Chain Lakes Loop

Yesterday, Tommy, Ryan, and I went on an amazing hike near Mount Baker! It is the Chain Lakes Loop hike. It's about 7.5 miles round trip. Ryan and I hiked 6.5 miles until Ryan cut his foot open while cooling his feet in the stream. Tommy then hiked the last mile (the hardest part...all uphill) to get the car and pick us up. Thanks Tommy! : )

I made an online photo album with more pictures from this hike if you want to try this link:
http://preview.picaboo.com/Webview/CoverPage.aspx?album=000000000000D08C95&user=000000000000D084E1

Otherwise, here are some of my favorite pictures below.

Here is Mount Shuksan at Picture Lake off Hwy.542 before the hike.

At the very beginning of the hike.

The trail is relatively level for the first 2/3 of the hike, though I wouldn't bring small kids because some places are pretty sketchy along high cliffs.

The first lake that you come to (of around 5)-Mazama Lake. There are a few primitive campsites on this hike if you like secluded camping. They're beautiful locations!

Ryan and Tommy checking out the fish in the lake.

Ryan waving.

Tommy's well circulating "veiny" legs.

Ryan got tired of walking. : D

Mt. Shuksan again on the way back.

Heather Lake

These are a few random shots. Tommy's b-day is Aug.11, but we celebrated early since he'll be in Texas on that day. The bottom left pic is of me feeling "artsy" one day. : P Ryan loves to play worship songs on the guitar. It's like being in a coffee shop with live music right in your own living room!

We went for an evening walk at Bayview a few nights ago. We had on mosquito repellent (as we remembered that they were a problem the last time that we'd gone there), but there were so many that you didn't want to talk for fear of getting them in your mouth! I don't recommend going there right now. At least we got some nice sunset pictures though.

Yesterday, Ryan, Tommy, and I went hiking at Heather Lake near Granite Falls. I really wanted to get outdoors after the past few intensive weeks in Michigan and then coming home to head straight back to work and do a research paper. Now I've got a little more free time. Too bad it was rainy! I don't think it's summer here. I think we skipped right over it!!

Anyway, I recommend this hike. It's only 4 miles RT and not too difficult of a climb up.Before you get to the lake, you're in the woods the whole time. There isn't much to see in the way of mountain views. There are some cool old growth trees that were huge! In the pics below, the old growth on the left had a bunch of huge knobs on it with smaller trees growing out of them. The picture on the right didn't come out too well, but I wanted to show how big some of the trees are up there.


Ryan loves to eat berries or other edible "treats" while we hike. I do now too. : ) In these pics there are huckleberries and blueberries.

I took lots of pics, and therefore I needed to do a lot of collaging so that I could display many of them. Too bad that the clouds hid the tops of the mountains. It'd be nice to go again in better weather. We still had a fun time. I should really get some hiking boots though. I'm too cheap and usually just wear tennis shoes, but my feet got soaked yesterday!

There were a few waterfalls coming down the mountains. You can see one of them in the bottom two pictures.

Clear, glassy water.

Sushi

My older brother, Don, has been studying long and hard for a test to become an insurance salesman. God has been good to him...Don passed his test yesterday and had previously been offered two jobs based on him passing this test.

We had sushi party in celebration of all of this. Don had everything decorated like a Japanese restaurant. He even made a menu for us to order from! It was great having a personal chef!! Thanks again Donnie and congratulations!

The Sushi Chef in action

A sampling of his creations.


Raw quail eggs on flying fish roe (fish eggs). I passed on trying this one. Ryan has had more of these types of foods while living in Japan. I like many kinds of ethnic foods, but there are some that I just don't need to try!

Two generations of siblings. My uncle was visiting from Colorado, so we got a nice pic together.

Back from Michigan

Long time, no blog. Well, I'm back from Michigan and into the swing of life here. It was a really intense two graduate courses crammed into two weeks. We had lots of papers, readings, projects, and presentations. However, it was great info and I made some great friends. It's a wonderful idea on the administration's part to have all of us come to Michigan for a couple of weeks to meet each other since we'll be going through this degree together for the next nearly 2 years. Here are some pics of some friends that I was in the dorms with. We helped each other during the middle of the night and ate meals in each other's rooms. By the end of the two weeks, we all felt that we should have earned our diplomas!!

We had fun with some of our group projects and presentations. In these pictures, we're acting out different linguistic scenarios.

On Wed, I got food poisoning. It took a few days and really not fun symptoms for all of that to get out of my system. I wanted to be in class to get all the info that was being taught, but I had to leave class a couple times and go rest. Thankfully now, I'm on the mend.

I was supposed to fly out on Friday, but good ole Northwest canceled my flight and rescheduled me for the crack of dawn Sat. morn. One of my fellow classmates and friend said I could stay the night with her and she was a delightful hostess. These are some sites around Grand Rapids. I didn't get a chance to take more as I didn't get off campus much because of the workload. Next July when I go back, I hope to get to see Lake Michigan.

These are pics of western WA (& Mt. Rainier) from the air.

Now I'm home and have family visiting from Alaska and Colorado that I'm trying to visit with along with lesson planning and getting back to work. On top of that, I have a research paper due in a week that I'm just starting because there was no time to do it while in Michigan. So, I'll end this blog and get back to that research!

Students and Squirrels

I have been having another great class for the summer quarter. It's a smaller class, which is normal for summer. One student is missing in this picture. My students are from Iran, Bolivia, Mexico, China, Columbia, and Ukraine. This picture was from a birthday party we were having at the end of class for Hoda (in pink).

Here's the party in our classroom. We had cake, cupcakes, and o.j.

The birthday girl. She's moving to Texas which is sad for me. I enjoyed her as both a student and a friend.

Ryan put out bird feeders on our front deck and squirrel food outside our bedroom window. We've been enjoying watching about 5 squirrels chowing down today. This food won't last too much longer. The pics are a little dark because I took them through the window....a flash would cause a reflection.

I would get awful heartburn eating like this!


On Sunday I'm off to Michigan for 2 weeks to go to the university that I'll be doing my masters program out of. The rest of the year will be online. I don't want to be away from Ryan, but this is a nice way for the students to meet each other since we'll be a cohort going through all of the same classes online together for the next roughly 2 years. I'm excited that it is a Christian school and look forward to meeting new people.