August 30, 2007:  Hey everyone, sorry such a gap in posts, more of the same I guess.  We've both been working a lot and enjoying the nice weather when we can.  We got some free tickets to one of the Mariners - White Sox games a few weekends ago, it was a great game and then ended up winning the series too.  I had my trip to Albany for my work meeting and it ended up getting cancelled after I got there.  I still met up with friends there and in NYC and had a good time.  So it seems that we've been here long enough to completely forget how horrible the heat and humidity is back home, man alive it's bad!  It was over 90 degrees in the city with about 90% humidity so we didn't end up doing all that much, it was still fun to be there and to see Alice.  We grabbed great food in China town with her friends on Friday, ran some errands on Saturday afternoon and even got to have Dinosaur BBQ that night.  I flew back Sunday and Lisa picked me up at the airport, just after getting out of work.  Lisa and the girls went out to dinner and a drag show Saturday night, sounds like they had a great time too.  I've worked a bunch of extra hours this week and spent my free time getting ready for our weekend camping trip.  We both have Friday and Monday off so we're going back to Ross Lake for one last trip.  This time we're going to stay for an extra night and our friends Kyle and Naomi will be catching up with us Saturday afternoon.  Hopefully we get some good weather for the last trip of the season.  After we get back we need to finish getting things ready for Dave and Lauren's wedding at the end of the month.  After that weekend things should start to quiet down for the fall.  Well, stay tuned for pictures from the trip. 

August 16, 2007:  Hey there everyone, not too much to talk about but because it's been a while I figured I would slap something down to keep the dates current.  Things have been really crazy for both of us with work and mostly just that.  Lisa has been doing some biking on her days off and I've been keeping up with the yard work but other than that we haven't had time to do anything.  I've been doing a bunch of night work, which means I work all day, go home and do what I need to around the house, then log in anywhere from 9pm for work in the EST timezone to 1am for work here in PST.  If I'm lucky that work only takes a couple hours but it often happens that I'm still awake when the sun starts coming up.  I grab a few hours sleep then go in and do it all again.  Usually we don't have to do that two days in a row but so far this week I've done it three times, luckily it was in EST and CST so I could get it done early our time.  Lisa is off this weekend and we have no plans other than doing some kayaking and sitting around the house, we have been on the go so much lately that we haven't had more than a couple hours here and there to just hang out, it's going to feel good.  As for house projects, we haven't done much of anything really, it looks like we are going to attempt to tackle the shed project in early September, hopefully enough time to get it painted before the rainy season starts.  I also want to wire it for lights and a few outlets and after all that try to finish up some basic landscaping around it and on that side of the house.  If the puppy show up in November-December like we're expecting then we need to get the lawn in on that side of the house so she has a place to do her business.  With the deck built and the bamboo garden area all torn up there isn't much of a yard left back there.  I guess I could just let her roam the neighborhood and do her stuff on everyone else's lawn like our neighbors do, not really my style though.  I'm actually flying to Albany, NY next Thursday for a meeting and seeing as Lisa is working all weekend I'm going to take a train down to NYC and hang with some friends for the weekend, then fly back on Sunday.  I can't wait to get a real pastrami sandwich, I can taste it now, mmmmmmmmhhhh.  It should be a fun weekend, I've never actually been to the city in the summer, just the winter, spring and fall.  The weekend after I get back is Labor day so I'm off on Monday and took Friday off too.  Lisa is already off Friday to Sunday but is also trying to trade Monday for another day sometime.  The plan so far is to go back to Ross Lake, stay for 3 nights this time, and hopefully bring some friends with us for at least a night or two.  We have to leave super early Friday because it's a holiday weekend for both the US and Canada, the sites are first come first served and they'll probably go quick.  I'm shooting for 4am to get on the road, sounds early but that will put us at the lake at about 8am and hopefully that's before everyone else.  We'll have a nice quiet paddle out to the site and the whole day to relax after we set up camp.  If anyone joins us it will either be later that day or first thing Saturday, we'll have the site reserved so it doesn't really matter when they get there.  We have a few things arriving tomorrow for the camping gear collection.  A couple of new, very compact, very comfortable camp chairs, 2 titanium dinner plates to replace the lexan ones we have that are impossible to get clean, and a collapsable bucket for putting out the fire, getting dishwater, or anything else we might need a couple gallons of water for.  We also got a nice waterproof container to build a proper first-aid kit for our trips.  We have bandaids now but that isn't enough when your 7 miles from any other people and almost 60 miles from any town.  This weekend we'll be hitting the drug store to get bandages, butterflies, tape, rubber gloves, antiseptic, those huge bandaids and anything else that we might need that will fit.  Well, it's time for me to get going so stay tuned, we will try to get some pictures of our short kayaking trip this weekend. 

August 5, 2007:  Back from another kayak camping trip and it was even more incredible than the last one.  We went to Ross Lake again, you can see the newest pictures on the 'Kayak Log' to the left under 'Other Stuff'.  I'll write more later this week, it's time for bed!