MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
I love you all and hope your Christmas is wonderful.

Disney and an update

Okay, here are a few pictures from our DisneyWorld trip.

The day we went into Magic Kingdom, we got approached by this smooth talking man. We were sure he was going to try to sell us a vacation package. We were wrong. He asked if we wanted to be the Grand Marshalls in the parade. So we met him in the afternoon and he took us to Mickey's limo.

Even the wheels have Mickey ears.

Here is a view from the car of the crowds watching us.

We were told to wave and smile the whole time. My smile muscles started to spasm during it. Definitely a strange sensation. It was a whole lot of fun though and an absolutely awesome experience.

One of the horses on the carousel has a gold ribbon on it. That horse is Cinderella's. Shauna is on it.

Me with Frozone.

So, this isn't the most detailed picture journal of the trip, but a couple highlights. It was so much fun. AND it was really empty. If I'm lucky, this will become a frequent vacation spot for me.

The GRE went okay. I didn't do incredibly well, but I did well enough to get in. Turns out my GRE prep book wasn't as thorough in the math area as it claimed.
My interview with the school went well. I need to get a couple recommendations in and then my application will be done. My interviewer was pretty encouraging about my chances of getting in. The application committee will review it and then let me know.

The school is out of Kansas, but has a campus in Salt Lake and Denver. The program starts every two years in each location. The SLC one starts in Jan of 2010 and the Denver in Jan of 2011, so I'm actually applying to the SLC program. The program is mostly online, but I do have to go to a few weekend classes. If I go full time, I can be done in a year and a half, but I am told most people take it a little slower and do it in two.

So... hopefully I'll get in and be in school and a lot of debt soon. Oh, it's a Master of Library Science. I'm going to be a librarian.

One day more

Tomorrow I take the GRE. I'm a tad nervous, my practise tests weren't that impressive especially in the vocab area.
On a lighter note, I went to DISNEYWORLD a few weeks ago with my fam. It was so much fun. We also went to Cocoa Beach one day. The water was warm and wonderful. I love the ocean. *sigh*
On monday I have a phone interview with the school I want to get my masters at. Cross your fingers.

Aliens and their relationship with earth

Over the weekend, I watched Knowing. I don't have a clue what that ending was all about, so if you know, enlighten me please. Some aliens, who for some reason care about earth, took children and bunnies to a new planet because...why? Why did the aliens care? Why bunnies? What was the tree supposed to represent. Anyway, it put in my mind all the other alien movies I've seen, Independence Day, Mars Attack, Close Encounters, ET, Explorers, and the latest Indiana Jones.

I've decided that Explorers is my favorite. For those of you who haven't seen it, let me give you a quick synopsis. Three kids (the explorers) build a space ship out of trash when one of them dreams the design. The dreams are sent to him by aliens. The kids get to space and meet the aliens who've been sending the dreams. Apparently, the aliens watch tv and they start quoting movies. Then, the final twist, the alien's dad comes home, is mad that his kids sent the explorers the dreams, and sends the explorers home.

Okay, so how disappointing is that! Humans finally have encounters with aliens and they spend their whole visit quoting movies.

Labor Day!

On Labor day Mom, Dad, and J&J's kids headed to the Hot Air Balloon festival. Not willing to wake the kids earlier than necessary. We caught the tail end.




Since we missed most of the balloons, we headed up for some bouncing fun.

Here's Ash at the end of the obstacle course. The guy running it didn't want to let Brandon in because he was too little, despite my mom's assurance that he could do it. Of course Brandon cruised through it. The kid is CRAZY.

Here's Ash and Brandon making it to the top of the slide. It's quite a climb when you're only three feet tall.

Matthew did this bungee thing. It was insane, he got some great air and loved it. I gotta admit, I was a little jealous.

We stopped to watch the bikers at the velodrome for a bit. Little Brandon was absolutely fascinated by it. Watching them bike around and around and around was a little mesmerizing. I think it would be a lot of fun to try, but I'm not sure I want a bike without brakes!

Wa Wa, Finally, finished the Washington Trip already!

Our last day in Washington we hit a few sites of Seattle, including the boeing airplane museum.
This is a retired Air Force One. Shauna and Sara are doing the presidential wave.

I'm not sure why this car-plane never took off. I totally would have bought one.

The nastiest thing we saw on our trip: the gum wall by Pikes Market.

Wa Wa Washington Day 6

Day 6 we headed down to Mount Rainier.

Thank goodness I live in Colorado where we only have to wear our seatbelts during the day.


Views of Mount Rainier

There were an abnormal amount of people with telescopes. I looked through one and saw the sun. It was pretty neat.

Volcano evacuations are another thing we just don't have in Colorado.

Wa Wa Washington Day 5

On our last day in North Cascades, We did a small hike to Pyramid Lake.
This is the lake.

This is the beginning of the hike, though we took the picture at the end. It wasn't a hard or long hike, but after yesterdays hike, I tired quickly.

As you can see, it was a good day to leave. The clouds rolled in low and it even rained on us during our hike.

We drove into Seattle after the hike. This highway actually is floating on the water.

We went down to the locks and fish ladder. These kayakers looked small next to the boats.

This is the fish ladder. The tide is out in this picture, but if you wait until the tide is in, the water comes to the top of these ladders. We got to see a couple fish jump, but most of the salmon were waiting below the dam for the tide to come in.

Here is a seal just outside the fish ladder. We could see hundreds of huge salmon hanging out here, waiting to go up the fish ladder. This seal probably thought he was in heaven. Pacific Salmon really have quite the task, getting back to their birthing streams.

