Russian River Fishing - Part I

What Alaskan adventure doesn't involve fishing? Tyler was really excited about landing himself a salmon on the Kenai peninsula. So, the guys headed south and they made a couple of stops along the way.
First they stopped in Girdwood, our old stomping grounds. Dave showed Tyler a little bit of Alyeska Resort where Dave got his start as an electrician and where he worked in a variety of capacities for five years.
Then they headed south to Portage, the end of Turnagain Arm.
At Portage they captured this beautiful picture of Byron Glacier. Portage Glacier is no longer visible from the road or the visitor's center because it is receding. But, Byron Glacier is a hanging glacier in the Portage Valley that is pretty awesome to look at.
Finally they made it to the Russian River! The confluence of the Russian River and the Kenai River is supposed to be one of the best places to catch Red Salmon.
Here is Tyler, our noble fisherman, ready to go and land himself a bunch of fish!
However, the first wildlife our noble fisherman runs into is not a salmon, but instead a bald eagle which landed only thirty feet away from him. Pretty cool!
Then, instead of running into some salmon he ran into a brown bear. This bear was on the other side of the river so Dave and Tyler were not too thrown off by it. If you look closely you will see the fishing pole with line still in the water.
Part of the reason they were not too thrown off by the bear was this - Russian River combat fishing! There were a lot of other folks around also trying to capture the mighty Alaskan Wild Salmon.
Then, a little bit later, they ran into this fellow - another brown bear. This one is further away because it is on the far shore of the Kenai River which is a much larger river. Sadly, our tale does not end with the landing of many salmon. Dave and Tyler returned empty handed from this fishing expedition. However, they did see an additional two bears that they were not able to get pictures of because the bears were a lot closer. Including one black bear that came up behind them in the middle of the night while they were fishing! Dave says that the black bear was only five to ten feet from him! Yikes! Dave has been fishing on the Russian River countless times and only run into a bear once, despite hearing many, many stories of bears on the river. On this adventure Dave and Tyler saw four bears! We're beginning to wonder if Tyler is a bear magnet.
On the way back to town Tyler snapped a couple of pictures of the scenery. Here is Tern Lake, where the highway divides on the Kenai Peninsula.
And, if you are going to drive for four hours round trip to go fishing and return without any fish, at least this is not a bad view while you're on your journey.

Back in Anchorage, after dinner and a shower I took Tyler to go and look at the sunset from Point Woronzof. Tyler also ended up getting a little bit of a history lesson of Anchorage. What can I say, I'm a history teacher, I'm also very proud of my home city. Even on summer vacation, the teaching never stops! The sky had cleared and it was nice out. Here Tyler is with the city and the Chugach Range as a backdrop.

And here is the sunset with the beautiful Mt. Susitna. This is one of my favorite views!

Arctic Thunder!

This is Tyler. He is Dave's cousin and we are super excited to have him visiting us for a week! He came up from Molalla, Oregon to see us and he is the first member of his immediate family to make it up here. We go to Molalla to visit them around once a year, which we always enjoy so much, we're happy to finally get to show someone around our great state. Tyler arrived on Friday night and for his first day in Alaska he said he'd like to go to Arctic Thunder - the big air show they do on base. They hold Arctic Thunder every year, but neither Dave nor I had ever been, so it was something new for everyone. It was pretty awesome! There were lots of cool planes to look at and there were some pretty amazing tricks done in the air! First we captured Tyler in front of a plane with amphibious floats, a must have for flying in many parts of Alaska.
Here I am looking at the cockpit of a FA-18 Hornet. It was pretty amazing, and really small in that cockpit, not good for claustrophobia. I felt very much like I was in Top Gun. The knowledge I have of planes in general, particularly fighter planes, is abysmal at best, so please forgive any stupid things I say in this post about the planes. But, they were impressive and it was really neat to get the opportunity to get so close to them to check them out.
Here are Dave and Tyler in the cockpit of a C-17 Globetrotter. The C-17 is a cargo plane. There were A LOT of controls in this bad boy, but the view from the cockpit was pretty cool. The airman who was showing it to us said that he had to go to school for three months just to learn the controls and then he had to pass a written test and a test in the simulator. He then said that you do a lot of practice in the simulator when you aren't flying so that you can remember everything because three months is not a lot of time to try and retain all that information. I can't even imagine!

