Here’s a pic of the groom right before the ceremony. Look how excited he is!

The ceremony was beautiful. Joyce was gorgeous in her gown and Tim couldn’t stop smiling

After the ceremony, there was a short photography session. We all enjoyed taking pictures with Alex. For, on the day of Tim and Joyce’s wedding, a great voice boomed with authority saying “SUIT UP!”. And on August the 28th, Alex suited up

After the pictures, we were able to ride on the peak-2-peak gondola. We rode on the one with the glass on the floor so you could see down. Again, the views were AMAZING!  Of course, I did get a little queezy when the teenager in the gondola decided to jump on the glass. But, it didn’t break so it was okay

Shockingly, I didn’t really take any pictures at the reception (oops!).  They had a cool airport/airmail theme because their relationship was long distance. There were little airplanes everywhere. VERY cool! I have a couple videos, but I’m not going to post them. Though, I will say it was very sweet when Tim sang the first verse of their first dance song to Joyce while Sam played the guitar. Say it with me people—Awww!  I actually have one picture and here it is:

They had an ice sculpture that said “J &T” on it with an arrow pointing up. It doubled as a drinking device late in the reception. I have no idea how Tim got this approved for the wedding, but it was super-cool!

To end:  CONGRATS TIM AND JOYCE!!!!

Oh wait, one more thing. The best part about going over the border was talking to the border patrol. On the way back they were firing off a bunch of questions and they asked Anson where he worked. When he replied “Microsoft” another agent shouted from the booth “No way! Let me see that passport!”.  The agents passed the passport back and forth before coming to the car window, looking at Anson, and saying “I’ve never met someone who is actually from the US that works at Microsoft!”

Anyway, here are some pictures of the trip:

These first few are from the ferry ride to the island.

The rest are pictures of us (and the view) from around the island

1. At no time, and in no way, is Anson allowed to talk during NCIS.

No joke. He has an uncanny ability to predict who the villain is within the first 5 minutes of any episode. And, after initially banning his predictions of who the killer is, he began just revealing key plot points.  So, henceforth, Anson is not allowed to talk during NCIS

Speaking of talking while trying to view something–I actually had a pretty interesting experience with a girl talking through a movie the other night. I went out to see a movie on a Wednesday night (so it wasn’t crowded, yay!) and, despite the small crowd, I still ended up sitting next to someone. I had gotten there early and a guy had taken a seat about 5 places away from me—and right before the movie started, all of his friends showed up to take the seats between me and him (of course!). So, I’m sitting next to this girl and she seems really cute and nice. She just has the incredible habit of saying things (I’m pretty sure she does it unconsciously) at a pretty consistent rate through the entire movie. What she said came in 3 different varieties:

1. Oh my gosh!

2. What?! That’s ridiculous!

3. Did he just say <insert line said about 3 seconds ago in the film>?

After 15 minutes of this, I was finding it pretty hard to focus on the film. I figured I might just be really sensitive to it (no one else seemed to mind or was even distracted), so I made up my mind to have a little fun with it. I decided to count how many times she did one of those things for the rest of the movie—just to see if it was actually as often as I thought it was. I chose “Oh my gosh” because, frankly, that was the only one I couldn’t tune out.  She would even vary it with “Oh….my….gosh” and “Omigosh!”. So, I kept my hands in the giant pocket of my hooded sweatshirt and kept track using my fingers. By the end of the movie (from the time I started counting) she had used that phrase 48 times. That didn’t even include the other two phrases she uttered. I was actually pretty impressed! And I was glad I counted! It was fun and memorable

Angie has challenged me to do a running program with her and I did my first trial today. It’s not too bad. Of course, I think it starts out pretty easy   The program is set to train you to do a 5k, so maybe I’ll run one later this year. I know of a few in December, so it’s definitely a good goal to have.

I (finally) finished book 10 in ‘Wheel of Time’ and started book 11. Chris has assured me that book 11 is better, so if it’s not I am holding him personally responsible! I was really hoping to finish these books before I started to teach, but it has been slow—I’ve still got a couple weeks though

Also in my free time—I downloaded all of the free ‘Countdown to Christmas’ apps for the iphone to figure out which one was best. I have to say, some of them had really cool features. For example, one of them had a Christmas tree in the background that gets bigger as Christmas gets closer. Another one plays Christmas carols and will change the song every time you shake the phone. In the end I chose a pretty simple one. The determining factor? It put the ads (that apparently appear on ALL of the free apps) in the least annoying place. Go figure.