I just thought it was funny that they had a sign reminding you of the alcohol limit.

Shauna and I ate at Ivars. We had pacific salmon fish sticks and french fries. It was incredibly good.

We weren't the only ones at Ivar's for dinner. Customers are encouraged to feed the seagulls.

After dinner, we got on the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Some family friends have a home there. We slept in their beach house and finally got to get clean. Five days is a long time to go without a shower.

Here is the view of Seattle from their property. They have two dogs too. The next morning, when we let the dogs out, they ran off- and I don't mean they just trotted down the street smelling the roses, they sprinted off. In seconds they were no where to be seen. Even the three-legged one was gone. The family was out of town so we spent over an hour searching for the blasted things before they sauntered home. I am now anti-golden retreiver.

Wa Washington Day 4

Following the advice of a helpful park ranger, we hiked Maple Pass. It was a beautiful hike to the top. The second half of the loop was a steep down grade that killed my knees and feet. We hadn't intended on doing the complete 7 mile loop, but it was hard to stop, every corner revealed another breath taking view.

This is Maple Lake. All the lakes here are glacier formed. There are 312 glaciers in North Cascades National Park.

This trail in the pic above is the beginning of our descent.

This is me celebrating that we reached the top.

This is Shauna on the trail

I take my Jackalope to all the National Parks. Here he is at Diablo Lake. There are 3 lakes here that are all glacier fed with dams to keep them in place. The dams provide almost 30% of Seattle's power. 140,000,000 gallons of water comes out of the North Cascades every year. I learned all this useful information at a ranger program at our campground. Our ranger also informed us that North Cascades is the second least visited NP.

Wa Wa Washington Day 3

We slept at the Heart O'The Hills campground. We wake up early again and head up to the Hurricane Ridge visitor center. It didn't open for a couple hours, so we looked around and then headed up and hiked Hurricane Hill.

Olympic Mountain Range.
The view of the Strait from the top of Hurricane Hill.

Shauna in front of the Olympic Mountains. It was a great hike. We saw a few deer and a bear! When we told the park ranger at the visitor center he got really excited for us (like we were little kids) and had us fill out a form saying where we saw it.

After leaving Olympic we drove and caught a ferry from Port Townsend. (Tip#3 when using small car ferries in Washington, make a reservation) The boats were running an hour behind and we missed the first one. As you can see, we barely made the second one.

Our drive to North Cascades was frustrating. We were spoiled with almost no traffic around Olympic. All these little towns were full of stoplights. On top of the slow ferry, it took most of the day to get there. Finally, we got closer and the towns ran out. We stayed at a nice little campground in the park and took a walk to the visitor center after eating. The water at this campground was really good and we even stopped at the campground two days later to refill our camel backs.

It's not only our third day in Washington, but our third day without showering. I starting to suspect I smell (we've cooked over smokey fires every night), but am not willing to dunk my head under the freezing faucet yet. This is also the first day I have to put on bug repellent. Now that's a delectable smell.

Wa Wa Wait, Emily, you skipped the Twilight segment of the trip

I swear I'm not a Twilight superfan, but you can't drive through Forks without wondering how this town survived B.T. (before Twilight). You'll understand when you see the pics.

The medical clinic had a parking spot for Dr. Cullen.

It's hard to see, but this motel advertises "Twilight Rooms." I'm not sure what that means. Maybe there are cardboard cutouts of Bella and Eddie in the rooms. Or vampires attack you?

In case you are a vampire, the treaty is intact. Don't even think about sneaking across this line.

Shauna and I got in to Port Angeles and spent our drive in it wondering where the heck Bella was when she got chased by those guys. The town isn't cutsie by any means, but it lacked the scary warehouse feel. So we parked and walked down to the pier. Two teenage boys started following us (one with a hood pulled over his head). The pier is full of punk teens and then a lady begged money from us. So, I had to conclude that Bella's experience was realistic after all. To redeem itself, we did finally start talking to a guy who was catching shrimp to go salmon fishing (I so wanted to go). He was really nice and interesting. The next day we stopped in town again and everyone was very normal and friendly. Sunset must bring out the crazies in P.A.


ANOTHER Twilight store. They were EVERYWHERE.

FYI, you can do bus tours of Twilight country.

I gotta admit, I really liked the area and just might move there someday.

Wa Wa Washington Day 2

We woke (way too early) on Kalaloch Beach to some intense fog. We headed down to the beach where we could barely see ten feet in front of us.

Usually, you could easily see the water in this shot of me munching on my s'more poptart.

After packing up our campsite (tip#2 if you only unpack the tent and sleeping necessities each night, you can be on the road in less than five minutes).

Our next adventure was into the Hoh Rainforest. Washington is in a drought, but we couldn't tell. Shauna is at the other end of this 190 ft tree. The trees were amazing.

After leaving Hoh, we went to Mara Beach, just north of La Push. It had these amazing Sea Stacks. The stack on the right in the background had a giant hole. When the tide is out, you can get to it. We did this at high tide and were a little worried about getting stuck. It's still a little foggy on the coast and we couldn't see the stacks until we reached them.

This is me with huge seaweed thing. It was really rubbery and I had visions of it coming to life and attacking me.

Here is Shauna at Crescent Lake on our way to our campground located at Heart O'The Hills.

We drove up to an overlook of the Strait Of Juan De Fuca and found a WWII bunker, built to protect the strait from invasion.