The plane that Tyler and Dave were most excited to see was this, the F-22 Raptor. Tyler says that this is a sexy plane. Dave and I figure that you could probably attract a lot of interested partners if you were driving/flying around in one of these. The F-22 was quite a sight to see on the ground, but it was another thing all together when we got to see this bad chicken take flight!
Here's the F-22 in action. It is FAST and it is LOUD!
Earlier in the show they had all kinds of tricks being performed by the P-51 Mustang, which was the premier fighting plane during WWII. Then, after the F-22 did some maneuvering on its own they had the P-51 come up and the two planes flew in formation together. It was kind of a tribute - the premier fighting planes of yesterday and today. Anchorage grew by leaps and bounds as a city as a result of WWII and we still have a large military influence and presence today.

The planes are in this picture too. This photo also shows how many people were out at the air show, despite not having the greatest weather. The news said tonight that there were about 98,000 people in attendance at the air show today. That is almost half the population of Anchorage and almost one quarter of the population of the state! We do everything big in Alaska - except population! Tyler found this particularly amusing.

After the air show we took Tyler up to Flattop Mountain. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, it was cloudy, threatening to rain and it had become very windy. We would have considered hiking up the mountain, or at least part of it, had it not been for the wind. So, we went to the overlook to give Tyler more of a bird's eye view of the city.

Dave, Tyler and Winston all enjoyed the view!

I'm Voting Republican

Check it out!

imvotingrepublican.com

Happy Birthday Kara!

Today is my friend Kara's birthday. This photo is the only digital photo I have of her and it is old, it is from her wedding seven years ago. Oh well, you work with what you have. Kara is currently in the middle of moving from Ohio to Washington. Her husband (that would be the bloke with his back to us in the photo), Chris, is a new professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane. Since she's spending her birthday in a moving van and unpacking boxes and getting settled in a new apartment in a new city in a new part of the country I thought it was fitting to do some acknowledgment of her special day. I'm sure Chris is doing something great for her too, he's a good guy like that.

Kara and I have been friends since the seventh grade. We don't see each other very much anymore, life gets busy and its hard when you live on opposite ends of the country, but we still try to keep in touch. With all the traveling DH and I do to Washington perhaps now Kara and I will get a chance to visit more often.

Happy Birthday Kara! I hope all your birthday wishes come true!

F.O. - Not Your Grandma's Monkey Socks!

This is my dear friend JuLee. JuLee was my mentor my first year teaching and upon meeting we became fast friends. She has been a lifesaver for me professionally and also personally, I can not express in words how much she has meant to me. In this photo she is holding her brand new granddaughter, Mikayla (I hope I spelled that correctly), who is only ten days old. I know what you are thinking, how can someone so young and vibrant possibly be a grandmother?! It can't be true! And you would be justified in thinking so. While JuLee loves her granddaughter tremendously, the title "Grandma" was not one she was eager to embrace. So, to help her out with the G-momma status I made her these:
These are Not Your Grandma's Monkey Socks! They are the Monkey Sock pattern, which is something that JuLee told me many months ago that she really liked. And she told me that she would love them in wild colors. I tried to find colors that were as un-Grandma as possible. I think these socks scream youth and vitality, just like JuLee does! Here is a close up:

The details:
Pattern: Monkey Socks by Cookie A.
Method: 2-@-a-time using one long magic loop - this was my most recent class at LYS
Needle: Addi-Turbo size US 2 and 47" long
Yarn: Panda Cotton - blend of bamboo, cotton, and nylon - love the Panda cotton!
Color: Circus

Congratulations JuLee! I know your little princess will bring endless joy to your life!

