Our fellowship went to the Enatai Beach park for some sun and fun.  Strangely, the park is directly under the I-90 bridge for some nice perpetual static noise.  After potluck, we had water balloon tossing…

And three-legged race…

And Maddy went into the water for the first time…

For more pictures, visit the Enatai Beach album!

Karen and I went on the ECC tent camping trip this past weekend with Happyfish.  The initial plan was to arrive on Friday night, but due to some circumstantial events, our small group ended up arriving on Saturday morning, much to Karen’s delight.

We proceeded to erect the 10-men tent…

Afterwards, we went down to the beach, where some jet skis were available to cruise on free of charge, courtesy of some brother in ECC.  Erick and Jun took the initial run, squeezed the accelerator, and almost broke the 1 MPH barrier.  Yes, my grandma could have walked faster than that.  Evidently there was a foreign object caught in the vehicle, so my engineering instinct was unleashed as I attempted the delicate repair.

Having escaped shorting out the engine a few times, the repair was successful and the jet ski cruised down the runway at over 50 MPH…

When I took the helm, I decided to take it easy by squeezing the accelerator all the way, gliding down the waters through the slow region and nearly getting ticketed.  So what’s new?

After that, it was time for a change of pace, and we headed to the stable for some horseback riding.  When we arrived, there was no one in sight.  Having resisted the urge to hop on the horses for a self-guided tour around the region, we found another way to satiate that urge…

After that we got bored of playing horsey and started playing some caveman bocce…

Finally the cowboys returned and we each mounted a horse to ride into the wilderness, except when I gleefully hopped onto my horse, I ended up on a mule instead.  I got gypped.

His dominance must have been the donkey side, as Charlie kept glancing left and right and stopped every 30 seconds to eat the surrounding foliage, holding up the line.  When I tried to steer him, he appeared to be on autopilot and ignored my signals.  When I left him alone, he ended up walking through the bushes instead.

With everyone’s legs cramped up at this point, Karen assumed a funky posture to the relief the tension…

Then we had some BBQ dinner, sang some songs, and hit the sacks.  The next morning, we were revitalized as we attended the Sunday service…

Well, some of us were revitalized anyway…  For more pictures, go to the Tent Camping album!

Instead of initiating another battle with the persistent weeds in our backyard, Karen and I decided to take the day off from housing duties and stroll around the downtown Seattle.

Afterwards, we were a little tired, so we headed to Myrtle Edwards park noth of the piers to take a breather.

  I had Karen go over to miniature peninsula and shot some pictures when suddenly an unexpected gust of wind caused an unexpected splash…

Then we noticed a new addition to the sidewalk resembling the an Oscar trophy making a splash…

Then we played with some artistic photoshoot…

and jumped to the area where the remaining pieces of sculture are…

The rest of the pictures can be found in the Waterfront gallery.

Karen and I aren’t hiking people.  You’d think that being exposed to the panaramic view of the evergreens here in the Northwest would have transform us, but nope.  Last week, our small group forced us all into the jungle in the form of a tent-camping trip to Wallace Falls, where Erick insisted that the hiking trail is super easy.

Jun brought an oversized 12 men tent partitioned into two sleeping quarters and a common area.  As small group tradition, we had to play a few games of Bang before we hit the sacks…

I must say that this is one interesting camp ground.  There were loud popping noises in the parking lot (popcorn machine? wild animals?), and the unmistakable music of the passing train serenaded us through the night.

In the morning, we identified the source of the popping noise…

On the way toward the trail to the Upper Falls, Karen and I discovered this sign…

Hmm, that black windy diamond didn’t seem to suggest an easy trail…

Definitely not an easy trail.  After suffering immense dehydration, we finally reached the destination.

Where we were greeted by a stealthy thief…

A chipmunk.  It’s the first time I’ve seen one!  I guess that made the trip all worth it. 

Click here for more pictures from Wallace Falls.

Every year people attend the Tulip Festival.  This year, olivetheotherreindeer suggested we try something different, such as going to the Lavender Festival at Sequim, which lasts only one weekend!

To get to Sequim, we had to take the ferry across the Puget Sound.

When I was about to take pictures of the guys, the announcement came for people to return to their vehicles.  Bummer!

