Spangles in Seattle

Oh so much

2008-07-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

We still have tons of pictures to post, sorry we are so bad at it.
Here are some of when Travis' mom visited.
We went to Deception pass.

There are many islands on the west coast of Washington. Deceptions pass is where a couple come together and there are two bridges connecting them. It's beautiful.

More Pictures

2008-06-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

Moby is getting big, here are some pictures of our bunny.

Me and Moby

So cute.

Travis and Moby

sleepy bunny

Also the Rhododendron is Washington's state flower and we have a huge one in our front yard. These are pictures of when it bloomed...lovely

We are doing great!

2008-06-03T17:24:00.001-07:00

We have been up to so much lately here are some pictures to prove it! I'll update a little each day so there aren't a million pictures in one post :)

First to get ready for the church softball league we went to the batting cages and putt putt.
*Putt Putt is essential to preparing for softball

You've gotta love community helmets :(

Travis up to bat

Then on to Putt Putt

It had a shipwreck theme

Well...that is enough for now. Check again tomorrow

2008-05-10T18:57:00.001-07:00

Dad came for a visit last month, here are some of the places we went:

Things are going well out here, its taking a while to warm up. We've held around the 60's and hopefully it will get warm sooner. From what we hear, winter has been hanging on unusually long. I'm starting the last week of my 3 month contract to hire position. So hopefully they'll ask me to sign on so I can get out of the contract jobs. Danielle is deciding on what she wants to do this next year. She's been thinking about moving to Americorp for more relevant experience and they might have a decent program for financing further eduction. Which is what she'll probably have to do if she wants to be an RD. Congrats to Kyle for graduating from Purdue!

We are doing well

2008-03-18T17:42:00.003-07:00

Hello Everyone...

Just so you know we are doing well...we've been a bit busy and our internet have been a bit grumpy so that explains the lack of communication.
We will be updating soon with pictures from a couple outings we've had, my new haircut, and Steve's visit (travis' dad).

Soon...very soon. (hopefully)

My Week Off

2008-02-14T23:07:00.001-08:00

My contract at Casey Family Programs ended the month of January, and Robert Half (my agency) lined up another job at a company called ThePlatForm starting this week (we knew about it before my time at Casey was up). So I had a week off and I was looking forward to spending 40 hrs plus playing video games. Unfortunately when I went to fire the computer up Monday morning I found my mother board dead as a duck (are they really that dead?). This was a sad time, forcing me to be productive and check some things off the to-do list. I spent my Tuesday shopping around and ordering components for my next computer which was nice. I hadn't thought about it but most of the parts in my pc where 6 years old, and sure that my CD Burner was around 10ish years old. So all in all this was a good thing. Wednesday I finally got out of the house and checked out Tiger mountain. I went hiking on the northern part, which is called Trail Head park and has somewhere around 81 miles of Trails. Not knowing anything about any of them I chose the one that most appealed to me, the Poo Poo View Point Trail. Yes it was spelled exactly like that. In the end it might not have been the best method to choose my hike (had some hard times) but it was well worth the troubles.

This was how the trail started, lots of Ferns and Moss.

Its so wet that trees can grow together and not starve each other out. This is a smaller version of what you see out here and guess what... yeah its covered in moss

There is so much nature, it is a little weird hearing sirens sometimes, or seeing these paths cut through the forest for ATV's (and another path cut for lines).

Didn't get a good shot of this, but it looked like part of the rock fell away and this gigantic tree is hanging/growing off the side of it. But of course it wouldn't be complete if it wasn't covered in moss.

Here is another attempt at that shot.

I didn't realize how high it was and surprised to see little patches of snow.

Wheres that trail?!?

It didn't take much, it seemed every bend revealed more snow.

If you thought the moss was bad, the mushrooms were practically taking over.

I took 5 pics and tried to place them together, not the best job in the world. But it should give you an idea of how big these trees are. Really these pictures don't do it justice, you should just come out and see for yourself =)

~Travis

It's been so long

2008-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

Sorry we haven't updated this thing in months but we are back in action.

Over the past few months we have had...Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and we have also taken a trip to good ol' Indiana. Then we took another cross country road trip back to Seattle with our good friend Kayla.

Here are some pictures from all those events.

This is our beautiful fireplace, so nice during the rainy days

This is Thanksgiving at our house mate's house...woo hoo for Monopoly.

Amanda and her big money monopoly skills.

Group picture on the Shelton (small town outside of Seattle) train.

The boys trying to catch the train...

We made our own stockings this year out of wool sweaters...this one is mine full of goodies!