Father's Day/Cake/Kung Fu Panda

Happy Father's Day Dad! Here is my Dad, giving a grin at our breakfast in honor of Father's Day. My Dad is a wonderful man, I'm truly very, very blessed to have him for my father! It is something that I'm aware of everyday and celebrate with him all the time, but particularly on Father's Day. Dad, thanks for being so fabulous!
Al and K-man came to breakfast too. They are grandpa's little buddies! They also brought some friends to breakfast that they felt needed to be captured on film. Is it truly film if I'm using a digital camera? Probably not, but captured in pixels doesn't have the same ring to it.
Lou also enjoyed breakfast. She's going to kill me for posting this picture on the world wide web, but then again she shouldn't make faces when someone is trying to take her picture!
On Saturday, Lou's birthday, Lou, the boys and I went to see Kung Fu Panda. It was a lot of fun, has some great voice talent in it like Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, and Jack Black, and the boys seemed to enjoy it. There were a couple of slow places for me, but I was also still tired from my run/walk earlier in the day. The guys promised me that they would work on their Kung Fu moves after seeing the film and so here we go:
K-man and Al show off their Kung Fu moves! I tell you I see black belts in their future! Watch out!
Later in the evening we gathered again to do cake for Lou's birthday/Father's Day. K-man paused from his game for a moment to flash me a winning smile.
Dave gave me a subtle reminder about how much he enjoys having his picture taken while Al climbed on the coffee table...the rules are different at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Then Al came over to show me his very, very, loose tooth! His first one, we'll have a gap soon!
Lou made her birthday wish and blew out the candles! Cake for everyone! :0)

Reflections on Tim Russert

I, like many folks, was saddened to learn of the loss of Tim Russert last Friday. I never knew him personally, I live in the state probably furthest away from where Mr. Russert lived and worked. But, I looked forward to seeing him every Sunday morning on Meet the Press. I looked forward to listening to any and every bit of political commentary he had to offer on the evening news, on the morning news, and during every election. I'll miss his little maps and his dry erase board where he did the math on election night. The thing that I'll miss the most about Mr. Russert's presence is that he made it easier for me to do my job well. As a lover of politics it is easy to get wrapped up in the agenda of the side that aligns most closely with my own deeply held personal values. It is also easy to criticize the other side of the political isle without listening to what they are saying, easy to leap on sound bites, easy to use a small phrase and blow it out of proportion so that the heart of the issue becomes lost. These are pitfalls that I have personally fallen into many times. Mr. Russert didn't fall into these pitfalls, at least he didn't fall into them on the air. One of the subjects I teach is U.S. Government, this is a subject that lends itself to daily discussions with students about politics. As a professional I must remain nonpartisan when speaking to students, it is not something that I always find easy, sometimes it is quite difficult. Watching Mr. Russert made me a better teacher. He helped me to see and to understand the other side of the issue. He helped me to figure out how to explain both sides of an issue to students in a manner that didn't reveal my personal bias. I have students who work hard to try to figure out where my political opinions fall on the spectrum, I would not be so adept at keeping them guessing if it had not been for the assistance of Mr. Russert.

I can not begin to imagine the loss being felt by Mr. Russert's family, friends, colleagues, and everyone who ever had the pleasure of meeting him. Even though I do not fall into any of these categories, his loss will be felt by me, a simple high school teacher in Anchorage, Alaska.

Thank you Mr. Russert for all the wonderful work you did. You made a difference in my life and in the lives of all of my students.

Lou's Birthday/WWKIP/AK Run For Women

Today was a BUSY day! First of all today is my baby sister's birthday! Happy Birthday Lou! She is 34 years young today. Today was also the day for the Alaska Run For Women. This Run raises funds for breast cancer research and treatment. I have participated in this run for years and years, but for the past couple of years I have participated in the run in support of my mother-in-law Joanne who is currently battling breast cancer. Today is also World Wide Knit in Public day! This event brings awareness to knitting by, well, knitting in public. So, how to get all of this taken care of in one little day one may ask?? Well, by combining events I answer!! I had a lot of plans regarding Lou's birthday that I needed to attend to, so that meant that combining the knit and the run. Since I don't actually run during the run, I try not to run unless being pursued by a vicious creature, I figured I could walk and knit at the same time so long as I kept the knitting simple. I enlisted the help of my father to come down and take some photos for me as proof of my meeting the obligations of two very important events. Take a look:
Here are myself and Lou walking in the run. And what is that in my hands? Why its knitting! I'm Knitting in Public! Literally thousands of women of all ages from all over the Anchorage area participate in the Run for Women, so you can't get more public than that!
Here we are again, a little closer. Sorry the pictures are kind of fuzzy, it is hard to take a picture of a moving target and this was dad's first time using my camera. He did a great job I think, thanks dad!
Here you can see the knitting a little closer and Lou flashing a big birthday grin! Now, we didn't have the greatest weather for the run. It was raining before the run started, then it pretty much stopped for the time that Lou and I were out walking, but shortly after these photos were taken it started to rain pretty hard again. I am proud to say that during the entire time the run was going on (meaning that I was on the 5 mile trail) I had knitting in hand from start to finish line. It got kind of difficult at the end when the rain started up again, the wool did not want to move on the needles, but that is no challenge to someone as determined as I!
As already stated, I did the run in support of my mother-in-law, Joanne. Here I am holding up the very wet support sign that has her name on it. I had this sign pinned to my back. After this picture some other members of the family decided that they wanted to show their support for Joanne too:
My 6-year-old nephew Al supports Joanne. His twin K was playing a Leap Frog game, but says he supports her too, he just didn't want his picture taken.
Birthday girl Lou supports Joanne too!
Lou and cameraman Dad also support Joanne! The rest of the day was filled with Kung Fu Panda and other stuff. We decided to combine birthday cake with Father's Day tomorrow so more photos on all of that later!

