Whale Watching

I have been wanting to go whale watching for a long time. I prefer to go the cheap route and take a ferry over to San Juan Island and sit and wait at Lime Kiln Park. However, even though this is a popular place to see whales, they move all the time and could be anywhere in about a 100 mile radius. So we decided to splurge on our 3rd Gibraltar anniversary (for those who know about that) and take a whale watching cruise.

The cruise is normally 5-6 hours. Ours was over 7 hours with only about 20 minutes with the whales. : ( At least we saw whales, but because they were so far north (the captain said he'd never gone this far north into Canada before) we had a quick view and then had to head back to the harbor. It stinks that the day before the whales had been a lot closer, so I 'm sure that the guests had a much longer time of whale watching. You never know where they will be though.

Do you see the chairs on this small island in the top left picture? I liked the farm on the bottom right.

Since it was a loooong time of just cruising and waiting to find the whales, Ryan was reading some in his accounting book (chapters that they didn't get to this past quarter....he really likes this stuff), and I was knitting.

Finally, we found them!!

It was a nice trip, even with such a short time with the whales.

Update on Grades

We thought that Ryan was going to receive a B+ in his Calculus class (as I mentioned at the end of the "Finals Week" post), but once grades were posted, he got an A-! I'm proud of his straight A's in three math-intensive classes!! Actually, he's gotten all A's in his first two years of college so far. Many of you don't know that this is coming from someone who dropped out of school at the beginning of 9th grade!! Now, he is a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) and doing great!

We feel a little more direction about when to move to Seattle. After talking to some counselors at the U of WA and getting questions answered, our plan is for Ryan to take business classes at Western Washington Univ. this fall and then transfer to the U of WA for winter quarter. We plan to move to Seattle in December. There are a lot of details, but he is not able to start business classes at UW until Jan, but he can at Western, so that's why we're doing it this way. He won't have to sit around for a quarter with nothing to take.

This will also allow me to gain some new work experience at the head of the Intensive English Department has asked if I'd be interested in teaching some for them. I usually teach Adult ESL (which I love) which is geared toward adult immigrants to the U.S. The Intensive English program is for international students who are trying to get their English skills up to par to take college classes here. I'll still teach in the adult program, but this will widen my skills for future job possibilities both here and abroad.

We just found out that some good friends of ours in California, Monica and Ovi, will be coming to visit in a couple of weeks. Soon after that I'll head to Michigan for two weeks, and then we are hoping to take an international vacation in August. Our summer will be full enough, so I'm thankful not to have to add job searching and moving to the list!!

Vancouver

We took Jeremy (our Hong Kong friend) to the airport in Vancouver, B.C. on Sunday. After we dropped him off, Ryan and I hung around Vancouver to enjoy some new parts of it that we hadn't been to before. We started off at the University of British Columbia's Botanical Gardens. They were ok....but we wouldn't recommend them. Where we had hoped to also go, but didn't due to exhaustion and time, was the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens. I have since heard that they are much nicer. We'll plan on that for next time.

For those who don't know, one of Vancouver's popular tourist spots is the Capilano Suspension Bridge . Though it is beautiful (from the pictures that I've seen), it's close to $30 for an adult or $22 for students. Ryan found this other, smaller, suspension bridge in North Vancouver that is free. It's the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge. Not quite as impressive, but it was great for being free. : )

Next, we went to the Lonsdale Quay shops down on the water. The shops weren't anything special, but it's a nice location and a quick place to grab some food.

Last, we drove through Stanley Park. We didn't spend much time here as we have in the past. We went to check out the rose garden that they have there, but not many were in bloom. We were pretty exhausted by this point and decided to start driving south.

We made a stop in Richmond for some authentic Chinese food. This town is likely 99% Chinese. We ate at the red restaurant in the picture.

Finals Week

I get so tired of being couped up in the house due to so much rain and cold. Since the sun was breaking through, we decided to bundle up and head outdoors to study. I put on tank top, sweater, another sweater that goes over my hips, my fleece jacket, a hat, and gloves. I was ready for this (unusual) Washington June weather!!

Ryan had finals this week, so he has been studying hard all week and last weekend. Praise God that he got two A's and a B+ this quarter (Business Calculus, Managerial Accounting, and Statistics)!! My homework has picked up again, so I was also studying alongside him.

We took a few minutes to have fun on the kids playground equipment before we headed back home. This spinning 'thing' looked fun and Ryan coerced me to try it.

Ryan has been accepted to Western WA and their school of business, which is has been his "back up" school. Last week, we also learned of his acceptance to the Univ. of WA. He will still need to apply to the business school of UW, but that is not until the beginning of Oct. for a Jan. start date. There are a lot of details about this that is too much to blog for tonight. We are praying about when to move to Seattle....this September or late December. There are a lot of factors that play into this decision such as me getting a new job (which requires revamping my resume), finding a new church, new place to live, we have also been talking of going overseas for a couple weeks this August, etc., etc. I will update with details as God shows us what to do. Please pray for God to show us what to do.

Right now in my job I have a lot of opportunities for professional development and teaching in other programs that I am also interested in. Plus, this fall I will get a substantial raise due to having taught 9 quarters now at the community college. This raise will not transfer should I find work at another community college around Seattle. It's hard to leave these opportunities, but I don't know what God has in store somewhere else.

Good Day of Fishin'

Last weekend we (Ryan, Jeremy--Hong Kong friend, Joel--Navy friend of Ryan, and I) went fishing off of Anacortes. The whole time Ryan was standing on the edge of the boat as he fished. I kept worrying that he was going to fall in! I guess it made him feel more connected to nature knowing that he was closer to it that way!

You have to be careful how you handle these guys!! Look at the spikes on the Rockfish on the left and the teeth of the Ling Cod on the right!

There were many bald eagles, so I was able to get some more shots of them. That was really my job out there....I was the photographer. I didn't fish. I don't like killing or hurting anything besides bugs. I brought my homework to do some reading, but I didn't get a lot done because they kept catching fish and distracting me!

The different kinds of fish caught that day.

This was Jeremy's first fish that he'd ever caught. He caught the first fish of the day. Joel, I think, caught the largest one. I enjoyed watching the seals, but I was really hoping to see some whales!! No such luck that day. I'm still determined to see some this summer though!

Ryan threw back one of his Rockfish, but it was nearly dead and was floating. This eagle kept circling us. We realized that he wanted that fish! Finally, he swooped down and got him with his left foot!! Check out the video of the action.

I'd never noticed this before. It was tucked down off of the road. I thought the old ship filled with trees was a pretty, nostalgic reminder of older days amongst the new boats in the harbor.

Google Reader

If any of you were like me and spent too much time trying to go through all of your friends' blogs to see who had updated them, then you should try google reader. My friend Andrea revealed this great gadget to me. It's very easy to use and it's free. It will let you know in a sidebar which blogs have been updated since you last looked at them, so you don't have to search through each one anymore! Go to Google Reader to get started. If you have a gmail or a blogger account, you will use that to sign in. Just type in your blogger email and password and you'll come to your home page of google reader. Once at your homepage, click on "add subscription" on the left hand side of the page. Individually enter the URLs of the blogs that you want to watch and Wah-Lah!

Elk

Yesterday, we headed "upriver" to Ryan's mom's house for a visit and some strawberry shortcake. We'd seen her pictures of fields full (probably 50 or so!) of elk. We were hoping to see some live. Though we didn't see 50, we saw two that were beautiful to watch. Maybe next time we'll find the masses.