Or...

...if Ben & Jerry's ice cream isn't your thing, you could stop by and pick one of these up instead.

Or both. :-)

Not much...

Sorry for the lack of posting lately... We haven't done much worth posting about! I suppose I could entertain you with my daily schedule, but I'm afraid that you all would lose interest quite quickly!

Some highlights of this last week:

- We had the workers Thursday night... then we took them to the airport early (4am) Friday morning as they were leaving for Marlon's funeral. They were storing their car here at our Town House until Monday when I was to go pick them up from the airport... Monday morning I looked out the window & their car was gone! (I panicked... I know, hard to imagine!) Long story short, the car was impounded for being parked in a residents spot. However, we were able to get it back from the impound before the workers flew in that afternoon! (I was just a little stressed until we got it back!)

- Peter got a deer tick embedded in his side on Saturday. We decided he must have gotten it when we were out looking at houses, poking around in the bushes that afternoon. He found it Sunday morning when we were getting read for meeting. We ran downstairs to look up what you're supposed to do when you find a tick, and all references online said to tug on it (w/tweezers) with slight pressure for 4-5 minutes & it will eventually back out. So, pull Peter did... until the tick broke off with his head still embedded in Peter's side! Now what?! We call the Kaiser nurse hot line, & they say we need to come in to get it extracted. So we miss morning mtg, make a trip to urgent care, Peter gets the tick extracted & gives blood to be tested for Lyme disease. He's to go back in 6 weeks for another test...

- We've spent a number of afternoons this past week with a Realtor looking at houses in this area... We've found a few that need some work but we think we could turn into a home. We're waiting for our house in Oregon to sell & then we'll move forward on something in the DC area.

I think that's about it...

Oh, and I'm SUPER excited for my parents to come next Thursday!

Hope y'all have a spooky Halloween! It's not my favorite holiday (probably my least favorite actually), but we've been invited to a costume party, so I'll try to put my party face on!

<:-)

Vote, please!

Check this out before November 4th. I PROMISE it's not a controversial link. It might make you want to vote, if nothing else has. :-)

Fall on the East Coast

Last weekend we camped up at Seneca Shadows campground in West Virginia. We had a great time! It was especially fun getting to know some of the other Virginia friends better that we had only met at convention.
Our weather was chilly, to say the least. Days were in the 50's and nights got down into the 20's. We stayed plenty warm in our BIG flannel sleeping bag & new tent!
Peter and I arrived on Friday night around 9:30. Friday was pretty warm, so we were fortunate it was still in the low 50's when we were setting up our tent... not too bad. The rest of the crew began trickling in, and by 1:30 Saturday morning we were all there!
Saturday they had planned a hike up Seneca Rocks. I've never been a hiking type of person... I haven't ever enjoyed it, but I must say, that was the most beautiful hike I've ever been on! I loved it! :-) Grueling, yes - we hiked up a slope that was as close to vertical as you could get without requiring ropes, but man, it was worth it!
Sunday we all packed up and had meeting & a delicious lunch about 30 miles from camp at the Price's home.

Words (or pictures, really) cannot describe how beautiful the East Coast is right now with all it's changing colors. You should come visit and see for yourself!!! :-)

Saturday morning breakfast. These guys know how to cook!! We had awesome hash browns, eggs and biscuits with gravy... Yummm.
Jenn, Krissa & Jania (all DC girls)
Lisa and Nate
We thought the whole hike would be like this...
...it wasn't! This was more like it... steep, rocky slope the whole way!
Just starting... Coooooold.
GORGEOUS panoramic view at the top...
Made it to the look-out platform.
Aren't these leaves pretty?!
Another panoramic facing the opposite way.
Peter at the top... He's standing on the edge of a sheer cliff - there's not much between him and the valley below except a lot of elevation!
This photo is looking between the rock that Peter is standing in front of (above)- you can see rock climbers in the distance who scaled the front of the cliff. We hiked up from the back side.
Our whole group... For everyone's names, click here and hover over their face.
Peter and I on the way down.
So picturesque...
My love...
...and me

On the bridge
See those rocks in the background?!!! That's what we just climbed up!
I wanted to pick them all and bring them home to dry... SO beautiful. The colors are so vibrant!
Seneca Rocks from where we parked the car. I can't believe we made it to the top! Rock climbers scale the front, and hikers go up the back side.
Campfire... this burned 24/7! Or rather 24/3 since we were only there 3 nights. :-) Kept us nice and toasty tho! Many a s'more were enjoyed from it's coals.
Price's home where we went for meeting & lunch.
Eric & Karina's dog, Shayla. I'm not a dog person, but Shayla is SO sweet. She's non-intrusive, doesn't jump up, hardly ever barks, doesn't lick, and just soaks up every moment of petting you'll give her.
That's all for now! The rest of our pictures from the trip are at our Picasa site. Did these convince anyone to come visit?!