Review: Twilight Series

Have you been bitten? I recently finished the first three books of the Twilight Series and I have to admit, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the fourth. Now, for those of you who don't know, the Twilight Series has to do with vampires and werewolves. I learned about these books from the teenage girls that I teach and from my fellow colleagues. Normally, I won't read what I call "scary" books. I have a runaway imagination and I have very detailed dreams - the last thing I need is to read things that fuel my imagination and dreams. I avoided the Anne Rice books of vampires, I once read one chapter of a Stephen King book and I knew it was already too much for me and I had to stop. So, what made me pick up Twilight? Well, Heather had already read them and she told me that the books are set in Forks, Washington. Forks is a tiny little town on the Olympic Penninsula and it happens to be the place of my mother's birth. She lived there for the first five years of her life. She still has counsins living there. She spent time there as a child visiting family. That is what clinched the deal for me. Once I read the first one I found that as Heather had promised, it was an easy and engaging read. I finished Twilight wanting to learn more.
The second book New Moon, was a harder read. As a high school teacher surrounded my teenage drama, I generally am not interested in reading more about teenage drama. I can do it for Harry Potter's later books, but that was because I was already hooked on Harry from when he was a little boy. Bella's conviction that her world is going to end and she is going to die without her vampire got old quick. I kept shouting at the book, "get over yourself child!" My mom, who has picked up the books on my recommendation and because they are set in Forks says I'm too hard on poor Bella in this book. This book was still a quick read, but I was sure happy when it was over. The end was the best part.
The third book helped redeem the problems of the second book. Plus it added more to my favorite character, who is not Bella or a vampire, but a werewolf. For my werewolf friend there were many hard things in this book, but overall it was a good read, no where near as irritating as New Moon had been. Again, I've been left wondering what will happen next.
Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final installment in this series. It comes out on August 2nd. If you go to the official website (see link above) you can see a countdown for the book's release. We'll see what happens to Bella, the vampires, and the werewolves....

P.S. - After finishing the first book I did have a nightmare about vampires... it was pretty scary.

Knitting Update

Okay, this is going to be another lengthy post. What can I say, I like to talk! In addition to that I wanted to do an update about the knitting/crochet I've been doing and planning to do for awhile and rather than do a bunch of shorter posts I decided, "What the heck, I'll do one GIANT post!" So here it goes:


First, before I begin with all things knitted, I wanted to include this photo. This is my friend Nicole and I. Nicole lives in Fairbanks and I have not seen her for three years, but I had the great fortune of seeing her on Saturday! Nicole is also a teacher and she used to teach at the same school I'm at in Anchorage. We were first year teachers together, our rooms were next door to one another. We became fast friends and although she now lives 400 miles away, we still keep in touch by phone, email, and reading one another's blogs. She was on her way to Chicago and due to airline things had a day long layover in Anchorage. So, we had a wonderful time hanging out, eating good food, enjoying the revitalization of Spenard, and doing lots of talking. Winston's health continues to improve, but he's still on the road to recovery and on Saturday he had a poopy explosion and Nicole even helped me clean it up! You can't beat a friend like that! Her response was, "I'm a mom, I deal with poop everyday". (She has two beautiful daughters, ages 1 & 3) It was sooo great to see her, and helping me clean up poop has nothing to do with my saying that. It would have been equally as great even if I'd cleaned it up alone.