The first farm we went to was called Purple Haze…

Erick and Jeffrey started by trying out some local delicacy, like the Lavender Virgin Margarita…

Jeffrey immediately gave it the thumbs down.  There was also the lavender white chocolate ice cream, which according to Carol, just tasted like regular white chocolate ice cream.

That’s when we started taking pictures…

And more pictures…

We paid $10 for unlimited access to 7 different farms, with free shuttling service provided from farm to farm.  The central hub is at downtown Sequim, so we took the bus to get there.  It was a squeeze…

I was sandwiched so badly I had a hard time even getting my camera out, but as you can see from the picture, some of us were just comfortably sitting on the seats while the rest of us suffered.

We arrived at the hub where it resembles a fair with booths and long lines all over the place.  Many of us opted for the Gyro for lunch…

After lunch, Erick found this incredibly large farm with called Lost Mountain, which was hyped with “100 different species of Lavender!!!”  So to Lost Mountain we went.  We took the bus again, and this time we squeezed two rows between the aisles!  After the bus made its first stop, we were able to sit down, but not before our hands turned tomato red…

Picture doesn’t do justice to the colors of our hands.  Anyway, we arrived at Lost Mountain…

So we did find a hundred species of Lavender, but apparently there was only one of each, contained in a small patch of land!  We were conned.  Nevertheless, we made the most out of the place.  One interesting feature was a water mill running purple water…

It’s hard to see the purple water, but I assure you it was purple.  Karen also decided to bring out her favorite cartoon character to join the fun…

Also some of us decided to collect their own lavender…

I have no idea what olivethereindeer was cutting there…

By the time we were ready to go, we had to wait in line for the bus again.  Some people’s sunburns were starting to become apparent as a strange mark surfaced on my back…

It wasn’t really a burn, but I still have this mark today.  Maybe it’s from the camera strap?

Turned out we weren’t able to get onto the next two buses because they were both full, so we ended up waiting for an hour!  Next time, we should just drive instead of taking the shuttle…  While most of us were just standing around, some of us managed to make the time productive.

Finally we were able to squeeze on the bus and return to our parking lot.  That’s when we decided to check out at the beach with the lighthouse.  On the way, Erick took a wrong turn somewhere and we ended up getting a nice view of…

A deer.  He stared at us as we made a U turn in someone’s back yard.

When we arrived at the beach, there was a lighthouse in view, but it was really small.  Even with my super duper 300x zoom lense, I was still only able to offer you this picture with minimal details…

Unfortunately to reach the lighthouse required a 5.5 mile hike, each way!  That’s like circling Green Lake four times!  We decided to pass and just enjoy the beach…

Erick was really into playing chicken fight on a log…

After that, a shark appeared in the water…

Okay, so there was no shark, but we did take a funny picture! 

Then it was time to go home.  We first dropped by Taco Time for some to-go dinner, and then we got held up waiting for the draw bridge.  The traffic literally stopped for 10 minutes. While waiting, Jeffrey had an emergency crisis and needed a place to…  download some software.

Unfortunately he couldn’t find an outlet.  Later Johnny, Angela, Jeffrey and Grace stopped at an alternate location while the rest of us headed over to the Ferry.  We thought they didn’t make it to the 9:20 ferry because they were the fifth car in line for the next ferry, but they managed to squeeze in.  Close call!

Anyway, then we took the ferry ride home…

That’s it, folks, our Lavender Festival trip!  It was fun, but we most likely won’t be going another Lavender trip for a long time.

Okay, after hearing about the bunnies that flooded Greeklake, Karen and I decided to pay our tribute last weekend.  There weren’t as many as Grace and Carol saw, perhaps they were taking an early July 4th vacation, but we managed to catch the few lazy ones that remained…

It was early in the morning, so a bunny did the morning cleanup, which was slightly faster than the 40 minutes I usually take in the morning…

Because the weather was nice, the squirrel joined the Fellowship of the Fuzzballs.