This is the last week of ESY (extended school year—“summer school” to all you non-teachers out there). I’m pretty excited about it. It was a little chaotic coming into the classroom mid-summer. I’m looking forward to having my own classroom in the fall. Speaking of the fall—I’m slowly getting more information about my job placement. I will be teaching extended day preschool, which is a bit different than teaching regular preschool. It sounds like it is a program specifically for students with autism and I will spend all day writing programs and collecting/analyzing data. Nobody that I talked to today really knew the specifics of the job, so it will be exciting to get in there in the fall and make the job my own

I am slowly working up the courage to install the 2nd curtain rod. I’ve taken the rod out of the packaging, looked at it, read the directions, and then slowly placed everything back in the packaging and back on the kitchen table. I’m really not looking forward to destroying the wall more than I already have. Someday, I’m sure the amount of sunlight coming into the house will be unbearable….someday.

This summer I have been taking hot yoga classes. I must admit that my lungs are not particularly happy about the 104 degrees and 40% humidity.  If the room is anywhere close to crowded, I end up sitting out quite a bit. The one time that I did pretty well was when the class was pretty empty. I am thinking about trying to find regular (non-hot) yoga classes. It’s a tough call though—the heat is pretty unbearable, but you feel so great when you leave the class. We’ll see

Two quick notes to end the post:

Happy Birthday Grandma Horton!

143 Days ‘till Christmas

Aside from that, things have been going pretty well. I have a job teaching special education in the fall. It will be at the preschool level, so I’m pretty excited. I’m hoping there’s a unit on teddy bears   I’ve been slowly skimming through some of my old textbooks while also trying to finish the Wheel of Time books before the new one comes out. I’m almost done Book 10—it’s amazing how little has happened in that book. Hopefully Book 11 will be better

For those of you who haven’t talked to us in a while—Anson and I recently spent a bunch of time in Maryland. We had a lot of celebrating to do!  On June 12th, we got to meet our new niece, Mia Elaine!

That’s not the greatest picture of her (I have one of her smiling somewhere—probably hidden on my phone), but I like it because she’s sleeping in the blanket I made her

The very next day, on June 13th, we got a new sister-in-law! Welcome to the family Daniela!!!

And on June 25th  we got a new brother-in-law! Welcome to the family Tim! There’s no way out—probably should have told you that before you said “I do”

While in Maryland, Anson and I also got to visit with our good friends—Mark , Ioana and Dave. We all went to Hershey Park one weekend. There is only one picture of the trip (mostly because I didn’t want to carry around a camera while I was on the roller coasters). It accurately expresses how each of us feel about roller coasters:

Aside from all the excitement with family additions, we had some time to relax and got addicted to a new tv show (thanks Angie and Eric!). We’ve been watching NCIS non-stop since we got back. We’re on season 3 now. We’re actually buying them, so we’ll be able to lend them out and get everyone on the west coast addicted as well. Yay!

And now it’s about time for Anson to be getting home from work—so I’m off to go daydream about snowflakes and stockings

We’ve decided to go with the contractor that installed the air conditioner at our old house. Most of the articles we read said that having a good contractor install it is almost as important as which kind of AC unit you choose. At least we know this guy does good work!

The next step is where it gets a little frustrating—the paperwork. I started the process of applying for a permit to have it installed. I called the City of Kirkland offices and they led me to the paperwork that homeowners need to fill out. Naturally, it’s not written in any format that a homeowner without experience in the field could understand. There are a ridiculous amount of abbreviations! So, I’ve spent three days calling my contractor and having him answer questions for me (he’s been very nice and understanding). I finally had all of his information filled out when I discovered a line that asks for the electrician’s information. Sigh. I called the contractor and he gave me the name of the electrician he uses. I called the electrician who informed me that he pulls his own permits and I cannot pull the permit for him. I explained that I am MORE THAN HAPPY to have him pull the Electrical Permits, but I still need his information to complete the Mechanical Permits. He said, “okay, what do you need to know?”. I started to read off the list of 3 things that I needed from him and he had no idea what the form was asking for. Of course. Sigh. So, he said he would take the weekend to look up the form and call me with the information. Why is this so complicated?  Hopefully we will have AC before I head back to MD…