Okay, now on to the knitting. I've been making progress on my mom's fair isle sweater. My goal of getting it done for Mother's Day didn't happen, but mom understood. I worked really hard on it up until mother's day and I have to admit that since I didn't make it I've kind of stalled a bit on the sweater. I'm getting tired of such a big project and I'm working on smaller, faster things. I found out that mom doesn't read my blog so its safe to post these photos.
Here is the nearly completed body tube. I need to put in the second pocket. And of course I'll have to put in the collar and button band once I get to that level of assembly. I'm really happy with how this has turned out. I think the colors are gorgeous and they totally remind me of my mom. I had a lot of fun with the different pattern pieces that make up the pattern as a whole. It was a lot of knitting though and probably a big part of my stalling.
This is a photo of the center steek. Sorry its a little fuzzy. When I'm ready, after I've picked up and knit the stitches for the button band, I will cut between the little white stitches you see there.
This is more of a close up of the one completed pocket. You can kind of see the steek stitches for the center again there. Remember, the sweater when completed will be a cardigan.
This is a sleeve steek. There are two of them because oddly enough, my mom had two arms.
This is one sleeve. It's almost complete. It's not great, there are some things that I will try to improve upon for the second sleeve. The patterns don't exactly line up, but that's okay because it is on the underside of the sleeve and won't be seen as much. I tried carrying yarn up the inside because I hate weaving in ends, but that created weird tension so I won't do that on the second one. That's it for the sweater. What I have left to do is finish this sleeve, knit the second sleeve, attach the sleeves and cut those steeks, do the neckline steek, bind the shoulders, do the neck band, knit the button band, cut the center steek, and attach the buttons. It sounds like a lot, but I have a feeling that if I can get myself going it won't be that bad. We'll see...
Here is the progress I've made thus far on Jocasta's blanket. When I'm tired this is a great thing to pick up and work on because it doesn't require the same level of attention as other projects do, like the sweater, or lace. Socks are usually this way too. It is coming along and it is going to be a very heavy and warm blanket. I hope she will like it!
My first reaction to sweater frustration was to knit these. This is a pair of Fetching, I knit them for Dave's aunt Linda who works a lot on a computer and whose hands get cold. Yellow is her favorite color and this yarn has microfiber in it and merino wool, it is very, very soft. Important for the hands. I like this pattern, it is easy to knit and quick - which is really what I was looking for!
I'm hoping to do some more lace knitting this summer. This yarn is Artisan New Zealand Merino Lace Weight wool. It is very soft, and when I showed it to Dave he felt it and actually said, "yummy", something he is now denying occurred. I have a friend who gave me a wonderful lace book as a gift and I want to knit something for her from this book. This is the yarn I bought for her gift. I'm being vague because my friend is a blog reader.

When I was in Portland at Knit/Purl with Heather I bought these things. The yarn is Mongolian Cashmere and Silk Lace Weight. I love saying Mongolian, it just sounds fun! The pattern I'm going to use my Mongolian Cashmere on is a lace scarf by Evelyn Clark. Then I also bought this book on lace shawls. It has a lot of lace reference information in it that I think will be really helpful.
This is a kit I bought at Madrona for the Baby Surprise Jacket. I really want to figure out the pattern because I've heard so much about it and heck, its interesting. I started it, but ended up frogging my work yesterday (Dave helped me, he was ecstatic). I think I know how I'm going to approach it differently in round 2. I'm going to give the jacket to my friend Yvonne who just had a baby girl. Hopefully I'll be able to figure this crazy pattern out!

I've decided that this summer is going to be my Summer of Socks! I'm going to begin with photos of some completed socks:

These are Serendipity from the RSC for January. I finished them in February. I really like them, and they are the first socks I've made for me since my first every knitted socks, which aren't as nice.
These are monkey socks that I knit for Sandy. I finished these in February, before the Serendipity socks, they were a gift for her that I brought done with me to Madrona. They are made using Panda Cotton yarn in the colorway Fern. Sandy and I share a passion for knitting and a passion for all things green!