Here is Travis' stocking and our gifts under our tree (a rosemary tree from trader Joe's)

Christmas morning! We were trying to get moby (our bunny) in the picture all morning then she finally got in one, by accident.

My Tea Pot! woo hoo

The mountains were very pretty on our drive back to Seattle...but we didn't take as many as we should have.

Kayla helped us drive out, it made the trip so much nicer!

Pretty mountains again.

Sleepy Travis in the back seat.
More Mountains.

Now...I figure you are all wondering what we do out here with our free time.

well we drink tea.

Eat cupcakes, the one Travis is eating is a candied yam cupcake with marshmallow cream frosting...yum

This is a Chai cupcake it was great.

we can see Mt. Rainer a couple blocks from our house.

We drink more tea...(this is bubble tea) it's our favorite. Notice the giant straw with bubble going up it.

We go to Coffee and Comics, to drink buy there coffee and read their comics for free!!

And we go to the beautiful downtown library, it is completely made of glass.

Well we hope you have enjoyed catching up on our lives...we miss you all!

Job Updates

2007-10-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

Can't remember who knows what about our jobs but we have em!

Danielle has been working at Star Bucks for a week and a half now. There are a lot of good things about it. It's only 3 blocks away so she can walk, we get 30% in store merchandise, drinks, and a free pound of coffee per week. awesome. She'll be working around 32 hours a week, and this will give her time to find more of a career oriented position instead of taking the first thing that comes along to her.

This week I just started working for a place called C a s e y family programs. We do programs and support for foster families and foster kids. It is a really good work environment and every one is very friendly. I'm doing a combined job, where I do applications support and development. Meaning... if you can't accomplish a task within a computer program you would email me your question and then I answer it. It also means if there's a problem with the software, web page, etc. Then I would fix that as well. Currently I'm training which doesn't mean much, so I don't have a lot to say about it. But I do have a lot to say about my cubical which is set up against a window. It looks out onto the Puget Sound (boats, bi-planes), and on clear days I can see the mountains. This is definitely a step up from working in a pole barn and being surrounded by pastel colors.

So thats the update, I've been watching Seattle temps compared to Winona Lake/Warsaw. While it wasn't 80 degrees here monday, it's been generally warmer here than home. so ha ha.

~Travis

Domo arigato Mr. Roboto

2007-10-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

This has taken awhile but we've been taking pictures of the places were visiting on the weekends and I finally have them loaded on my computer!

Our first free weekend we went to ROBOCON.
This is a group from TheyShallWalk.org They've created an exoskeleton that will use hydraulics to walk for a person. This is for someone who has lost movement in their legs and need to train them how to walk. The exoskeleton carry's all of the persons weight and does all the work for them. One of the inventers (the man in the suit) was paralyzed in the army when his parachute iddn't deploy. He came up with the idea when he was reading Battlefield Earth during his hospital stay.

Instead of being on GameBoy this Tetris game is made up of LED Buttons.
Thats Danielle playing it, the guy in the orange bandanna is Bubbah, to the left of him is Elyse, Julie, and then half of Amanda.

And this is what we came for. ROBO-COMBAT!!!

Heres a video of a fight:

The next day we went to Octoberfest where they had their annual Texas Chainsaw Carving Competition.

And then yesterday we went to several farms for Pumpkin Day of Fun.

Our Info

2007-10-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

hello everyone. Just a quick post on our info, if I make this easier to read then it's easier for spammers to pick it up so i put it into an image... Enjoy!

EDIT:
Just to let everyone know, this is actually SKYPE. We're trying this out instead of going through shady Comcast or Embarq. So currently we just have the computers running it in our room. If you call and we're upstairs or something we probably won't hear it. But leave a message and we will call back. We are also working on getting a running computer upstairs so hopefully it won't be a problem in the near future.

any ways, if you have high-speed internet, you can download SKYPE here

and can talk to us on your computer (you need speakers/headset and a microphone) for free! Our Skype username (so you know who to call) is SpanglesInSeattle

2007-09-24T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, this is Danielle...I personally haven't posted in a while and wanted to let you know that I am doing well and LOVING it here. I love the city and all the people we live with. I have had a lot of interviews so it's nice because I have a lot of options on where I want to work. I had an interview at barnes and noble today...that is really where I think I want to work. They said that they will call in 5 to 7 days to let us know (it was a group interview). I have two interviews tomorrow. One at starbucks and one at the university of Washington (for a temp job). Oh yeah, Travis might just have another interview coming up soon if we decide to go forward with it...it's for a 3 month contract job, we will let you know what we decide.