Maybe this is just my luck with home improvement projects? I’m convinced a trained monkey could (in general) do a better job than I can.  Let’s take the curtain rod for example. I spent 2 days working on, what the instructions described as, a 30 minute project. All I needed to do was drill 6 holes (2 for each hook), put in wall anchors, screw the hooks into place, and put the rod in it. Easy, right?  Well, maybe for a trained monkey!  I’ll list the ways I failed at this project below, in chronological order of A-HA! moment (the moment I realized what I had done wrong):

1. I drilled the holes in the wall, but did not drill deep enough. I discovered this as I tried to push in the wall anchors and they would only go in 3/4 of the way.  I even tried hammering them in and they wouldn’t move! Drilling FAIL!
2. On the 2nd day I went back and re-drilled all of the holes. In order to drill deep enough I had to stand on a stool holding the drill above my head and push it into the wall for about 5 minutes for each hole. On the 6th hole (that’s right, the last one) I accidentally hit the reverse button on the drill…and it went right in. I’d like to congratulate Anson’s Uncle Joe for figuring this one out!  I even double-checked! At least, I thought I had double-checked…FAIL!
3. After re-drilling all of the holes, I tried to push the wall anchors in. Unfortunately, I had tried to hammer them in the day before. That, apparently had distorted them enough that they would STILL not go in any further than before. FAIL! So, I hammered them again. Secretly, the hooks are probably still about 1/8 of an inch from the wall. But Anson hasn’t noticed. Though that might be due to the fact that I instructed him not to touch the curtains EVER.
4. The first hole, upon putting a mild amount of weight on the hook, would not hold the screw. Hook FAIL! So, I found a random, longer screw in the tool box and used that. I’m pretty sure it went straight through the wall anchor, but it also holds the hook in place. Phew!
5. The middle two holes were uncooperative. Even with extra drilling AND hammering, the wall anchors were still too far out to put the hook up (not to mention, the hammer was taking out chunks of wall instead of pushing the anchor in…oops!).   AND, since I hammered the anchors so much, they are now too soft to remove from the wall. It kind of looks like the wall has little tubes coming out of it. I’m categorizing this one as a hammering FAIL. Though, the curtains cover it up. Speaking of the curtains…
6. We wanted room-darkening curtains. I bought a cream/brown striped set that looked like it matched our bedroom set. When I hung it up, it turned into a 1970’s yellowish-brown. But, since it technically darkens the room and covers the holes in the wall….FAIL-ish?

I’d like to dedicate this post to Angie—and ask her to remember it when I get to MD and she needs help around the house

Today I broke the food processor. I took it out of the pantry, plugged it in and nothing happened. I took apart all the pieces, put it back together, plugged it in…still nothing happened. I eventually gave up and sliced the apples for the pie by hand. I just can’t understand how I broke it. And, what’s worse, the past few times I have broken things, it has happened in sets of 3.  Most recently, I got the xbox, my laptop, and garage door to stop working all in one day. So, now I am sitting in my living room, carefully  considering how likely I am to break the tv remote and how expensive it would be to replace if I do permanent damage (my laptop has survived this before, so I have faith that it can handle my bad luck today). For the next 24 hours I am going to try to avoid touching anything too expensive (no coffee for me!) and hopefully I won’t break anything else. Thank goodness I have such a forgiving husband

We’ve been working on getting achievements for xbox games. Anson has been playing a lot of Mass Effect while I have been working on Fable and CSI: Hard Evidence. CSI was pretty easy and only took a day. Fable is KILLING me. The game has many faults—the most annoying is that it makes your character fat. We looked this up and it takes about 20 minutes of having your character eat celery and then sleep to fix it. For some reason, it’s just not as much fun to play a fat character…and bald. The game also made me bald. ARGH! Anyway, I’m working on one more big achievement and then I’m giving up on it.

Aside from games, I’ve been reading book 8 in the Wheel of Time series. I’m halfway through and I can’t wait to get to the books Brandon Sanderson wrote/is writing (books 12-14). Anson just read a book by a new author he really likes. Unfortunately, that author hasn’t written anything else (yet!). 

The Easter Bunny was kind enough to give us some new books for Easter. Anson got The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. You see, the Easter Bunny saw an interview with Sarah Vowell on the Daily Show. She talked about this book and the EB thought it would be perfect for Anson. I got Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. It’s the same author who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so I’m pretty excited to read it (both of those books are in my ‘to-read’ pile– I really hope the author is good). The EB also gave us a few seasons of 24, so we’ve been watching that in the evenings. Currently, we’re on season 5. Thus far, my favorite part of season 5 is when the CTU staff makes a statement about how the probable success rate of their plan goes down to less than 20% if Jack Bauer isn’t helping them. Hah!