I'm currently taking a class on 2-at-a-time socks at my LYS, the Yarn Branch. I'm making my girlfriend who is, I believe today, a grandma. She wanted monkey socks, so here they are and she wanted wild, not grandma, colors. I'm using the Panda Cotton (I really like this yarn) colorway called Circus.
Dave's aunt Linda, who gets the cold fingers, also gets cold feet. And she loves the Oregon Ducks. So, I found this Oregon Duck sock yarn at Fancy Image Yarns. I'm going to do another two at a time pattern, so I don't forget the technique. The pattern is called Twilight.
Here is the RSC March installment, the yarn is called Lucky and the pattern is called Leafling. As you can see, I've wound the yarn into a ball, yeah for me. Need to get working on these. This yarn is in my favorite color, I know I'll love these socks when I get them done!

Here is the May installment of RSC, the yarn is called The Incredible Shrinking Violet and the pattern is called Cleopatra's Stockings. I love the color and the pattern looks great!


Finally, also from Fancy Image Yarn is yarn to make socks for Dave and I for the fall football season. On the left, the colorway representing the best NFL team EVER - the San Francisco 49ers! On the right, the colorway representing Dave's favorite team - the Oakland Raiders. We get a little Bay Area Rivalry going in our house when these two teams face off, otherwise we tend to be supportive of one another's teams. But, I think having football socks sounds cool!

That's it! It has only taken me an hour and a half to create this crazy long post! I'm off to get all the things done I was supposed to do today! Yowza - its hard to get all this blogging done when I have so much knitting to do!

There Goes The Neighborhood!

So, on Friday I was mowing my lawn - don't laugh when you see my lawn, its not much of a lawn but it is what it is - when my lovely 4-year-old neighbor Grace told me, "You have a moose in your backyard". I went around the side of the house to take a peek and sure enough, I saw this:


A moose cow munching on the cottonwood trees and the grass and weeds that make up my backyard. You can tell by the marks on her side that this old girl has seen some action in her day. Please realize that I don't do any kind of lawn maintenance on the backyard, the little that I do is reserved for the front yard. But wait, what's this:

Twins! These calves are probably only a day, maybe two, old. They are awfully cute!

Here they are with their Momma. They are very curious about me & my camera.

They're also hungry! Look at them go! But Momma's not happy, see how she has her ears folded back flat? She doesn't like how close I am taking my pictures, and I'm further away than the pictures seem - gotta love the zoom. But, she's feeling particularly vulnerable with the calves feeding and a strange person doing something crazy!

Momma decided to head up alongside the far side of my house, away from me. Here she is outside my fence, checking out the lilac bush.

Now they are munching on the trees across the street...


But, there was a suspicious noise (a neighbor with a week whacker) and so she decided the backyard was actually safer.

The video is what they did once they returned to the backyard. I shot it from my bedroom window, so it wasn't so upsetting to Momma. Gotta love those summer guests!



P.S. - the person, Shiela, that I mention in the video is the neighbor down the hill. She was wandering around her backyard unaware of the trio of moose watching her.

Where to Begin...

Man, what a week! It was a week filled with travel, friends, family, fun, and music! There is a lot to cover and a lot of photos so...

Warning! Warning! Long Post Ahead!!

Our story begins with Wednesday 5/28, when my DH and I went to the Sullivan Arena to see none other than Sir Elton John! Sir Elton did three shows, as I mentioned before, and all three sold out in less than an hour! These tickets were very hard to get and were actually purchased off of Craig's List. We paid a handsome price for these sweeties! We were taking a bit of a gamble, we were worried that it may have been a scam, but the gentleman I bought them from is an honest fellow Sir Elton fan and we made it into the show. DH and I headed down to the Sullivan Arena surrounded by other Sir Elton fans, some decked out with feather boas, all kinds of headgear, and my favoirte - glasses that lit up! I didn't get a photo of the lighted glasses, sorry, but they were pretty fun! I did get my own concert t-shirt though! I wanted a t-shirt that said Anchorage on it! It was so worth it!
Here I am, a self-portrait, in the Sullivan Arena before the start of the show. Look at that smile, I'm so excited!
Here is the man himself! He put on a fabulous show! He played for 2-1/2 hours non-stop! It was FANTASTIC! I was so excited! He played a lot of the standard hits and he played some songs I was not as familiar with, but it was all great! The best part of all is he played my all time favoite of his songs, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters". He introduced it with, "I'd like to sing this next song about New York City". I was jumping up and down with excitement!! We got some video of Sir Elton, I would post it, but I need to figure out how. If anyone has some advice on this please let me know. The video we have is: a part of "Your Song" (definitely one of my favs and one of his - it was his first hit in the U.S.), most of "Rocket Man" (he was jammin' on this, it has this extended piano ending he did), all of "Tiny Dancer" (another of my faves), and all of "Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters" (as stated - my all time fav)! Sir Elton is quite the showman and he did a lot of pointing at different parts of the crowd for cheers, posing with the piano for photos, and signing things, including a BRA that one woman sent up! People crack me up! It was a great night!