Also if you guys could be praying for me...I have had some pretty bad neck pain off and on for a while now. I actually made and appointment w/ a chiropractor today, hopefully that will help. I just really want to start a new job healthy and pain free :)

Well, we miss you guys a lot thanks for all your support and prayers! Also hopefully we will have a phone soon.

more to come

2007-09-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

We are in the works of installing a phone line for the house. So hopefully you'll be hearing from us soon. Danielle has an interview tomorrow afternoon at "The Crumpet Shop". It's a unique tea house that bakes and sells crumpets in Pike Place. It sounds like something she would really enjoy so hopefully she'll find a position there. I have really havn't started my job search b/c of the things we're trying to take care of at the house and also b/c the employment agency had me in the process for a job the Thursday we got into town. After a phone interview I was told the schedule would be working Tuesday and Thursday 4pm-2am and then on Saturday and Sunday from 8am-6pm. I declined it the morning after. It's a little difficult to sleep during the day with 8 other people living here, and it would also be hard to get involved in anything with me working every weekend. So I'll probably get started on the job search some time soon.

Just to spice up this post heres a video of us when we got into town:

Here are some up close pictures of what happened under the truck:

I'm not familiar with whats back there but the tower pretty much labeled it as "Screwed up". Rear-bearings froze up and the drive shaft tore through itself. Something to that effect. But it got us to Seattle, so it did it's job.

One more thing, it's rained twice since we've been here and the rest of the days have been sunny and clear. The temperature has been around 50-60, it's been a nice change.

Safe n' Sound

2007-09-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

we don't have any pictures uploaded yet, but we're here at our new home and with all of our junk. Just wanted everyone to know. the reason we haven't made any calls yet is because 2 miles before our destination the ford took a crap and we've been running around since then. We merged from I-90 to I-5, put it in first and started to roll backwards with a clunking sound accompanying.

our drive train broke and then some. so we stuck around got it towed to the nearest mechanic and everything we've had to move/get has taken us twice as long b/c we've needed to find the vehicles.

but over all things are going well and working out for us. Thanks for all of your support.

p.s. also we were counting on a telephone being around when we got here. but everyone has cell phones and canceled the lan-line so thats something else we'll have to work on.

also, if you have trouble leaving comments make sure your checking "anonymous" as an anonymous poster.

~thanks Travis

Day 3: Trucks still kick'n

2007-09-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

Found another hotel with internet so we're able to post again (this is travis). I'm just going to post a lot of pictures of today and leave comments:

Our first stop was just a few blocks from the hotel, the worlds only Corn Palace in Mitchell SD (there have been debates on it's location).

corn palace display

Corn Palace Child Abuse

Last time I was at the CP, it was a dirty flea market. The girls had seen it before and were excited to see it again. We were in for a big surprise :

A basket ball court full of senior citizens playing shuffle board. Woo Hoo, many sad and disappointed faces during that hour.

This is us at the Bad Lands, the pictures don't to it justice.

Finally we made it to Wall Drug

Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and now...

2007-09-05T22:18:00.001-07:00

SOUTH DAKOTA

Yes kids we are already in South Dakota...mitchell to be exact, home to the corn palace.

As our title explains we have already been through 4 states. We have waited in the great Chicago traffic, munched on some lovely squeaky cheese (cheese curds), and ...well we didn't do much in Minnesota. Now we are in South Dakota and loving it. Here are some pictures of our travels.

Wisconsin cheese house

Welcome to minnesota

Had a little trouble coming into Minnesota, this is a picture of our fuel filter. We thought we had run out of gas, but really, so much crud and rust was caught in the screen of our filter that gas would no longer get through. Yeah, you used to be able to see through it. We had to stop in a small town and luckily a car lot / mechanic / town mayer (jk) had an extra one we could buy. I replaced it and we went on our way.
-Travis

Tomorrow we plan on seeing the corn palace, a ghost town, and the badlands. We are all very excited. Thanks again everyone for your support and prayers. We are very blessed to have such great friends and family.

Tomorrow Morning

2007-09-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

We will be leaving for Seattle tomorrow morning! The long awaited date has arrived. We are excited and bit melancholy because we are leaving so many people love, but we both know it is going to be a great adventure for us. Please be praying for us, as we will be driving and lot in an old truck. We will miss you all so much! Until our next update...

One Week

2007-08-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

One week from tomorrow we will be westward bound to the great land of Washington.

Currently we are packing our butts off and trying to visit with as many people as we can.