So much to do, so little time!

I just realized that TUESDAY is July 1st!  For some reason I was thinking it was Wednesday, which isn't that far off, but would have made me feel a bit better... I have a lot to do!  Here's a list of the things I can think of at this very moment:

1.  Find a boarding place for Taco for both of our trips.  We're going to take a little tour of two different places today, but the biggest thing is hoping they have an opening for both trips!  I know for sure one of the places has the opening for Tennessee... but since Hawaii is so close to the 4th of July, they seem to be a little full... yikes!

2.  Work around my work schedule... of course I have a lot to do, and I'm working all weekend... that never helps!

3.  a. Think about packing to go to Moses Lake on the 1st...

3.  b. And then be ready to come home, unpack, wash clothes, repack, take Taco to his boarding place, and get ready to leave for Hawaii on the 8th!

4.  Wedding wedding wedding stuff... yes we're married, but we decided to still do a ceremony in Moses Lake since we just went to the courthouse.  Right now, it's proving to be MUCH more difficult than I had anticipated.  I WILL have invitations out before we go to Hawaii!

5.  Hope to God that the bridesmaid dresses get here on time... I feel like I'm nagging the bridesmaids, but they NEED to order their dresses... ugh.

6.  Try to make some definite appointments and plans for when we're in Tennessee later in July... ie appointments with job prospects, our realtor, apartments in case we don't go the house route, and of course Jason wants to find time to fish and scout his hunting lease!

7.  Try to get up to Dayna and Shane's to help in case the baby comes.

8.  Return my printer (it's under warranty so it's ok) because it decided it doesn't want to feed paper without jamming anymore... which makes it difficult to print invitation stuff!

So yeah... those are the things on my mind right now--busy busy busy!!  Sorry no pictures this time, I just needed a little vent session and a place to write down all the things I need to do... and I know I won't lose this list like I might if it was just on a piece of paper.

Mt St Helens

We've been going on little day trips here and there lately.  It's nice when Jason only works 3 days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), and those are only half days at that!

Our trip yesterday was down to Mt St Helens and the Johnston Ridge Observatory.

The mountain from the first visitor center... but you can see the damage it did in the Toutle River Valley.
If you look real close, on the left side of the picture you can see Mt Adams peaking over the other hills.  It was a pretty good day... clear, but not too hot.  We also learned that the little mounds in the valley are called "hummocks".  They are big land deposits left over from the landslide that began the eruption.

We also saw a TON of elk.  You might have to click on the picture to see them, but they are down there.  There's an entire herd, and even a few babies.  I zoomed in as far as I could... that's why we had binoculars! ;)
Good thing the mountain decided not to blow up yesterday... we would definitely not be alive!

Jason's picture taking "skills"... haha.
Oh yeah.... and we found Big Foot too!!
Once we got home, we decided to try out the new grill we bought last week.  Jason decided it's the man's job to grill... I think his words were something like "I can't tell people my wife grilled for me!"  He was very cautious and afraid something was going to blow up because he's never really used a propane bbq before, but I told him mom puts meat on hers and doesn't watch it constantly, so he got a bit better after that.
It turned out VERY good.  Steak, baked potato, and corn... YUM!!  Jason says we'll be using the grill more often because it's easier than he thought it would be!  

Fishing

Happy first day of summer!  Since we knew it was going to be a nice day today, we decided to rent a boat off the dock at Spanaway Lake.  We still have the trolling motor and battery from the boat Jason had before the deployment, so we just needed a little boat.  At $4.25 an hour, it's not bad there at the dock!

We were on the water at about 8 this morning, and fished until just after noon.  I'm not allowed to give away Jason's fishing secrets, because as he says, "the two things you want to protect are fishing secrets and hunting spots!"  We ended up with 6 fairly good-sized trout, and I also had two that got off my hook while I was reeling them in.  There were a bunch of other bites on our lines too.  Apparently we were the first ones to catch anything this morning because the guy at the dock that we rented from said he was told we were the first to get anything... "two right off the bat".  True true...

I was smart enough to wear sunscreen on my face, but didn't think about my arms, so they're VERY red.  I guess I learned my lesson... even if it's earlier in the day, put sunscreen on everywhere!!!

Here's a few more pictures of our fishing adventures...

Jason caught 4 of these, and I caught two.  We would have tied if my other two didn't get off my hook... darn fish just want to taunt me!

Nicholas's First Birthday!