After Sir Elton, Dave and I headed home and packed because on Thursday 5/29 we headed down to Seattle/Tacoma area to visit family and friends and to go to our other musical events. Thursday was Sandy's birthday - Happy Birthday Sandy! We showed up in time for dinner and we ate at Sandy's newest favorite place in Tacoma, Maxwell's. It was really yummy! I had the salmon and Dave had the pulled pork sandwhich, we both enjoyed our meals! After dinner we went to our next musical event, we went to see this fella:
Who is this, you may ask? Is it a famous conductor? Well yes it is! It is Dave's big brother, Paul! We attended the SOTA (Tacoma School of the Arts) Spring Concert! This was at the Rialto Theater in Tacoma, and it was a combination of the choir and the symphony. Paul is the symphony/band teacher at SOTA in addition to many other hats he wears there (such as website manager). These high school students did a FABULOUS job! It was the seniors last concert and last day of school. The choir did two pieces, one of which was in Japanese that was really interesting, another that was conducted by a senior. Then there was a piano Chopin piece played by another senior that was amazing! The symphony did a cello piece that featured a senior, then they had a first a piece that was written and conducted by a senior titled "Weather" that was really great. The finale was Vivaldi's "Gloria" that brought together the choir and the symphony. The whole show was wonderful! It was fun to see Paul in action!

After hanging out in Tacoma on Thursday evening we headed over to Bonney Lake to spend time with my best friend Wendi. It is always so wonderful to get to spend time with her, I wish we got to do it more often! Visiting with Wendi offered me the opportunity to do this:
I got to use the riding lawn mower! I know this seems silly, but I've always wanted to try one of these and my yard is the size of a postage stamp so I couldn't really justify having one for myself so when Wendi said she needed her lawn mowed I jumped at the opportunity! It was a lot of fun! I told Dave that if I had one of these babies I would mow lawns all day long! Maybe I should look into a summer job at a golf course or something like that...hmm...

