Vacation May 2007 - Photos

Finally - photos from the week of vacation. These are only photos from one of the cameras. I'll have to download the other camera this weekend. I just need to mention again just how fun the Kayaks are. If you're at all thinking about one, the Hobie Outback SUV is the way to go. And no, I'm not being compensated by Hobie for saying that (not that I'd be against it!!).

Chris setting off our first afternoon on the island. He caught a fish right away (nice cutthroat just down shore from this picture). Nothing else was caught that afternoon.



The next morning we headed out around the island towards Andy's Marine Park. Chris is shown here concentrating on catching flounders. That boat in the distance was a group of geoduck divers. There were actually two boats out there that morning. They were pretty raucous, I think they were excited about the upcoming three day weekend.



Chris with his first catch of the morning. A little baby flounder. I tried and tried but wasn't able to catch any.



Chris's second catch a nice big silver. We contemplated saving it for dinner that night but opted to set it free. Neither of us are really that big into cleaning fish. Especially me.



Kayaks at rest during a brief potty stop.



Matty showed up on Friday afternoon with the 1/4 barrel of Manny's so to repay him we let him take a Kayak out. He didn't seem to be into the fishing but looked to enjoy just cruising about drinking his beer.



While Matty and I kayaked Chris fished the mouth of Amsterdam Bay - just down shore from the cabin. Not much luck here either.



On Saturday Cam and Cheri showed up on the island. We golfed Saturday and Sunday and also visited Farm Day. Here is Cheri on the golf course just chillin'.



Cam taking a practice swing. Nice form kiddo!

Chris Kayak Fishing

Chris Kayaking

$168 to go!

With still a little over 3 months to go until the walk I have already raised $2,032! Only $168 to go to reach my goal of $2,200. Wow! I can't believe how generous everyone has been. I'm thinking about maybe holding a small garage sale to get the last $168. I'm sure I can find quite a bit of junk in our house.

Go Hotties!

Time Just Flies...

...when you're on vacation. I can't believe it is over already. I spent the last 5 months marking off the days on my calendar at work, counting down until vacation, until I was free from school, until my life was once again careless and fancy-free... And now here I am, back at my desk, working, and it is 80 degrees outside. Hmmpf.

I shouldn't complain. Last week was a blast. We headed out on Tuesday for the Anderson Island cabin (pictures to follow tonight....maybe). We spent our time fishing, kayaking, golfing, and lounging. On Friday Matty arrived with a 1/4 barrel of Manny's (yay Matty!) and on Saturday Cam and Cheri showed up as well. Weather was awesome (except for Sunday - boo Sunday) and the beer was tasty. Good times........

But, I'm back at work now. Boo...hiss.....boo....hiss....

Mariners Game

Cam, Cheri, Chris and I hit the Mariners day game last Sunday. Here are some photos. Darn Mariners lost 2-1 to the Padres.

Once when we were young...

I was cleaning out my hard drive and came across these pictures of my family that I had scanned in last year for a photo project I was working on.....Pretty funny stuff! (I'm too tired to write much more - I logged 26,000 steps yesterday!).

The Jones Family (1992) - Courtney, Jeff, Nita & Allen.



The Jones Family in Cabo San Lucas (Christmas 1994) - Jeff, Courtney, Nita & Allen



Courtney, Nita & Allen at the 100 years Celebration of Chiropractic (1995)



Dad and I when I was inducted into the Wenatchee Central Lions Club (2000)



Jeff and I at the top of Tumwater - Mission Ridge 2001



Jeff, Courtney & Allen - Castle Rock (above Wenatchee) Thanksgiving 1999



Sara, Allen & Courtney - Castle Rock (above Wenatchee) Thanksgiving 1999



Allen & Courtney - Annual Ski In - 2001

The Day Before Vacation....

.....is one of the most painful days. All you can think about is how you won't have to answer the phone next week, you won't have to take any notes, and you won't have to worry about whether or not the cables are installed and they have the correct connectors. On the other hand you work your butt off to try and get every loose end tied up so that your coworkers who will be covering for you next week don't suffer from your mistakes. I can't wait for that first sip of cold Manny's tonight!

$1745!!

Thanks to the silent auction I am not at $1,745 towards my $2,200 fund raising goal and there is another $250 on the way! I can almost taste the finish line. Now all I have to do is walk 6o miles in 3 days - piece of cake.........ugh.

Review: Boat Street Cafe

First off - shout out to Matty who is celebrating his 31st b'day today! Yay Matty!!! Welcome to 31!