I promised some pictures from our nephew's first birthday party (and the reason we came over to Moses Lake this weekend). I took a lot of pictures (so this is a REALLY long post!), and Jason took some from the day before too, so bear with me!  Saturday we went over so Jason could meet Nicholas since he'd never seen him in person before...
Nicholas is already walking... and I caught him mid-stride in this one.  He's walking past his sandbox, but he doesn't know there is sand in it yet!
Jason was put to work to get ready for the party!

And while mowing the lawn, found a little friend.  Ben and Kelli have a skunk family in their backyard, and this little one was just sleeping in the neighbor's crawl space on the side of their house.
After being put to work, Jason got to play with Nicholas.  It doesn't take Nicholas long to warm up to new people, especially when he's being tickled!Cuddle time!

Uncle Jason likes to make funny faces too!!
Apple juice leaks and makes for a sticky front, but it didn't seem to bother him much... he still pulled things off the shelves and out of the drawers.
Sunday was the big party, and Kelli was excited to show off her garden because it's the first time she's had a garden... and things are actually growing!!
Nicholas's first chance with the sand.
He likes it.
Lunchtime... he's a good little eater!
Petting Great Aunt Ann's dog, Lena.
I think Nicholas wasn't too excited about his birthday and the cake... big yawn!

Nicholas wasn't going fast enough, so Ben decided to help him out and eat some frosting too.
At least Nicholas likes to share!
After eating cake, we went back outside.  Nicholas doesn't like the feel of grass on his knees, so he bear crawls when he has no pants on.
I guess all the socializing and partying wore a few people out... (Jason and Jenn's boyfriend, Steven).
Typical of dad... but hey, it was Father's Day too, so I suppose he was allowed to fall asleep.
Then it was time to open presents.
Nicholas's cousin, Kayla, helped him out a lot.  She went swimming in her clothes, so her clothes were drying off... but I think she liked not wearing clothes anyway.
He got a magnetic wiener dog, so Ben had to figure out how it worked.
Opening more presents...
He got a lot of toys for his new sandbox!
He also got some wooden blocks from us, but Kayla thought they'd work better as a stool.
Opening presents was hard work, so Nicholas melted in Ben's arms and layed like this for awhile... with his eyes open.  Eventually he fell asleep though.
In all, it was a good day with a lot of laughs!  The weather was nice and hot, and I got a little sunburnt in a couple places, but not too bad.  It was a good weekend and I'm pretty sad I have to go back to the cold side of the state today!!  Oh well, we'll be back here in 2 weeks for 4th of July weekend... then our busy July will begin!!!

Happy Father's Day!

Just a quick note to say Happy Father's Day to every father out there!  

Thought I'd say that I have the greatest dad out there.  He's a great role model, and if I am half the person he is, I will be doing very well!  I don't say it very often, but it's true.

We also had Nicholas's bbq for his first birthday today.  I've already posted so much today that I'm tired and don't feel like sifting through all the pictures I took to decide which ones to put on here... so you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to get those... but I WILL do them!

Shooting and the Vietnam Wall...

I have lots to update on!

Jason and I came over to Moses Lake this weekend to be with my family for Father's Day and our nephew's first birthday party.  While we were over here though, we decided to do some shooting with Jason's new gun that he bought at Cabela's the first few days he was home.

Here's our target... yes that's a couch cushion we found out at the sand pit.
Jason had to try first to make sure everything was working alright.
Then I tried... I think I look funny.
I mean serious business!
Here's one more of Jason... for good measure. 

In all, I don't think I did all that bad.  The barrel was hot from shooting so much, so that made our patterns a bit off-wack, and the fact that we didn't have any good rest to stabilize the gun... but we still hit the target every time.

Yesterday Jason and I went to the traveling wall exhibit at the fairgrounds.  We just happened to be in the right town at the right time, and the Vietnam Wall traveling memorial was here.  It was pretty interesting and humbling to go see it.  

We were also surprised to see they had memorials for 9-11:

And for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

We found some names we knew...

Sgt Stephen Sherman was in Jason's company on his first tour in Iraq.
SPC Robert Wesley Tucker is from Celina, TN where Jason grew up. 
SPC Chad Groepper was in HHC, 2-23, 4-2 ID during this deployment.  Erica's husband, the army wife I lived with during the deployment, knew Chad very well... and he is greatly missed, but never forgotten!
Again, SPC Luke Runyan was in Erica's husband's company.  Chad and Luke died in the same explosion.
Like I said, it was very humbling to be there and see the Vietnam Vets on their motorcycles that are following the traveling wall around the nation.  I was fighting tears several times, especially once we started looking for names we knew.