I’ve been doing a bit of church stuff. I still play in the bell choir and our concert is coming up next month. Yay! I also teach a Sunday School class and am being trained to be an Assisting Minister. I guess I have technically already been trained, but they didn’t want to start the newbie out on the Easter services. I’m sure that I will eventually sign up to work some services

And, of course, I’ve been working on planning Angie’s baby shower, Mary’s bachelorette party, and Mary’s bridal shower (though Angie has been taking charge on the last one). I can’t give too many details here, since much of it is secret. I will say, however, that I have not yet been able to get photoshop to do what I want it to—but I will MWA HA HA HA! <that comment was directed at YOU, Mary>

Outside of work, which has been particularly busy recently, Rach and I have been re-watching West Wing and 24.  We finished West Wing a couple of weeks ago, and just finished season 2 of 24 this weekend.  West Wing is definitely one of my favorite shows of all time.  The beauty of the show is that it makes me believe in our government.  It’s obviously idealized, but I love that regardless of whether I happen to agree with the point that the character is trying to make, they are all incredibly competent.  It’s so easy to be cynical about what happens in D.C. and pretty much every time I hear Palin talk I want to gnash my teeth and gnaw at the furniture, but I continue to believe that with enough time and energy we can make progress.  You may hate the healthcare legislation but it gives me hope.  It gives me hope outside of the specifics; it gives me hope that our government isn’t so impossibly paralyzed by partisanship that it’s possible to tackle a problem of such infinite complexity and contention.    So thank goodness for Obama, and thank goodness for West Wing.  Hesiod was right, the box contains more than just earthquakes, snowstorms and war.

Rach and I have also been playing a fair bit of Xbox.  We just finished off King Kong, Lego Indiana Jones, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Assassin’s Creed 2.  King Kong was terrible… terriiiible.  It was a pretty easy 1000 gamer points, but they forgot to add the fun before releasing the game.  The problems are too many to list, but the highlights are the poor controls, amazingly poor combat, and a boring story.  It gets slightly better towards the end but it’s not worth playing unless you want quick points.  The rest of the games were all fun to varying degrees.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a very fast play through, but had a lot of fun moments.  It reminded me of the first time I saw TMNT on television; Aaron and I thought they had a misprint in the TV guide.  It’s geared towards kids, but Rach and I had fun playing it together.  Probably the biggest problem with the game is that the last boss is 10x harder than any other part of the game. 

Lego Indiana Jones was fun but definitely less enjoyable than Lego Batman.  LIJ follows the first 3 Indy movies very closely so there aren’t a lot of surprises.  The puzzles are also a lot less intuitive (in a puzzlehunt we would say they are ‘un-clued’ meaning that you just have to try different things until they work, there is no hint that points you in the right direction).   The other problem with LIJ was that there were too many achievements for which you really didn’t make any progress at all on during story mode.  I don’t mind a few, but a play-through probably only gave us half of the achievements, and the rest were things like ‘swing with Indy’s whip 250 times’. 

Assassin’s Creed 2 was amazing.  It’s one of the best 360 games that I’ve played.  I highly recommend it.  It has a good story line, phenomenal graphics, great game play, intuitive controls and a nice progressive talent disclosure system.  The achievements are a lot of fun, and there are really only one or two ‘annoying’ ones.  Grab this game if you haven’t played it yet!

I just started playing Mass Effect (the first one) and so far it’s really, really good.  It’s a ‘space opera’ RPG and the universe and story line seem great so far.  The game play takes some getting used to, and I currently have it on casual and still end up dying a fair bit, but I’m slowly learning how to control the squad, upgrade items, manage inventory, etc.  It’s funny because it reminds me a lot of one of my favorite games – Star Flight 2.  Star Flight 2 was a DOS game released in 1989 and I played it constantly when it came out.  Obviously there have been changes in 20 years, but it makes realize how astonishing SF2 was for its time.  It had hundreds of worlds to explore, and something like 30 alien races to interact with.  Its graphics are atrocious by today’s standards, but the scale of the game was epic for something that came on a 1.44mb floppy.  Ah, nostalgia…