Camping

We're off to Seneca Rocks for the weekend! Pictures to follow!

Cancun... October 2008

We spent the last week (4th-11th) in Cancun, Mexico. We met some of our friends from The Dalles there & it was SO good to see them! The weather was somewhat cooperative. 3 full days of HOT sun... the other 4 were alternatively sunny & rainy. We didn't let the rain stop us tho! :-)

Welcome to paradise! Enjoy our photos!
Here we've just arrived at our resort... the same place we stayed in 2006.
Saturday, October 4th, 12pm. Beautiful.
Michelle and Trevor arrive! I worked with Michelle at Columbia River Bank in Oregon, so we got to know them pretty well. I miss her!
Love & I... Thunderclouds in the distance. :) We don't care!
Waiting for the ferry to Isla Mujeres. It rained this day in Cancun, so we were glad to be at Isla Mujeres where it was hot & sunny!
My wonderful hubby
Peter floating at Isla Mujeres. We LOVE this beach. It's about 3-4 feet deep for 1/2 mile out. Gorgeous. We spent ALL day here.
Trevor & I. The water is gorgeous!
Postcard perfect
We had a hard time getting both of us in the underwater shot! This was the closest we got to having both faces in the same picture. :-) Professional photographers... yep, that's us!
Boo!
This time we decided to go to the ruins at Tulum rather than Chichen Itza. It was closer, and we all decided less time in the car would be better! Much to our excitement & suprise, Tulum is located RIGHT on the beach.
After a HOT afternoon of touring the ruins, we found this set of stairs...
...that led to this AMAZING beach. Perfect waves for bodysurfing, and just what we needed to cool off! We stayed here for a number of hours!
Finally heading back to the car... ruins in the background.
On the way back to our resort, we stopped at a cenote. This one is called Gran Cenote. When we were here in 2006, we went to Cenote Dzitnup, but since that was closer to Chichen Itza we decided to find another one, and this is what we found! This one had some deep caverns, but none of us had scuba gear so we just snorkeled around on the surface. The water in the Cenotes is extremely mineral enriched & when we left, we all had silky smooth skin! Quite nice after our dip in the ocean at Tulum!!
Peter bodysurfing in front of our resort, The Royal Islander.
Our resort had a pool with turtles in it. They were freshwater turtles, but obviously used to people cause they'd come eat grass right out of your hands!
Michelle and I
Trevor & Michelle... glowing. :-)
This was the highlight of the trip for me!!! The Royal Resorts participate in a turtle conservation program. They have staff that go and collect the eggs that mama turtles lay on the beach at night. Then, they keep them in a safe environment, and when the babies hatch 2 month later, they let the residents staying at the resort release them at night (since they have less predators at that time). When we did it, they had over 120 babies to be realeased. The little turtles are SO cute! It's hard to take photos tho, b/c you're not allowed to use flash photography as it will hurt their little eyes, so this was as good as the photos are. SO neat tho!
Another day, we drove over to the Royal Hacienda - where Peter and I stayed in June this year (it's a sister resort to the Royal Islander). It's located in Playa Del Carmen, about 35 minutes from Cancun.
They've finished the 3rd phase of construction & have 1 more to go! Beautiful landscaping!
We reserved 4 kayaks and spent some time paddling around in the cove there.

Trevor & Michelle... Cute. :-)
Again... our last night's dinner.
P & I...
Quick story before I sign off... during our LAST 30 minutes in Mexico, we were driving to grab some lunch before we had to turn the rental car in, & we get pulled over by Mexican police. NICE. Long story short, Peter talked him down from $140 to $40 to let us just drive off. He pocketed the money & said "have a nice day." The ironic part? We weren't even speeding!
Anyhow, we had such a great time with Trevor & Michelle... it was SO good to see them again. Now we're off to plan our next trip. How about sailing in the British Virgin Islands?
Oh... The rest of the pics are here. :-)