At Wendi's house we met up with my good friend Heather of the Wandering Stitch and her family who had driven down from Anchorage. In addition to the four members of the Roach clan they had picked up two more, including another Roach, Wade's brother Ryan and his buddy Doug from San Diego. We had all converged on Wendi's compound so that we could head here:
The Gorge Amphitheather in George, Washington to see the band RUSH! This is the view from the top of the hill. We had seats down in "the seats" - which were hundreds of folding chairs with tape on them that had numbers written with Sharpies - very posh.
This is the drum set used by Dr. Neil Peart on the Snakes and Arrows tour - pretty sweet! He did his standard drum solo - but that was in the second half of the show and we missed it... more on that in a bit. It is a great drum set, we had tried to get a photo like this in Toronto when we went in September, but due to lighting weren't able to. The nice thing about the outdoor setting in the end of May in the northwest, better lighting!
Here they are in the first half of the show. They can really put out the sound! Unfortunately, it was really, really, really windy during the performance and as you can see nothing is enclosed at the Gorge. So, that meant a lot of the lighting and pyrotechnics that Rush is well known for were not possible. The other unfortunate thing that happened during this show was that I became ill, some minor intestinal distress. I toughed it out through the first half of the show, but then I knew that I really needed to be able to go and lie down or I wasn't going to get any better and could possibly get worse. Since the next day we were going to be at a concert with others counting on us for a ride I weighed my options and decided that if I was going to miss a show, this was it. So, we headed back to our hotel room in Ellensburg and I went to bed.
On Sunday 6/1, on our way back to Wendi's place to meet back up with Wendi and the Roach clan we decided to stop at Snoqualmie Falls. I had never seen the falls, they are beautiful! We had some fun wandering around and snapping photos. Dave even stood in on someone else's picture, he posed with a young girl who was visiting from somewhere on the east coast.
All of Washington was in bloom with Rhododendrons! These are plants that Dave loves and that I have only seen in bloom once before. I'm often in the Pacific Northwest in the winter - no flowers. When they are in bloom they are amazing! I love the huge blossoms and all the colors! The other flowers that I love that grow in Washinton are the Hydrangeas. They are lovely and smell nice. Neither grows in Alaska, too much permafrost in the winter.
Also on Sunday 6/1 we headed down to Portland, Oregon to see RUSH again , this time at the Clark County Amphitheater. I was feeling much, much better - yea! We also picked up these two jokers - Katie and Sandy rockin' out at their first RUSH concert! It was great to get the opportunity to introduce Dave's favorite band to them. I think they enjoyed the show, they seemed happy. This show was awesome! Again, amazing sound! No wind to contest with so all the lighting and pyrotechnics were in place. This time we saw the drum solo. We also got some video of the show, including part of the drum solo, but I still don't know how to upload it. Rush played "Free Will" my second favorite of their songs. They played Dave's favorite, "The Trees" that Dave videoed. There were a few songs that they played at this show that they didn't play at the Toronto show, Dave was particularly excited that they played the Trees and the first two parts of "2112", which he had never seen in concert. This was my fourth Rush show, the third on the Snakes and Arrows tour, but I've decided that I need to continue to see them at least until I see them play my favorite of their songs in concert, "Closer to the Heart". I also love the Snakes and Arrows album, so I'm glad that I saw this tour so many times. There are a lot of new favs for me on this album!
Here Heather and I are rockin' out! It was so much fun to get to hang out with her and her family down in Washington and Oregon! She's a great friend and since we share both mutual loves for Rush and for knitting it was wonderful to get to attend the concert together!
Here is some of the laser show that was part of the concert, I like the lasers, I think they are particularly cool! It was a really GREAT show! It was my first time at the Clark County Amphitheater, it is a really nice facility. I love the beauty of the Gorge, but some of my OCD tendencies have a harder time with the older facilities...the porta potty village. I'm a snob, I know. I think if I'm in a camping frame of mind I don't mind so much and I'm sure not feeling well had a lot to do with my current thoughts on the Gorge because it didn't bother me so much the other two times I'd been there. I'll have to go again to figure this all out...
After the Clark County show Dave, Katie, and I headed back to Katie's place in downtown Portland. Sandy had left the show a little early because she had to head back to Tacoma to go to work on Monday monring! Crazy lady! Dave and Katie had a lot of fun at my expense, but really a good time was had by all.

Monday 6/2 we hung out in Portland with the Roach family and Katie. Including a trip for Heather and I to Knit/Purl - I was going to get to knitting eventually, have faith. I bought some really lovely yarn made of Mongolian cashmere and silk (I love saying Mongolian!) and a pattern for a lace scarf by Evelyn Clark that I'm going to make for me. Monday afternoon we headed back to Tacoma to experience our first ever Monday Night Dinner at Sandy's house! We have heard about these dinners for a long time and were excited to get to participate in one. It was a lot of fun and gave a chance to meet some of Sandy's wonderful friends. We spent Monday night at Wendi's house and we headed home on Tuesday 6/3. It was a fast and at times frantic and fantastic trip! We came home exhausted! We always run around so much having fun and visiting folks that we need a vacation from our vacation.

Since getting home I had another of my two-at-a-time socks class, I'm on the heel flap, I'll post photos on a later post because let's face it, this post is outrageously long! I've also been in an economics class for the past two days that was actually really great, I wasn't sure what to expect, you never know with these things. Also, most distressing has been that Winston has been really sick, he went 36 hours without eating. This was torture for me, I cooked him all his favorite foods and he wouldn't touch any of it. Yesterday was particularly hard because I was stuck in class and couldn't be with him. He was in good hands though, he was at Dog Tired Daycare, some of the greatest people! Winston seems to be turning a corner this morning, he ate breakfast and I was ecstatic! I'm signing off now, places to go, people to see, dogs to walk!