We are doing well

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

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

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

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

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.