

Global Warming?? Not in Western WA!!

For those who live outside of this area and are wondering, global warming is NOT an issue for western Washington as evidenced by snow on April 20th. This is not normal for this area. We also had snow, hail, and slush yesterday. We got snow on March 29th and flurries on many other dates in between then and now. Yuck!!

This first picture was taken at 6:30 am (not the usual time that I rise, but the usual time I have to go to the powder room). The rest are from 9:30am. The snow has since melted....thankfully!

Tons of Tulips

Wednesday evening, Ryan and I went to Tulip Town for the "locals only get in free" night. I had advertised this to my students in class. The last picture is of some of my students and me.

Saturday Studying

These pictures are a few days old. This past Saturday, when we actually had sunshine and above 50 degree weather, Ryan and I headed north for a nice walk and different studying location. When we got to our walking site, we noticed a new, very nice coffee shop right on the water. After our walk, we set up camp there for a few hours while he studied for tests, and I worked on my research paper. Too bad we had to do homework on such a nice day (which we are NOT getting many of), but at least we were able to enjoy it some.

The coffee shop is Woods Coffee and was decorated very cute, including a second floor and a fireplace.

We thought the above picture looked like the sailboat was on a sea of glitter.

I try to enjoy the natural beauty of Washington, and there surely is a lot of that. At the same time, I REALLY would like some sunshine and warmer temps...which probably means needing to move somewhere else. I realize that every place has both pros and cons, including Hawaii and California. Ryan still has the U of WA as his first pick of schools to transfer to next Jan. I'm looking forward to lots of vacations to warmer locations if we stay here another 2 years!

Daffodils

Here are some pictures we took a couple of weeks ago that I almost forgot to put on our blog. Some are from a somewhat nearby park, and the others are the surrounding daffodil fields.

See the yellow jacket?

Life in the country: horses on siesta, tractors, llamas, and sheep.

Knitting Classes

I've realized more recently my desperate need to be with other women for fellowship. Between work, which I do enjoy, and countless hours on the computer doing homework, I have not had much time to get together with friends. I want to try to make more time. I really need to chat and connect. I miss having friends that I can talk to often and connect with on a deep spiritual and emotional level. Ryan truly is my best friend and I am so thankful for him. However, there is something about having a couple close female friends, which I have been missing for awhile now.

This morning, I decided to go to knitting classes again. I haven't been there in a looooong time. There's a knitting shop at the end of my street that gives free classes (basically they help you with whatever project that you are working on) as long as you buy some of your supplies from them. It's great! In the past, I was doing a lot of baby booties and baby hats. I plan to continue that because they're so cute and fun to make, and also, so many friends are having babies. The hats make nice gifts....when I have the time to make them! So I went to class and was the only one without gray hair for the first bit until one other young woman came. Even though I don't have any close friends there, I realize how much I enjoy and need to simply interact with other women.

The pictures are of some styles that I'm thinking of trying after I finish the one that I started about a year ago!!

Mom's Overture by Anita Renfroe

I may be late seeing/hearing this song by Christian comedian Anita Renfroe, but I thought I'd share it in case others haven't heard it.

7 Things

My friend Andrea tagged me with a fun "game" where you write 7 things about yourself that your friends may not know about you. Some people may know some of these things about me. I'm trying to think of interesting things to write...not sure how interesting these are. : )

Here are the rules:

List 7 random things people might not know about you. The rules are to link the person who sent this to you and leave a comment on their blog so their readers can visit yours. Post the rules on your blog. Share 7 facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people a the end of your post, linking their blog. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I did ballet for eleven and a half years. I was supposedly begging my mom to let me dance when I was 2 1/2 years old. I have also done tap, jazz, and swing. For about 2 years in California and a little in Maui, I did hula and tahitian lessons. While living in Spain, I took Sevillana classes with "the locals". Sevillana is a folk dance of southern Spain similar to flamenco. A lady in my class gave me one of her daughter's flamenco dresses. I danced at the town horse fair with my class and also infront of my Spanish church with the preacher's wife.

2. Right after my college graduation, at the age of 22, I traveled the world by myself for 5 and 1/2 months. I went to Spain, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, India, Nepal, and Thailand. There are of course so many great memories that I wish I could share.

3. I had a strong Southern accent until it slowly faded during my high school years in WA state. I was known as "Georgia" to most of my friends (as that's where I'd grown up). I even had that name on my cheerleading skirt one year and it was also below one of my pictures in the yearbook.

4. I lived as an illegal alien in Spain for 5 months when the Spanish government would not renew my visa. That was a pretty scary time especially since they had a picture of me at the police station! Whenever I saw a cop in public, I made sure to hush up so that they wouldn't hear my English and possibly get me! I wanted to take all precautions. : )

5. I won the strongest girl in my elementary school for holding a pull-up the longest--a minute and seven seconds. I also won a burping contest in my high school youth group when I had recently moved from GA to WA. I had guys coming up and high-fiving me afterwards and everyone else was rolling in laughter! I even impressed myself. I think getting to chug a root beer first helped a lot!

6. Ryan says that he can tell when I am imagining a conversation with someone else where I am empathizing with them. He says that I make "sounds". I had never noticed this before he pointed it out. I still don't realize it in the moment until he says to me, "What are you thinking about?" when I am making those noises.

7. I'm really frugal. I don't like to waste anything. I'm one of those who shuts off the water while brushing my teeth....as everyone should! If we don't NEED it, then I try to convince Ryan that we can live without "it". We still do fun things and take vacations, but we try to even do that frugally.

I tag:

Amy R.

Rebekah

Owl

I was talking with a friend and looking out my front window this morning when I saw this beautiful owl. He looked to be at least a foot tall and about 8 inches wide. I was afraid that I'd scare him away when I went out onto the front deck to get some better pictures, but he wasn't fazed by me. In the last picture, you can see that he was looking right at me.