"snow" day

Today the school district canceled school due to snow, except the expected snow never came. Bryce worked from home since it did snow a ton in Everett. It is 9:23 PM and it STILL hasn't snowed a bit all day. I spent the day noshing on xmas cookies and getting chores done.

Feds drop interest rates to near zero

Ok the gov is making it awfully hard to NOT want to buy a house with the money we've saved for NZ. Now I'm falling asleep at night dreaming of fixing up cute little ramblers in Woodinville...

Poor plants

Here's a before picture of our banana trees, sometime in November.


Here's an after picture I took today after temperatures in the 20's for the past few days.
:-(

The agave (in the back) actually isn't doing too bad! I want a ton of agave when we get a house.

Cookies and Ice

Sunday morning we took an icy somewhat dangerous walk to the sculpture park.




Then I took an icy, somewhat dangerous drive to West Seattle to bake Christmas cookies with Christine and her coworker, Kelly, at a church kitchen.

Cookies and Snow

Saturday was fun. I baked linzer cookies with Kari, which are my new favorite cookies to make. They have cinnamon and lemon zest in them which make them smell soooo yummy when they bake. Bryce and I got these weird jams while we were in Hilo. I put starfruit-lime marmalade in the linzer cookies, it was actually pretty good!


It snowed that night in nice big puffy flakes. Ryan was over and we all headed to the deck. There, I took the best picture ever!

more NZ discussions

I admitted to Bryce that I'm not a big fan of going to NZ during their winter (if we don't end up moving there). For one thing, I'd miss out on Seattle's summer (the best time to be here) and I'd rather be in NZ when it's warm. That leaves my winter break... which isn't long enough...

Now I'm even wondering if we should go to NZ on vacation (as a back up plan if we don't move there). If we don't move to NZ, we are in a good position to buy a home. NZ is expensive and we should probably use the NZ $$ for the home instead of a long vacation.

We only have the studio until the end of March.

It would be strange to be in NZ for several months this summer while paying a mortgage (assuming we buy this spring). We could buy a house when we get back, but that means more temporary housing and more moves.

hmmm

No job in Wellington

I finally heard back from Geoff at the NZ contracting agency, the job in Wellington is no longer available. From my own research, I think that the job was in a group home, so I'm not too terribly disappointed about this particular lead. However, despite getting accepted by NZSTA, we're getting pretty pessimistic about actually moving to NZ. Geoff admitted that the economy in NZ is not doing very well, but more jobs may pop up after the new year.

Bryce and I have discussed that after all this planning, we should still go to NZ for an extended trip this summer if we don't actually move there.

NZSTA--Accepted

I finally heard back from the NZSTA that I've been accepted to their speech therapists' assn. Great news! But I haven't heard anything about the Wellington job. With the NZSTA acceptance, I can go about getting my work visa.

Turns

Ryan and I decided to get up early and head towards Muir Sunday to see about earning some turns. So after a long drive we at Longmire at 7:00 to a....... closed gate bearing a sign suggesting and opening time of 9:00 am...
The worst thing is I had read online people complaining about the gate opening late for plowing, but I had no idea when "late" was. Now I know.
So we had two hours to kill in a wet, dark Longmire afte 4-5 cups of coffee in a Subaru with no cell coverage. Needless to say a level spastic bored ensued for ~60 minutes when we got suspicious that the gate may be open(we weren't in clear in sight). Sure enough they had opened the gate at ~8:00 and we were on our way, though we'd lost the right to be the first car up.
We arrived at a snow covered lot and low vis conditions.
We donned our gear and headed up slope. Following the normally familiar Skyline Trail was slightly more challenging with out 400 ft vis, and ground conditions between 1 inch of ice and 10 inches drifts of powder but we managed to follow it almost the whole trip. We arrived at a snowfield under the step ascent to Panorama Point and confirmed our decision to not bother going higher. A solo skier right behind us and 5 minutes later 4 hikers proceeded on to Panorama point. We saw both return within about 30 minutes reporting a near white out, not surprising given the lack of features past pebble creek and the sub 1/4 miles visibility and 20+ mph wind.
We dug a mediocre protective trench out near a large bolder(probably not good protection after all), removed pack and proceeded. The medium depth powder and gentle slope led to little excitement though a pleasant run while dodging scattered rocks. We did a second lap and decided that we needed a kicker on a short steep section. 1 hours later we had a knoll of loose powder and scatter old corn. This "kicker" offered a distraction from the conditions as we were sheltered.
After giving up on that we returned to our packs above and met some rocket scientists in frozen jeans. The winds had increased and the temps actually decreased through out the day. We ate lunch as we watched them ascend to P.P. (I later estimated the windchill to ~6 degress) till we lost sight in the swirling snow. After our Ramen and tall can of Busch we heard said geniuses hooting and hollering their way down and wining about their frozen jeans. We broke "camp" and rode down our slightly farther than we had, but no where near as far as Julie and I had 2 Julys ago(within 200 of the lot). I proceed to put a gouge in my board. Down hiking is not fun but at least we were leaving the coldest parts behind.
A quick load of the gear and we headed to Ashford
Copper creek (a climbing class discovery) blackberry pie and stew provided after ride refreshment capped a rough day of riding but alas a still good day.

crying with laughter: FSM hate mail

I am reading the FSM website and just cracking up!! Read the hate mail for some great fun. Here's one gem:

I find this religion absolutly rediculous. In fact, it is so rediculously stupid that it has turned me off to any type of religion at all.

Someone…please change my opinion/views on this matter. I want to know if this is real and why you beleive. But until i get answers…your all f------ crazy. I mean listen to yourselves!!!!

‘OH YOUR GREAT NOODLYNESS!!!’

‘ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY INVSIBLY MOSTER MADE OUT OF SPAGHETTI THAT CAN FLY!!!’

…do you hear yourselves when you speak??? Im not trying to be mean, and this is not hate mail in any way im just curious to the point where it enrages me!!!

Someone please answer my questions!!!!

Explain this religion to me!!

why spaghetti? And why pirates?? What proof do you have??? Someone get back to me. I must know.

-Emilee

FSM

I have just learned about the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!! My faith in humanity is restored!



Click here to read the open letter to the Kansas School Board and to see the miracle of the FSM in chocolate milk!