Ladies Luau

In honor of Carly's upcoming wedding, a ladies luau was held this weekend as a celebration. It was a very festive party and I tried my hand at bartender for awhile.

Leigh and Beth livened it up a bit!
Cosmopolitans, or pink moose as we named them, were my fav. Carly's fav is a blue hawaiian.
Here is the bride to be with her mom...


The SU crew from left to right: Carly, Leigh, Monica, Beth, me, Muriel and Diannie!



And Beth and I...just chillin'!


Congrats, Carly!

Faculty and Staff Service

In lieu of a faculty and staff summer picnic, the HR department coordinated a day of voluntary service for us on Thursday. Another way that SU is trying to enhance it's committment to serving the community. It was wonderful to get out of the office and chat with folks from other departments.

The group that I was a part of ventured down to a park in the International District, Kobe Terrace Park, to clear a pathway and remove ivy. Although I have been on way too many service projects which entail the oh so exciting work of removing ivy, I enjoyed myself and the workout. :)

Lake Goodwin

I haven't blogged about Lake Goodwin since July when Blayne and Megan were visiting. Since then, though, we have visited several times but I don't have many pictures to show for it apparently. The first weekend in August, we barbequed, swam, went out on the boat, and played cards with Myles and Michelle. I particularly enjoyed the swim and my courage since I am usually wierded out by swimming in lakes. I also had my first Stanwood Fair experience. It is a small town country fair...so small that it didn't even have scones. Not to worry though, it was a good time. Here we are on the shuttle...

And enjoying the tractors and exhibits...




It turns out Tyler and Myles have almost the same hats, such great taste, I know!

More recently, I attended my first Lake Goodwin annual picnic complete with fun games such as the balloon stomp! The Vixie family members were victorious at most of the games, even winning this very exciting bubble set! :)



Fun times!

changes

Please bear with me as I make some changes to my blog. I've almost run out of space by uploading my pictures to picasa and blogger. With the help of Rebecca, I have a new blog header image, a picture I snapped of downtown Seattle while on the Bremerton ferry. I figured out a way to widen the layout to view larger imagines and am using a new method of linking photos to my blog. Phew, these are a lot of changes for a basic blogger like myself :) I have a few more things I want to perfect, and then I will get sick of this layout and change to something else ;)

2 of my favorites

In no particular order: 1) my blankie and 2) my buttercup.
Thanks to Tyler's iphone photography when I forgot my camera.

seattle sunset pictures

Lynne and I enjoyed a *beautiful* Seattle evening at the Edgewater the other night. We were lucky to find deck seating literally on the edge of the water. We enjoyed her sister Bobbi's delicious lemon drop cocktails and of course, the scenery.

hb2me

The title of this post was inspired by the rap birthday song that uncle Ed sang to me, what a talented artist he is! So I didn't find myself particularly excited about my birthday this year, but it turned out very nice. It even rained, just the weather we needed! I celebrated last Friday in Auburn with the family at the Rock pizza (yum). John even joined in on the fun. Becca enjoyed her bucket full of goodness, and I enjoyed a few beers! Mom, Dad, Levi and Isaac were also there, I apparently just wasn't very photo happy that night.



On my actual birthday, I had to work. But, at least I got to see my favorite advisee, Fisch, and eat Skillet Street for lunch with Lynne. Tyler and I tried Bamboo Garden, a Chinese restaurant in Bellevue, that was recommended to us and had spicy garlic eggplant and mongolian beef. Delicious!

As if there wasn't enough celebrating, we barbequed kabobs and enjoyed a fabulous cake and good times playing poker and drinking red eye at mom and dad's this weekend.

hb2me and here's to a wonderful year!

Ah, the memories!

I uploaded some old tunes onto my ipod last weekend. This one brought back treasured Mexico memories. Feel free to dance to the video, I did :)

my pal

Barlee, as you may already know, is a giant ball of love. She is the greatest dog ever! 172 pounds of cuteness! This weekend she found a new bed to hang out in. Keep in mind that she is supposed to be an outside dog :) I *LOVE* HER!

best hike...ever!?

I have had so many friends recommend Lake 22 that I lost track. So glad we hiked up there and drug our friend Garin with (a very entertaining hiker). It is about 13 miles northeast of Granite Falls and well worth the drive. Not too hard, not too easy. Very rewarding scenery and still snow to cool you off from the heat! Next time, I'll bring a swim suit and hop in.







Click on this photo to enlarge it and check out how the water sparkles. So beautiful!

Date

Tyler and I ventured out the weekend before last for a hot date. I mean that in the literal sense folks. We played tourist and hopped on the Argosy Lake Washington cruise.
Cool points: seeing the creater of Microsoft Word/Excel's funky house...

Bill Gates' house, or shall I say palace?! A lot of it is shaded by the trees...but the coolest part that was described about his house was that it has a trampoline room which is padded on all sides. And the artwork, room temperature and phone call routings change according to who is in each room.

Cruisin' under the 520 bridge...

Trying to stay cool...

Here's the boat!

Me being serious for once :)

And our fabulous appetizer at Purple Wine Bar and Cafe for dinner. I want to go back there, it was amazing! I had a pinot gris, this tasty caprese salad, chicken marsala, and watermelon sorbet.

Super fun date!

Campus walkabout and library updates

About a week ago, I decided to head out around campus with my camera and take a few snapshots. Flowers and the library were a theme here. First, for flowers, I found many varieties and beautiful scenes.





Second, the library. Have I anounced the library transformation yet? Well, the SU library is undergoing a much needed major overhaul: the largest capital campaign project in SU history. It will reopen in Fall 2010. If you are interested in the progress and viewing a live web cam of the construction, click here.