Back to work now after a HOT three-day weekend. What a blast (the weekend – not work)! Some friends of mine (Bryan and Katie) got married on Saturday which is the main reason we were in Ephrata this weekend. It was a super sweet wedding (in the same church Tobin and I got married in – the church I grew up in). Those two have been dating for years (all through HS and beyond). We’re so happy for them and wish them all the best.

Also on Saturday, my father and I entered some pictures in the Art Guild of Soap Lake’s Photography Show. Daddy was working on some pictures to enter when we got to Ephrata late Friday night. I was too sleepy to really think about it until Saturday morning when I decided I probably had some pictures I could enter. Thanks to Daddy’s sweet photo printer (I have the same model at home – it’s an Epson something), I entered 6 photos (so did Daddy). We would’ve entered more but all my pictures of water used up the Cyan cartridge, and we were out of luck for printing anything else. My apologies go out to Margie Lou, as she wasn’t able to print ANY pictures to enter in the photo contest – as Daddy and I used up ALL the ink. Hopefully I win and/or sell some of the shots. (If not, I’ll have some sweet pics to hang on my walls at home). Oh and if you’re going to be in Soap Lake next weekend, vote for our pics!!! :-) I’ve posted small shots of the pics in the photos section.

Sunday was church and then skiing. :-) A perfect Sunday IMHO! ML’s friend, Rhys, met us at Banks for a full day of skiing (and tubing, and swimming, and playing frisbee keep-away). What a great time! I took my nice camera, and Daddy brought his Sony. Guess how many pictures we took? (Ok, it was mostly me, but Daddy did take a few.) I’ll give you a hint – I filled up my 2 gig memory card. Well if you guessed 750+/- you’d be correct. Amazing huh? I posted around 90 of them here on the website. So jump over and comment on them (thanks ML for all the comments already!). There are some pretty sweet ones – like Tobin trying to do a pushup on the water (which I wouldn’t suggest trying). lol Rhys had never skied or tubed before (well that I know of anyways), but he was a natural at skiing – got up the first time.

So all in all, Mommy, Tobin, Rhys and I all skied, and Margie Lou, Rhys and Tobin tubed. We all played frisbee keep-away (fun!). And the water was GLASS! Just gorgous!

I took Monday off which was GREAT timing as it was 102 in Ephrata (love it). Too bad everyone had to work! We left Ephrata at around 11:30, went and looked at some property (we’d like to buy some investment property before the Microsoft/Yahoo boom), and then met my mom for lunch for all-you-can-eat Chinese (yum). From there we started to drive home but the heat was super intense (doubly so as we need to charge our freon and have no AC in the Bimmer).

We ended up stopping at the Wanapum State Park at Vantage and swimming in the Columbia. It was cold – super cold (especially in comparison to the temp – our car told us 104). Oh, and I got attacked by a dragonfly larvae. The stupid thing bit my leg then when I backpeddled, it kept swimming for me. Luckily Tobin rescued me (but not before it attacked him too). lol We got our hair wet (quite an accomplishment for how cold the water was), and that cooled us off enough to continue home.

Once home, we decided to go swimming. Our friends and some kids in the youth group had the same idea, so we all met up at the Tukwila pool for open swim and had a great time throwing a beach ball around. It felt so good to cool off. Afterwards, we went out to eat (I know, twice in one day?!?) at Athens Pizza in Des Moines.

What a full weekend! I think we crammed just about everything possible into the weekend. It was great! Leave a comment and let me know how you’re doing in WA’s heat wave – and if you had a great weekend. :-)

I hope all of you had a great week. Mine was busy but good. I was especially happy when Monday rolled around and I didn’t have to take my final for Data Warehousing ’cause I’d already taken it the week before. I did get my grade in there though – a 3.9 (sad – was hoping for a 4.0). Still have to register for classes next quarter…

Tuesday we had youth. I took a bunch of pics (left) and am pretty happy as to how they turned out. You can check those out on our youth web site.

Wednesday, Tobin and I went to a little pub in downtown Renton where we saw/heard one of his collegues perform. It was a lot of fun. Tobin’s friend played the Trumpet, Sax, and Clarinet, and then there was also a Fiddle, Piano, and French Horn. Nice sound. I guess they do that every Wednesday if anyone’s interested – the Dog and Pony.

Yesterday, Tobin’s family came over. Tobin’s mom’s sister, Joan was flying in from MI to visit, so I cut out of work early (came in early and took my lunch at the end), and we went out to eat at Marine View Espresso (yum).

After eating, we went down to the marina, and walked out to the end of the dock. It was gorgeous! Not a cloud in the sky and not a stich of wind. We even saw a seal! It was really hard seeing the water that beautiful though and not being on it. *sigh* I really want to go waterskiing!

Work today, then off to our friend’s house for a birthday party tonight. Will probably post more after the weekend’s over (with pics) so you can see what we’ve been up to. Have a great (beautiful) weekend!

Tammie

Wow! What a crazy weekend! (To be honest, I’m actually not done with the weekend yet as I’m writing this from my car on the way to a friend’s wedding in Woodland, WA – down by Vancouver).