Every story has a villian, and on this day, a man who wanted to lay at the field wasn’t generous enough to share the field with these poor, innocent rabbits.  He began chasing them away by flinging his jacket on the grass over and over again.  The rabbits ran…

… and went hiding.  Unfortunately some have not truly learned the art of stealth…

After a brief moment, the man settled at a corner of the field, so the rabbits developed enough courage to come crawling back.  One rabbit got so much courage that he was “close and personal” to me, void of any fear of human contact.  “What do you want, a glamour shot?!”  So I took one…

Unfortunately I don’t have his email address, so I can’t send it to him.  Maybe he can check find my xanga blog.  Speaking of blogs, I better stop here before people accuse me of taking a page out of Grace’s blog. 

This morning Karen and I woke up super early to attend the free Rick Steve seminar on Italy.  It was basically a sight-seeing slideshow, although she did offer some practical tips such as how to bypass the 2 hour lines at the Uffizi gallery.  Basically you calling ahead and reserve the ticket, and then just wave at all the silly people waiting in the insane line and walk straight up to the will-call.  There was quite a bit of good info in the seminar, although most of it can be found in Rick Steve’s Europe Through The Backdoor.  At the end, the man himself, who just returned from Italy, showed up and answered some questions.

After that we went to the Mac Store to buy Karen a new battery.  Karen has a Powerbook, and its battery life is exactly 5 minutes.  No more.  No less.  Yeah… a new battery is warranted.  Unfortunately Apple won’t sell them because it’s an older model, and Mac Store is sold out!  Okay, okay… internet here we come.  Selection at the expense of instant graification…

Being a hot day, we dropped by Starbucks for a Frappuchino before heading over to the Happyfish BBQ.  I didn’t realize the Starbucks cups are smaller than ever!  And I was complaining when they did their first downsizing.  At this rate, soon the Tall will be the size of a shot glass!

Now, can anyone tell me where this is?

You may be tempted to say Hawaii, but it’s actually Lincoln Park in West Seattle, where the Happyfish BBQ is!  Anyway, I don’t have a story today, but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.  Let’s start with Johnny handing Ben a piece of … whatever.

Some people were definitely experiencing some football action…

While others were playing the bouncy rock game…

Amazingly, Karen actually bounced 4 times, as we can sort of witness in this next picture. Yes that’s four, not three, although the last two are sort of compressed…

Of course, that’s after 53,847 attempts, but it’s still reason to celebrate.

Even Allen and Justine joined us, along with Madeline whose head was gripped like a basketball by Allen.  First he cradles her like a football, and now basketball.  What’s next?  I hope not soccer!

While we were at it, we took a few other shots…

And of course, Angela was nice enough to offer to take one for Karen and I…

Here’s a picture I had a harder time getting cooperation for, but we managed to pull it off.

After that, we decided to try finding some interesting pictures take, including balancing on a log…

Or a rock…

Then we looked for … creative shots…

So that’s pretty much the Happyfish BBQ.  Okay, so there were more people at the BBQ, but this is a blog, not a picture gallery!  Keeping things interesting is the key, so only pictures that fit with my blog entry make it here.  Okay, time to check for sunburns and go to sleep!

Yesterday, a man got lost in the wilderness when he sensed something odd moving around him.  He glanced around but noticed nothing but odd-looking trees.  When he turned back to look for the path, a golem grabbed him and imprisoned him within a thick, coarse trunk.

After a few hours of struggling, he managed to free himself from the tree and lept from the tree.  The noise from the perfect 10 landing disturbed the sleeping golem, whose thunderous thumping resonated across the forest as he rushed to the scene.  Wittingly, the agile man climbed up another trunk and hid in the tree.

At an opportune moment when the golem looked away, the man lept from the tree and headed for the cliff, with the golem and his pounding steps rushing behind.  Left without a choice, the man said a quick prayer and lept from the top of the cliff, landed in the river, and climbed his way up a boulder.

With the fearless golem also leaping from the top of the water fall, the man quickly fled from the boulder and looked for a place to hide.

He noticed a cliff nearby, so he used his bare hands to climb up the cliff, Mission Impossible style.

At this point, the golem had swum toward the boulder, climbed atop it, made a thunderous roar, and looked around for the man.

At that point, a golem huntress leaped out from nowhere and strangled the golem to death.

That’s when the man noticed that at the end of the double-rainbow sat a mermaid on a stump!

He took her home and lived happily everafter. Okay, I think my story has officially gone downhills.  Anyway, overall it was a fun trip to the Snoqualmie Falls.

THE END