Sunday, August 16, 2009

Community Serve

Yesterday we had the opportunity to join forces with over 1000 people eager to serve our community. 7 churches came together to cover a wide range of community service projects. Our mission was to show God’s love through serving others, without asking for anything in return. What a great witness to work hard and show compassion to others.  As far as we can tell, this was the first time these churches joined together for this day of serving, but will certainly not be the last. Projects ranged from, but were not limited to,  cleaning out and setting up classrooms, doing home repairs, renovations, yard work and maintenance in homes of low income and/or disabled people and families, packaging school supplies for low income kids, cleaning up parks, litter pick up and over 30 medical and dental services. Justin and I were assigned to a group that would be “removing invasive species.” What that means is cleaning out blackberry bushes!!! Many times throughout the work I heard, and said myself, “We should have rented goats!” Clothed in long sleeves and somewhat helpful gloves, armed with rakes and loppers, we attacked the invasive species along the Sammamish River Trail at Blythe Park. What initially appeared as a rather daunting task turned out to be rather rewarding. We pulled out some serious blackberry bushes that were thick and intertwined into everything. Cyclists, runners and walkers expressed their thanks as they whizzed by and seemed rather appreciative of our work to help maintain their park. All in all some hard work, but a good day.  And now the photo wrap up.

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Although these pictures don’t show much detail and its hard to get a perspective, here are a few BEFORE shots on one section we worked on,

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and AFTER!

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Animoto.com

Something To Nurture

Justin has been wanting to invest some time and TLC into some plants. “I want something to grow, something to nurture.” Neither of us know much on the subject but went ahead and got some plants. The plants have been named and are cared for daily, talked to and tucked in by my husband.  Here they are.

This one is Peter.

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Here is Paul.

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And John.

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And lastly, spiny Thomas.

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Here is Justin giving some tender loving care.

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Wish him luck!

Spider Meadows Video

I am going to do a little test here. My disclaimer when I first started this blog was that I was not very “techy.”  I am trying though.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Spider Meadows

Justin and I have been trying to do this trip for awhile, but couldn't quite get the timing right. It was either still too snowy, or hunting season. But finally, we picked the right weekend. Great temperatures and no rain. We headed out Friday evening and camped just a few miles past the trailhead. Scout was pretty pumped and didn't sleep well, which in turn prohibited us from sleeping well. I take that back, I could sleep through a tsunami, Justin on the other hand, not so much. So we were up at about 5:45, ate a leisurely breakfast, filtered some tasty glacier water and were on the Spider Meadows trail by 8:15. We made it to the meadow in a few hours and enjoyed some gorgeous landscapes. Scout had a blast tramping through the creek and woods.





The meadow was beautiful. Lots of wildflowers blooming and snow capped mountains all around.






The only draw back was the bugs. Huge flies were everywhere and would not leave us alone. Poor Scout had them all around his eyes and face; he looked so pitiful. We walked on, spent some time by a waterfall and pool, and took in some of God's amazing creation. This is definitely a hike/backpack trip we'd recommend, but bring your insect repellant. Here are a few more pictures.









Sunday, August 2, 2009

The Little Swimmer that Could

Yesterday we had the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon with some friends at Lake Sawyer. What a welcome blessing to finally cool down. For those of you not from the Seattle area, we had record breaking temperatures (triple digits!!!) this week. And NO air conditioning. Anyway, Scout was in puppy heaven. You can't keep this guy away from the water. He LOVES it! And what a great way for him to wear himself out, I mean exercise. The poor guy was getting so tired, but couldn't stop playing and fetching his tennis ball. He learned how to jump off a dock, not too gracefully, but he did it. When he had just about swallowed enough water to equal his weight, we figured how to get him up on floaty and let him just float around. It was all pretty entertaining and a nice, relaxing family afternoon. Thanks friends!



The Locks

With the prompt of the Entertainment book coupons, we headed out for another Argosy Cruise. This time we went around Lake Union through the Hiram Chittenden Locks and out to the Puget Sound. We got a glimpse of the houseboat Sleepless in Seattle was filmed on, some of the boats from The Deadliest Catch, and learn a little about the shipping industry out of the Seattle harbor. Seattle is the first choice in west coast ports for shipping since it is about 400 miles geographically closer to the Far East, saving about 1 day of fuel. We are very fortunate to live in the Pacific NW. Gorgeous landscapes of mountains and water and tons of fun and interesting things to do. And now for the photo summary!

Sleepless in Seattle houseboat

The Locks
Container ship
The Happy Couple!