Cooper

This is Sarah's dog, Cooper. Whenever we come over to visit, Matt and Cooper chase eachother around the apartment. After the action. Matt was tired; Cooper wanted more.

Bainbridge Island

We went to Bainbridge Island. They were practicing for a terrorist attack on the ferry system. Here you can see the smoke, helicopter, and coast guard. There were supposed to be manicans floating in the water, but we didn't see them.

We got Matt's favorite sushi: the dragon roll. Mmm. Sushi...

On the way back there was a nice view of Mount Raineer. The sunset was nice too.

Baseball at Safeco Field

Anita and Jim visited to see Jim's favorite baseball team play our local team. In this picture Ichiro Suzuki is at bat. He's the star player for the Seattle Mariners. Jim was happy that his team won. It's nice that they can come down for the day.

Sarah and Nissim

Sarah and Nissim came to visit us in Seattle from New York City.

Nile and Matt took a few days off to be on vacation with them. We all went on the underground tour of historic Seattle. Seattle burned down, and in the process of reconstruction much of it was left underground. This view is looking through a sky light. The glass used for the sky light had special chemicals to prevent it from turning blue or green with age. Instead it turned purple. Throuought much of Seattle there are these beautiful flower baskets.

We took a day trip up to Vancouver B.C.. This is at the Chinese garden. We saw a turtle that appeared to be stuck on a rock and cooking in the hot sun, so we pried it off with a stick to get it back in the water. The turtle immediatly tried (unsuccessfully) to get back on the rock. We felt really bad. Among the turtles there were some frogs, coy, and ducks. We liked the frogs best. Here they are on some lilly pads. In Vancouver's Stanley park we came across what appears to be an abandonded bear pit.

As we do with every visitor, we went to Bainbridge Island for sushi. Mmm sushi.

Work in progress...

Here's our chandelier. We haven't finished working on it, but we added more colors to make it "pop". We had already started in this direction before we got everyone's feedback about making it "all clear" or "all blue". We plan to get rid of the fake candles and use smaller lights. We're not sure how that will work yet.

Our new fridge!

Yesterday we finally got our new fridge and today the appliance recycling people came to pick up the old fridge! Now we are waiting for Sarah Rudd to come and name the fridge! (Sarah got a job at Microsoft that gave Matt a bonus that paid for the fridge) Sarah Elzas suggested that we should get a statue or a plaque for the fridge. :-)

Bluegrass in Clatskine Oregon

This weekend we went to a bluegrass festival in Clatskine Oregon. Matt's parents played a set there on Sunday morning. They sold strawberry short cake, so we ate that for lunch. The drive home was very nice. We took some blurry pictures of cows and other scenery.

Sarah visits

Sarah, Nile's roommate from college, came to visit and interview at Microsoft. We took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island for sushi.

The weather has been beautiful and you can see Mt. Reineer. Sarah's boyfriend is studying to work as a pilot for a ferry or cargo ship, so she was happy to see that Seattle's port is active. On the way back there was a beautiful sunset.

The torchlight parade was that night too. The floats got caught on the lines that suspend the traffic signals. This is the tillamook cow. She was just freed from the cables.

Help!

We want to know if we need to increase the number of colored crystals or change the number of clear ones. Please let us know what you think!

Flying Dragon

We went to Anacortes this weekend to help Jim unpack. We got a lot of unpacking done, but we also were able to relax. It was nice to get out of the city for a couple days. This is the view from their new house. We thought this cloud looked like a dragon.

Biohazard Rasins

Nile got the raisins at the doctor's office, but had trouble getting the box closed, so they gave her a biohazard bag. Matt thought they were contaminated and was wondering what they were doing in the house.

Climbing at Vantage

Matt went climbing with some friends from work again this weekend. They had to go out to Vantage which is about 2 hours away because the weather hasn't been nice on the weekends in Seattle. Everyone did some lead climbing. Here is Matt nearing the top of one of the shorter routes.

And this is Julie's first lead climb ever. Setting up the anchor at the top is what we needed most practice with. Here is Ari looking like a pro.

We also lead a really tall climb. This was probably about 100 feet tall.

New Pantry Shelving

Over the last two weekends we have transformed our pantry by installing new shelves.

Near the rear door we used to have a book case, but it didn't let the door open. We really only had 8x12 inches of space, so we put in 12 very small shelves for canned goods.

On the back of the door, we installed a rack for our brooms and mops.

And on the other side of the door we installed L-shaped shelves for cook books and cooking supplies.

Next task is repainting and getting a new fridge!!!

Rock climbing outside

Matt went rock climbing with Ari and Ivan who are friends from work. It looks like a Martian landscape, but really they are just in Eastern Washington. They had to squeeze through this little crack to get to the climbs.

This was Ari's frist lead outside. He took extra care to tie a prefect knot. They started on some really easy lead climbs. In Eastern Washington the sun was strong and the weather was much nicer than in Seattle.

Our last climb of the day was a little harder than we thought it would be. The climb got harder as it went higher. This was also the longest climb of the day. So Matt decided he had had enough of this and slipped into the crack on the side. In the last picture, you can see Matt's elbow as he emerges to finish the climb.

Starting a sperm bank

The purpose of the little window cut in the side is to collect pollen. Looking in the window, you can see the strings of pollen coming down to the female parts of the flower. The female florets are no longer receptive, so this plant will not self. Nile put a bag under the pollen to catch it as it fell down. It wasn't as successful as she had hoped, so she had to scoop up the pollen with a paint brush.