The Hallway

My Beautiful Sunflower

Things are looking pretty nice around here. The spinach is taking off, the squash and snow peas are growing, and I am attracting beautiful women to my garden... (At least one anyway)

I was able to get a picture of her lying on my bench sunning herself this afternoon.

Another bumper sticker

2008 Rose Festival Pictures and Video

Here are a few more shots from the fireworks celebration last night. Lori, Grayson, Ken and I went to Dairy Queen for blizzards and then got to the event about an hour early. We found a good seat and then I called Brittany and Brandon and they walked down and joined us for a little while. The people-watching was almost as entertaining as the fireworks display.

The video is of the last few minutes and the finale.

enjoy



This picture is a test shot. I set the camera for slower night setting and when I took a shot the vendor was swinging his green sword. I thought it was interesting.


Fireworks








Misc city shots

Rose Festival 2008

Leftovers! Yum

Gross gutters

Our Clematis Bloometh

I have been waiting for months for this event to happen and here it is. Here is the story. Lori received two Clematis for mothers day last year and we planted them. One died and the other did so-so. This is the so-so one...(obviously it isn't the dead one)

All winter and spring I have been going outside and guiding its little vines up and around the trellis I made for it. The vines have been clinging and wrapping and doing a great job making their way to the top. And now the reward for all of the hard work.

This first picture is from my phone.

The rest are from my home camera...

Here are some pictures of Grayson tending to his garden yesterday. He is planting more flowers to help bring color to the space and hopefully attract bees and keep slugs away... Grayson really enjoys the garden and is an awesome contributor to its care.

Hang Tough - Lend a Hand

There are times when someone needs an extra hand. Helping others is always a good thing but sometimes you just don't have time... I give you my hand. When someone asks you to lend a hand and you simply dont have time, lend them mine :)

6.57 Miles - Just For The Hill Of It!

There is an old phrase that came to mind while I was running in the beautiful metropolis of SeaTac today:

• There is no amount of planning that can replace dumb luck.

Well, that just wasn't the case for me today. I decided since I had a 9 1/2 hour trip to Seattle and it was still early I would get on the computer and map out a run that went from my hotel to the Puget Sound. I have wanted to plan a run there from the hotel for the past two years and today just seemed like the perfect opportunity. The sun was shining bright, the traffic was light since it is a holiday weekend, and my energy level was great.

So I mapped out a simple course from my doorstep to the shores of the sound on my handy dandy website I use from google. It is a mapping site that allows a person to map a route from point A to point B and gives the exact miles, contour of the route, and other helpful information us analytical runner types like to use. Here is the link to my path...

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1233062

Nice little 4.27 mile route from the hotel to the water and only about a 400' incline throughout the entire route. Sounds like a great plan to me... I figured I would run about a 8.5 minute pace and I should arrive at the water in about 35 - 40 minutes and then hang out at the beach, soak up some rays and watch the sunset. If you look at the map you can see my ending point... now go about 3 miles south... I ended up at Des Moines Beach Park... ooops! Not even close!

What a great plan eh... well there were a few holes in my brilliant plan that I didn't consider and my 8 1/2 mile round trip run turned into a half marathon. Here are some of the planning "mis-judgments" I encountered:

1. I have no printer so I couldn't print the route, I tried to look at it an remember it.
2. The 400' incline was from the water to the main road... I didn't take into account that the trail descended and ascended numerous times so I probably climbed a total of 1800-2000 vertical feet on the entire trip.
3. I forgot some turns so I ended up getting lost and ran 2.3 miles out of the way.
4. I forgot my water bottle. (ran into QFC and bought one at mile 7.8)
   
5. I haven't ran in a week.
6. I am too stubborn to turn around until I get to my destination.
   
7. Some streets are dead ends...
   

These little mishaps turned my leisurely run into a grueling half marathon. I did survive and I will probably run it again here pretty soon. As I was running I had two things stuck in my head. One was the quote I shared above and the other was a slogan I heard one time from a tv commercial. I can't remember who it is or what it was for but it goes something like this.

• He came for the views... but he stayed because his freakin legs cramped up.

Enjoy the photos:

Here is one of the hills I tackled early on:


This picture shows the dock I saw while running. If you click on it and look over the roof of the condos you can see the dock stretch out into the sound. I went all the way to the end of it. At the furthest point I was at the 6.57 mile mark:


Photos from the dock walkway:
















weapher

Happy Baseball Mom

A very happy baseball mom. This is Sandy, she is a mom to one of the boys on Grayson's baseball team. Today's game was a nail biter but the home team came out a winner in the bottom of the last inning thanks to an in the park home run, a walk, and a triple.

The final score was 5-4. Hopefully more happy days tomorrow!

Grey and Gloomy

On such a grey and gloomy day I thought I would share a picture from our front yard that I took a week ago when it was sunny and nice out. I have been working a ton again and I am trying to decide if I am going to lay off a trip. It is either go to work tonight at 9:30 and work all night in Clackamas and Oregon City switching box cars in the rain or get the next 24 hours off. Whatever the decision... I hope you enjoy the flowers!

Here is the holiday weather report for the next five days:

Today	Tomorrow	Sun	Mon	Tue
Showers Early	T-showers	PM Showers	Few Showers	Few Showers

WOW, what a shock, more rain!

Ouchy!

Grayson was playing cops and robbers and got kicked in the eye. He was the robber. I would say police brutality.

Reflections

I have always found reflections intriguing. I thought I would share this one today.

Biking with the boys

We went on a bike ride to the top of Mt Tabor this evening before dinner. As you can see, Grayson is pretty beat from climbing the hills on his bike. Austin got about 3/4 of the way to the top and wanted to know where he can bring a girl to show her the views... yah, whatever. It was nice since the sun came out for a little while and the wind was blowing ever so slightly.