Friday night my good friend Steve came over. Haven’t seen him for a few years so it was good to reconnect and re-introduce him to Tobin (they met briefly at our wedding). We had a BBQ (ribs, yum), played some mean badminton, then went and watched Cars. Have you seen it yet? Tobin fell asleep during the movie – but I liked it A LOT! Maybe that’s due to the fact that my father owns an auto parts shop, but it was fun. You should go see it!

Saturday morning, we went down to Stephen’s place – at about 6:30 a.m. Stephen had just gotten off work, and Tobin needed to use the forge for some student projects. He did, and once the forge had cooled down a bit, we left and drove up to Burien to pick up rain barrels (they were on sale from the cities of Burien/Tukwila/SeaTac for $20 – retail $120.)

Then we drove to Anacortes for Father’s day. Tobin’s parents let us take their two-person kayak out on the water – what fun! I was brave enough to bring my camera along (ok I wasn’t brave, Tobin forced me to bring it). Luckily we didn’t swamp the kayak, and the pictures turned out pretty cool! We were out on the water for around an hour and a half or so… It would be fun to have a kayak of our own! (We’ll see – we’ve always thought it would be fun).

After kayaking, we headed back to Tobin’s parents’ to celebrate Father’s Day. We celebrated with BBQ’d salmon (what better to celebrate with!). BBQ’d salmon is by far my FAVORITE food. Yep – with a little butter and a lemon on top – yum! Oh and wild rice too… So anyways… We had a good time chit chatting with Tobin’s family (Greg, Carol, Laura and Asher). We headed out of there around 9 and got home around 11:30.

Then this morning it was up again somewhat early, and over to the church to get ready for leading worship. Worship went great. We sang “Blessed be Your Name”, “Holy is the Lord”, “No Sacrifice”, and “To the Ends of the Earth”. It all went well, and I think we ended up playing “To the Ends of the Earth” at three different times during the service (Pastor liked it that much). We ended the service playing that – then did an impromptu “You Said”. Good songs!

After church, Tobin and I dropped off the kids he’d brought, then tried to (unsuccessfully) pick out new phones at T-mobile. I wanted the SDA but forget getting the $30/mo. data plan. I mean what’s that all about??? The SDA got great reviews too (8 out of 10 on CNet). But anyways, now it’s back to the drawing board. Anyone got any ideas as to a good T-mobile phone?

After T-mobile we jetted home, at a quick lunch (part of which we ate in the car), then drove down to Woodland to the Empress Palace where our friend, Tim, was getting married. They had a really nice wedding (ok now I’m done with the wedding and nearly home now as I write this). It was all outside. There was a reception afterwards that we stayed for, and we got a chance to talk to Tim and his new bride Riikka for a few minutes. I snapped some pics of them too that I’ve included in the pics from this weekend.

Phew! Well the weekend is almost over now –and much earlier than I first suspected. We made pretty good time to Woodland (sit down Google Maps!) – only took us 2.25 hrs or so rather than the 3 we were thinking it was going to take us. Will next weekend be any slower than this weekend? Doubt it! We’ll be going to Ephrata for another wedding (for a guy I grew up with – Bryan, and a girl I went to school with – Katie). I’ll let you know how that goes. For the meantime, I’m looking forward to a week without school! Hopefully the work week is a little slower paced than this weekend! We’ll see – it keeps us on our toes!

If you want to see all the places we visited this weekend, click here for an interactive map.

Have a great week!

Tammie

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted – life’s been going at a crazy pace recently! Hopefully it will slow down a bit after this upcoming weekend! So what have I been up to since May 30th (last post date) you ask? Well let me enlighten you:

Went to a Tech Crunch party on May 31st. That was pretty cool – in downtown Seattle. Got to mingle with all the smart people in town! lol Ok maybe not all – but a lot. I brought Tobin along and he got to meet Lam – the guy I learned about the party from. (Lam’s in my Data Warehousing class, and we worked on a group project with Chris – who was also there.)

Stephen built a forge. Tobin and him have had a blast pouring aluminum into the various molds they’ve made. Stephen made some pretty cool hands!

My dad heard the mom of one of my old friends on the radio. She’s written a book about her son (my friend’s brother). I emailed my friend and we’ve since been emailing back and forth – will re-introduce him to Tobin this Friday.

Biblesoft went to a Mariners game Thursday before last. It was pretty awesome – we got out of work early for it – too bad we lost!

We retrieved our Brown Bomber from Ephrata on Saturday – also took in the Sage ‘N Sun parade.

I got 3 new filters for my camera – a UV filter, Polarizing filter and a soft filter. They’ve been fun to play around with ($25 or so with shipping from eBay).

I finished up my Data Warehousing class last night. In the last two weeks I had some major assignments due – a group project (got 100% – did it with Chris and Lam), and a research paper. Last night the final was all essay, took me two hours + but I think I did ok. :-)

Check out the photos section for pics of the forge, the Mariners game, Sage ‘N’ Sun, and flowers from the month of June.