Busy, Busy, Busy....

Sorry it has been way too long since I have blogged! It has been over 2+ weeks since my last blog and I have been very busy! Since August has started it has been a whirlwind of agendas, to do lists, and moving into my new job. I have been busy organizing my classroom, arranging furniture, hanging up my posters, laminating (waiting for it since I can't do it myself....not necessarily a bad thing), making labels, and have had long hard discussions with my printer about working correctly especially right before school starts (we've been fighting recently). On the bright side I do have such a nice wonderful team to work with who have been helping me out...copying things for me, buying me latte`s and helping me plan what I will be teaching this year. I have been in and out of meetings for the last 2 weeks and I usually come home drink wine, eat dinner...pass out. So that is why I haven't blogged in awhile.

Steve has also been extremely busy at work too. He drives all over the Seattle area everyday transporting patients to outpatient care facilities. He's been working lots of overtime this past week and a couple of times got home at 10 or 11 at night.

Since I haven't posted what we've been up to I will put up some pictures from our camping trip, around Seattle, and our day trip to Poulsbo. This weekend we are going to the John Mayer/Keith Urban concert at the Gorge and we are very excited for it!

Countdown to school starting: T-minus 5 days......eeeek!!

Have a great Friday/weekend!

We are now fully employed.....

The picture above was taken with our new camera!! We recently purchased a new professional camera that is a canon rebel xlr. We are really in love with it and are learning everything we can to take the best pictures. We have even checked out a large stack of books from the library to enhance our picture taking abilities. These pictures makes my nikon cool pix pictures look bad now!!

Anyways the point of this post was to tell everyone Steve finally received a call this morning that he got the Tri-Med Ambulance job!!!!!!! He actually just got the job a couple of minutes ago, and I had to rename my post title! Yes....we are finally both employed and are very happy where we are. Today I am going up to my school to organize my cabinets and hang up some things in my classroom. I really like my classroom. It is very functional, a good size, (not too large like my last one), and has windows and tons of storage....plus a smartboard look alike a promethean board! Steve and I are very anxious to begin our new jobs and will have lots to learn. I am very overwhelmed at the moment with how different my new school is from my old school and the curriculum is very different. I will even be learning about salmon!! and tide pools!! and native americans of Washington!! The only native americans I learned were from Texas!! and the only thing I know about salmon is that it tastes yummy!! Wow I have a lot to learn this year. Steve is also jumping into a new career path and will soon have to do 24 hour rotations at work once he gets his reciprocity with his new certification. Then hopefully in the near future he will transition into firefighter!

Anyways, besides the excitement of our jobs, we are also going camping this week again! On Wednesday we will be going to colonial creek in the north cascades to camp until Sunday. Steve's sister Koriann and her boyfriend Alex will join the family on Friday to camp with us for the weekend. Maggie also has a friend with her so we will have a full camp site this time....with 3 dogs as well! We will be bringing along our new camera with us so be expecting some fabulous pictures....just pray it doesn't rain on us like it did for Barnapalooza this past weekend!

We hope you have a wonderful week and say prayers for us in our new jobs!!

Mount Rainier

Yesterday, Tuesday, Steve and I decided to get out of the house and go hiking on Mount Rainier. Mount Rainier is a dormant volcano that is around 14,000 feet and is full of beautiful wildflowers and wildlife. It only took about an hour to get there from the house and was one of the greatest hikes I've ever been on. Steve and I went on several different trails and we were able to get outstanding pictures along the hike. On our hike we saw an abundance of wild life such as hoary marmots, birds, chipmunks, tons of bugs!!, and even a bear!! We had seen a cinnamon brown bear only 5 feet away from the trail we were on. Steve saw it at first and we were very scared yet very excited. The bear saw us and just kept on eating and enjoying life..it wasn't aggressive and didn't even care that we were there. After standing motionless for a couple of minutes we decided to keep on with our hike.

Because of our wonderful trek we decided to get an annual pass so we can go as much as we want...and it was a better deal to get anyway. Tonight I am making my mother's famous chili for dinner so I need to get on my way to prepare!! Yum-O!

Here are the pictures from our hike yesterday and a couple pictures of Steve and Maggie at Lake Sammamish and our nephew Spencer at Steve's Mom's house. Enjoy your week and God Bless!

Le Whistler!!

This past weekend a bunch of our friends and Steve and I drove up to the wonderful country of Canada. We drove through the beautiful, still snow capped mountains to the ski resort town of Whistler. Whistler was so amazing and still had lots to do in the summer. We were able to go on a 3 mile zip-line through the Canadian wilderness and we hiked to the top of Whistler mountain....not really hiked but rode the chair lift in the freezing cold wind...while wearing shorts! We went for a long weekend to get away from it all, enjoy Steve turning 30 and to have a good time. For the rest of the week we plan on relaxing and spending time with family and friends while it is still summer. Steve received a call yesterday for an interview with Tri-Med Ambulances for Thursday. So keep your fingers crossed and pray that good things happen to him!
Anyways, please enjoy our Whistler pictures and have a wonderful rest of your week!