In honor of Matty's b'day we met up at Steamers on the waterfront for happy hour last night. A surprise visitor (Matty's mom) then took us out to dinner at the Boat Street Cafe. Oh my gosh, it was a wonderful dinner. First off - we sat outside. Yesterday it was 80 in Seattle and the evening was so pleasant. They served us warm bread with butter drizzled in olive oil. So yummy. We all shared a butter lettuce salad, wow. Karas and I both ordered the Pork Loin Chop, Matty had the Lamb, Chris the Rib Eye, and Shannon the Crab Cakes. We all raved about our meals. Then the dessert, oh yes there was dessert - it was Matty's b'day celebration! We shared to Chocolate Cream Pot (Pot de cream) and the Bread Pudding. Wow, I was dreaming about the Pot de Cream all night, so amazing. Oh and there was wine - of course there was wine. I don't remember exactly what we ordered (a rose and a red) but both were amazing. I HIGHLY recommend the Boat Street Cafe. It had it all - ambiance, great service, wonderful food.

Thanks to Matty's mom for an amazing dinner!

Finished!

Class is over! Tomorrow night we have a party at Jillian's to celebrate. I made it. 9 months of class and I am now officially a certified Project Manager. Today I looked up the 9 month Senior Project Manager course that the UW offers. What am I, crazy? At least it is only 1 night a week. I think I'll wait a year or so before I do that though. Instead maybe I'll study for my PMP. My friend Roberta told me that she took a week off of work to study for the PMP. To me that sounds like a waste of vacation time....instead maybe I'll just study at work :)

Next week Chris and I are taking Vacation. We're going to redesign our back yard and maybe go kayaking....and drink some Manny's. Yay for summer! It is 80 degrees here in Seattle today.

Invasion of the Jones Family

This past weekend my entire family decided to invade Seattle and settle at our house. My brother, his wife, and the two girls showed up Friday night and Mom and Dad arrived Saturday morning. We spent Saturday on the waterfront exploring the Aquarium and watching the Tug Boat Races. Saturday night we celebrated Jeff's birthday (don't worry bro - I won't put in type just how old you are) with a BBQ feast and Sunday morning we celebrated Mother's day with a homemade brunch. I am pretty sure that everyone enjoyed themselves (except for the part where Chris and I gave up our beds and slept on a blow up mattress in the basement). Here are some photos from the weekend:

Sadie on the Water Taxi:

Ella on the Water Taxi:

Uncle Chris took Ella and Sadie into the wheel house to visit Captain Susan:

Tug Boat Races!

Fun Times at the Aquarium:

Ella got a Tiger Shark painted on her face:

Sadie had a Penguin painted on hers:

Uncle Chris was put in charge of Maddy and The Captain while he was BBQ'n.

The cats were very happy when everyone left:

Big sweeps were made:

Survival

Our team survived our final presentation. I thought it went pretty well. I guess I'll really know when I read the evaluations from the class. At least it is over. One more lecture to go and then our big party! I'm so glad to be almost done!

In other news - we got out of class early last night so I walked down to meet Chris and attend a beer tasting event at the Olympic Sculpture Park. It was a beautiful evening and wonderful to be outside......

Sadly, on my way to meet him I witnessed a HORRIBLE accident. This is the 2nd horrible accident I have been witness to on 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle. This one happened right in front of the SAM. I'm pretty sure that someone was very hurt in one of the cars but I don't handle stuff like that too well so I didn't stick around. There were plenty of people calling 911 and a few talking to the one driver of the really smashed car through the smashed window. Ugh.....That stuff really scares me......

The Final Countdown!

Tonight is the final presentation. Then.....I will be 1 class away from my certificate. My stomach is a nervous ball of knots all tied around my insides causing me great pain and nausea. But it is ALMOST OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kitty Porn

Here is a blast from the past. Back when I worked for an ISP in Wenatchee I made a webpage of Percy in his youth. Amazingly enough it is still available on the interwebs. He sure was skinny back then........

The End is Near

Tomorrow my team is giving our final presentation. Once that is finished we have one more day of class and then an all class party to celebrate our graduation! I can't believe that the 9 months are over already. Time has really flown.....sort of....of course back in January all I could do was complain about class....but now, it is awesome!!! I'll be a certified Project Manager (whatever that means). Instead of working on my presentation tonight I'm going golfing with my coworkers. Yay me!

Success!

Our auction was a success! We probably had about 100 people attend and every item sold. We hit our target amount for the event and as far as I could tell everyone enjoyed themselves.

