Creation Rocks!

Happy Anniversary to us! We went to the Creation Music Festival at the Gorge yesterday. It was AWESOME!!! For those of you who don't know it's a natural amphitheatre above the Columbia River with amazing views. Creation is a 4 day Christian music festival. We got free passes by working in the Compassion International booth. That was almost the best part. Lots of people came by to look at the pictures of children and we got to answer their questions and help them sign up if they wanted to. Over the 4 days over 825 children got sponsored!!!

The evening concert was Chris Tomlin and then the Newsboys. Very very cool!!! Chris played worship music and then of course the Newsboys rocked the house!!! They played a brand new song, a couple I didn't know, and then some major old school songs like Shine and closed out with the Breakfast Club song. I couldn't believe people in the mosh pit had actually brought boxes of Captain Crunch and were waving them around!

I had a pretty sore throat by the end of that show and I was so glad we got to drive home instead of staying there in the campground... which was basically giant grass fields with porta-potties...

Now to catch up on that lack of sleep...

My Brother's New Baby

Yes, that's what my mother keeps calling her and freaking out all her friends! She thinks it's funny...

Playing tug of war with Amy's camera strap

But the puppy is adorable, of course. She's a Golden Retriever about 10 weeks old and her name is Mara. It's African for "full of life" which she definately is. The funny part is that she's Kevin's dog, but he's at work all day so mom's training her. She'll do stuff for mom, but not for Kevin! So who's dog will she end up really....

A Penfriend!

At Ohme Gardens where we got married last summer.

My penpal Amy was here for the past week. We have been penpals for almost 20 years! She lives in Melbourne, Australia. She took a world tour and as her last stop came to see me! I dropped her off at the airport last night so technically she is still on the plane somewhere over the Pacific. I'm not looking forward to that flight when I go visit her someday!

We spent 4 days in the Wenatchee/Leavenworth area and then 3 days in Seattle. It was major hot here so we spent all day Saturday up at Lake Chelan. It was lovely.




Up the Icicle Gorge from Leavenworth.


Sunday we drove to Seattle, Monday we did Seattle... or as much as can possibly be done in one day.
Space Needle, Experience Music Project, Pike Place Market, Harbor Cruise, Seattle Underground Tour. That was a long day, but it was a lot of fun!


Yesterday morning we went to a Japanese garden and then a park on Lake Washington before lunch and taking her to the airport. It was very fun having her here!







The Seattle skyline from the harbor cruise












On the Seattle Underground Tour

At the Kubota Gardens in South Seattle

Visited States

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

This is the coolest thing I've found in a long time! This is where I've been in the US. If we added Brian I bet it would be almost the whole country!
Now the world map on the other hand... would be pretty pathetic for me (none outside of North America) and pretty impressive for him!

School News (again)

Brian was offered and accepted a job as a high school math/science teacher at Upper Valley Christian School. This is the same school where my mother teaches 5th and 6th grade. He will actually have 7 different classes that he is teaching, but they will pnly have 5 - 10 students in each one.
We both applied for 2 open positions at the school, but they offered the second position (junior high) to another lady. That was really really frustrating for me, but of course there's nothing I can do about it.
I have a friend who teaches at Orchard Middle School here in Wenatchee and she says there may be a math position open there later in the summer. Their enrollment went way up for next year, but they have a hiring freeze at the moment. Here's hoping there will be a math job there!

4th of July

View from Saddle Rock

So I convinced Brian and another couple from our Bible study that we needed to hike up to Saddle Rock to watch the fireworks. What I neglected to convey to them was that it was about an hour hike pretty much straight up! OJ almost didn't make it, but we got there in plenty of time to eat our KFC and then watch the fireworks. Michelle and Andrew and their 2 dogs made it up just before the show as they didn't start with us. It is a very cool view, but the fireworks were a long ways away! We had some natural fireworks too across the river and above the ridges.

The show was nice and then afterwards some guys showed up and started lighting off Roman Candles. We were on a little tiny rocky ridgeline with super dry brush and grasses all around us. All I was thinking was "get me off here before they start a fire". Almost immediately a giant spot light was trained on us from somewhere down in town and I wondered if the police would be waiting for us when we got down! They weren't, but I was also really glad no fires started!