WOW!!!

I am sorry that I haven't been better about blogging this year. I always seem to have other stuff to do and none of it involves being on the computer lately. For instance, right now I have both kids awake; one of them is eating in another room and the other one is crawling around the house. I have all the bathroom doors locked and the kitchen closed off, so he can't get into too much trouble. But I just had to get on and write about this important event in my life. For a while now, Rachel and I have been thinking about moving. We both like the house we live in, but it is getting small for a family of four, at least in our opinion. So we have been looking at different options and trying to decide whether or not to buy a lot and build a house or try to find a house that we would be comfortable with. We have considered moving back to Maple Valley to be closer to Rachel's work, but neither of us really want to do that. We both want our own space if you know what I mean. Both sets of parents currently live there and trying to keep up with both sets and still maintain our own identities can be a little difficult at times. Anyway, we really like living a little ways away from family. Close enough to visit but far enough away to have our own lives (If my mom reads this, no offense). We appreciate all that our families do for us and now more than ever: Rachel and I are the proud new owners of a large buildable lot on a lake here in Federal Way. It puts us about 15 minutes closer to both of our places of employment, it is a great area, close to everything and even better, it has all of the utilities in the street. The lot is big enough that we will never have any neighbors looking in our windows from their windows, the lake is small enough that it doesn't allow gas powered engines, but big enough to swim and fish and have fun on. My dad said it best: It's not a muck pond. Anyway, we are very excited and now the next step is to get our current house on the market, then we have to find a builder that we feel comfortable with, choose a plan to build, get our feasibility study done, find financing for the actual build, get permits, sell our current house, move out of said house, find somewhere to live in the meantime, build a house on our lot, rent a portapotty, and a bunch of other stuff. It's gonna be intense, like cubscouts on a campout. Intense.

Lots To Catch Up On

Ok, I have a lot of stuff to say today, and not a lot of time to say it in. First I was stung by a bee last Saturday at about 1pm while I was mowing my lawn for the first time this summer. I must have been mowing too near it for my own good, because it came right at me and stung me in my left cheek. I caught it and "took care of " it, but the damage had already been done. Luckily Ammon was over by the blueberries and not anywhere near me at the time. He has not been stung yet, and I am not ready for that to happen yet. Anyway, I went in and looked to take out the stinger, but I couldn't find one, so I assumed that the bee had not left it there. In fact I could not even see the exact location of the sting, so I didn't know exactly where to look. And the pain subsided rather quickly so I forgot about it until it started swelling up at about 10:30pm that night. Kind of a delayed reaction. It didn't stop swelling until Monday morning, so I didn't go to church or work Sunday or Monday, because I sort of looked like the Elephant Man and I think I would have scared the little kids and grossed out my customers. In addition to the swelling, a large water blister the size of a quarter formed right on top of the sting site and that stuck out of my face at least another half inch on top of the swelling. It didn't help appearances any when it got so full that it started oozing clear liquid. No I did not get pictures of it. Tuesday, most of the swelling was gone though, thanks to massive amounts of anti-histamine and the blister had fully popped, so I went back to work. Ok, so thats the first thing.
The second thing is I am now in the second day of my mandatory "vacation" from work. I was suspended for 60 days for allegedly running a red light in Seattle and getting caught by a traffic camera. I will not admit to anything in writing, but I think that being suspended for 60 days without pay is an awful long time and a pretty stupid policy. What am I supposed to do for all that time? Is the policy to give me sufficent time to think about my actions? I don't know, but it seems like a pretty harsh punishment for something that only counts as a parking ticket. On the bright side, I now have most of the summer off and will now be able to do all of those things that I have written down that I never seem to have time to do, like getting the house ready to sell, plant a garden, spend time with my family, or blogging for that matter. I guess every cloud has its silver lining.

The End of My Vacation

Today was the last day of our vacation. We had to be out of our room by noon, so we just figured that we would just get out early and go do something, since there really wouldn't be any point in coming back later. We decided to go to Cannon Beach which is about 10 minutes south of Seaside, and for any of you that have seen the movie Goonies, cannon beach is where the triple stones are located, except in the movie they are backwards for some reason. That was the big draw for us to go there, but it is a really nice little town. USBank is huge there on the west coast of Oregon, for those of us that have accounts there. You can rest assured that you will have a branch close by. But I digress... Great town, awesome sandy beaches, nice place. We didn't spend much time there though because it was on the way to TILLAMOOK! We went to the Tillamook cheese factory. Now, I only buy Tillamook cheese and sour cream, so it was kind of a big deal to go there for us. We got a few pictures ate some ice cream bought some cheese and then started on our way home. It was a good trip overall, and a good first trip for our entire family to take together. I'd probably do it again next year.

Ok, so I'm running a little behind.

Today is Wednesday, and I still have about half of my week's vacation left. We have spent the last couple of days here in Seaside, OR and it has been really nice. There hasn't been many exciting things that I need to talk about, mostly it has been nice just relaxing away from home and all of the responsibilities that entails. But we are staying at the Resort at Seaside, which is part of the timeshare that my parents have. It's pretty nice, the suite we have has two bedrooms, a balcony (we are on the 8th floor, which is also the top floor) with a gas BBQ, a TV in each bedroom and one in the living room area. It also has a full kitchen and two full bathrooms, and a gas fireplace. Nice. The Resort is right on the beach, and the beach is great. The water is cold, so we haven't been swimming in the ocean yet, but there is a heated swimming pool that Rachel has taken advantage of. I am pretty happy with everything so far. Except for the fact that at 8am the roofers came and started working on the roof right above our suite. Not cool.
Seaside itself is a nice place. There is a something for almost everyone. Quaint little shops, big chain grocery stores, fancy little restaurants, an outlet mall for the bargain shoppers, the beach with its miles of sandy beaches (no rocks on the beach that I could see anywhere, just sand). Last night as the sun set over the ocean, I saw a flash of green just before the sun went down completely. I thought it was pretty neat, as I had never seen it before. We also went to the local aquarium, it is the oldest one on the entire west coast. It isn't a very big one, the Seattle Aquarium is probably four or five times larger. I paid my $7.50 to get in, and went into the first room. The had a tide pool tank where you could touch starfish and anemones and crabs. They had a few small tanks with sea pens and small fish. Then there were a few bigger tanks with octopi and eels and stuff. So we walked around the first room and saw what there was to see, and then I went looking for the next room, but there wasn't one. Just the one room, and that was it. Then on our way out we saw the sea lions. This aquarium had a sea lion family that did tricks for food. They clap and splash and bark to get your attention, because for a dollar you can get some cut up chum and feed them. Pretty funny. I got some good pics of Ammon over the rail throwing food at them. But I have to go now, Rachel is getting impatient. She wants to go do something so off we go.