A shout out to my friends and family who attended and walked away with some great items (fancy pants earrings for Angie, beautiful framed photo for Brandon, camera rental for Christy, and a chocolate tour for Matty!).

Apparently my friends are quite lucky because everyone that I invited also won a raffle prize! Matty walked away with 10 coupons for 1 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and my friend Katie won a comedy gift pack! Angie won the big raffle which was her choice of any item. She chose the earrings. Chris and I may have bid on a few things as well (and won) but I can't outline them here until after certain holidays coming up pass (Mother's Day - Jeff's B'day).

Anywho - today I'm exhausted. After the auction Chris and I went over to our friend Kara's for a Cinco de Mayo party. We sat around in her back yard next to the fire pit and then whacked the crap out of a pinata. Chris was the one who finally broke the thing opened and was sprayed with tequila! Good times........

The Auction is Today!

Chris and I just finished loading the car and are getting ready to head to the auction. I went to Target this morning to find a couple of serving platters and found some awesome pink ones. At the check out the guy said "this is what everyone needs, a pink platter". So I explained to him about the auction and what we were raising money for and he was thrilled! "Perfect" he exclaimed.

Then on my way home I saw a garage sale sign with pink 3day balloons tied to it. I stopped in and met 4 other walkers who live in my neighborhood. They are on the Red Footed Boobies team. They had a huge garage sale going and all the money was going to be divided between them for their fundraising. How cool! Maybe I'll do something similar later in the summer. Chris and I have so much junk left over from our pre-wedding days........

Time to head out! Yay Hotties!

Impulse Buying

So apparently if you are me a sleeping bag is an impulse buy. I headed to REI today at lunch to check out the Anniversary Sale that started today and runs through May 13th.

I was thinking that I might need a new pair of trail shoes and some socks for the upcoming walk but I ended up leaving with a sleeping bag.

Granted, Chris and I have been talking of getting a new sack for some time now but there wasn't really anything in the works. I got to the store, walked through the huge front door, and there they were. Tons of awesome bags all on sale. I ended up picking the North Face Cat's Meow. I got the Men's Regular addition so that Chris and I can both use it if necessary (not together...shesh).

I'm actually really excited about it. It's been years since I've had a new sleeping bag. Maybe I'll try it out tonight!

The Downside Of So Much Walking

I am pretty sure I now have Plantar Fasciitis in my left foot. Doesn't that just sound horrible. Like my foot is going to turn all red and filled with pus and then fall off? But really it is just that my heel hurts, mainly in the morning, and the pain spreads along the arch towards the toe. I've had to resort to the elliptical trainer at the gym since it is low impact. I suppose it is time to get fitted for a new pair of orthotics.

My entire life I've had trouble with my feet. When I was a kid and I'd go shopping with my mom, about 1 hour into it I would begin to complain about my feet hurting. She thought I just hated shopping and for the longest time just drug me along. Then one day they took me to the podiatrist. He took one look at my feet and confirmed that I suponated and it was causing bone problems on the side of my feet. He basically said that I might outgrow it, or they could break both my feet and reset them. At the time I couldn't fathom missing a season of any of the sports I played (soccer, skiing, tennis, softball) not to mention possible side activities (hiking, water skiing) so I opted for the outgrowing. He gave me some braces, fit me for some orthotics, I tried just about everything. Eventually I started to outgrow it. Mostly.

But now this! And I'm not even pushing it yet. Darn it........oh well....time for a new pair of orthotics. Or maybe.....SUPERFEET!

Donation Barometer

I've added a donation barometer to my page. As of today, thanks to an awesome donation by my sister in law Angie, I'm at $1,420!!! Only $780 to go to hit my goal, everything after that is icing on the cake!


Click Here to Donate

$900 to go!

When I signed up for the Breast Cancer 3day I was scared silly at the prospect of raising $2,200. I even mentally prepared myself for the prospect of paying the entire $2,200 myself. But here I am, still 4 months away from the event and I've already raised $1,300!!! I can not begin to describe how generous and giving my friends, family and coworkers have been. They have opened up their wallets! But also, they have opened up their stories of how this disease has affected them, and why they are willing to donate. Every story I hear, every friend I've made along this journey, has convinced me even more why it is so important that I do this. I actually sit here thinking to myself how I can get involved in other fights, not only the one against Breast Cancer. I guess it is true, you have to pick your battles. This year my battle is Breast Cancer.....what will next year be?