More catch up, Dec 17

Well I haven't been really fastidious about updating my blog lately for a couple of reasons: 1) my shoulder hurts immensely. Thats where I store all my stress. My chiropractor said my back is so tight he almost couldn't adjust me! 2) This website has been uploading my pics fuzzily, I check back every 2 days and it is still fuzzy until today. My shoulder doesn't feel too bad so I'm going to give it a try.
So first off in everyones mind I'm sure is : "Has Caleb found a job"? NO! no one is looking at this time of year. I don;t just mean outdoor stuff but everyone. Nobody wants to do complicated things during the Christmas season. So Ill just wait till Jan. and try some more. I did put in my resume for a city planning job in Redmond, which is right next door to us, but they won't start reviewing till Jan 7th.
Next, "What have the Nelsons been up to"? Well we spent a lovely Thanks giving between mom & da nelsons and my friend and mentor Terrie and her husband. They have a very nice ranch on 35 acres out in Okanogan near the Canadian border. Henry and I helped them with some of their farm chores and had a wonderful time. Pat and Terrie are some really awesome friends. We meant to be gone for 4 days but ended up being gone for14! It's not like I had to get back for work. So after Pat and Terries it was back to my parents house for several more days. One of those day Me, Riley, Henry, and Cedar went up into the mountains above Leavenworth for our traditional Christmas tree hunt. Riley and I found a new place to go and found ourselves (me) a nice little tree. (8 ft) We had a very fun time. Except for Henry who got a little too cold. After the Tree hunt we went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, for my favorite food. Reuben Sandwich. This restaurant has the best and biggest Reubens. Yes they do contain meat, but for THAT sandwich ONCE a year I can put being a vegetarian aside. (although my stomach felt lousy the next day)
"What else have you been doing" Well we have been enjoying a festive Christmas season. We decorated out tree, we put up the Christmas Village. And Lyn and Henry have been baking like mad. We had our annual Christmas Open House. We had 38 people come by to visit with us. many people told us how nice it was to simply have a party where all you did was have treats and visit. I don't think anybody visits anymore. One person told us that parties like this were a dying art. I never thought of them as an art before, but I think that there is a lot of truth to that. It takes some skill and knowledge of people to create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable enough to simply chatter away.
I don't like posting "catch ups" because they are entirely too stripped of details. They simply function as an overview. There have been some beautiful moments and some terrible moments in our lives but It is simply to difficult to recall them and write about them effectively so long after their occurrence.
There is more that I would like to tell you but I will do so on another occasion, as mom & dad Nelson (and Kaynie, and Riley, and Micah) are coming over today. Yesterday the 16th was Henry's Birthday. He turned 4. We are going to have his party today. I can't believe that I have 4 year old. He, as I have said before is the joy of my life. To me there is no little boy who is more fun nor more sweet than my Henry.

Talk to ya later.

Craaazy weather

Hey did you hear what is going on up here in WA? Well we just experienced the second wettest day EVER!! The Gov just declared a state of emergency. Pretty exciting, luckily we live towards the top of a hill.
We had 3.56 inches by 3 pm yesterday. Here is a newscast from our town of Woodinville.
Aerial video: Floodwaters flow through Woodinville*

I don't have time at the moment but I suspect that tomorrow I will have time to update the blog for December.

Halloween

So this Halloween has been a very fun time. I enjoyed living thru Henry's eyes.
He has long had a group of imaginary friends, actually several groups; the chickens, the rabbits, and the penguins. I think that the penguins are his favorite. Often he will knock on the wall and say "I hear someone at the door", he'll run over and open it up and exclaim "Hi penguins, come on in" Then he proceeds to play with the penguins. So any how making a short story long, he wanted to be a penguin for Halloween. So between $3 in felt and some black sweats we made him into a penguin. He was cute. We didn't do anything for Ferny because she is too young and it's not worth the effort. Any how you can see the pics of our penguin Henry below. Also I have posted pics of our funny pumpkins. Henry carved his own pumpkin this year. The Saturday before Halloween our ward had a Fall Harvest Festival with a Chili cook-off. I am very proud to say "Now do you understand why I'm a bit heavy?"... NO! Oops I meant to say that MY wife won first place by a landslide for her Limon Blanco Chili. I has been the talk of the ward since and she has had maybe 20 people come to her for the recipe. I am really amazed at the natural cooking talent that my wife possesses. She really does take good care of us.

Family life is Great. Professional life SUCKS right now. I lost my job. Yes, My dream job as a designer is Kaput. I didn't see it coming. Apparently I'm not corporate material. I really don't feel like explaining it. But I thought that I would let you know. We could use all the prayers we can get right now. We will probably have to move and several months of tough times lie ahead. In the Landscape industry virtually Nobody is hiring at this time in the year. April is when hiring picks up again. But I don't think that I will return to landscaping. It has been a miserable 1.5 years (professionally) since I graduated. I think that perhaps I am meant for something different. I have been attracted to organic farming for many years now, and I think that will be what I go into next. I mean carrots and potatoes don't really get too involved in Corporate Ladder-climbing politics. Oh sure theres a couple of the really high-strung ones that you need to watch for, but as a whole vegetables are pretty mellow, and for once in my life I could be outstanding in my field, or rather: out, standing in my field. Once again Farmers don't hire till March or April either. So Hey maybe we'll drive around the country and visit all of our friends and family.

Well, until next time.(I should have PLENTY of time for this NOW)
Take care.

Catch up.

My new Job is very demanding and along with the commute is taking a lot of my time. Also as the weather is cool and rainy there is not as much to do that is noteworthy. This week I am just making some retroactive comments and some things that have happened during the month. The coolest thin that happened, OCT 13 (I've got pics) is that noticing that there was to be a break in the weather, arranged to have my Bros Riley and Micah come over and we went for an overnite backpacking trip in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness to a lake named Lake Dorothy. After a month of cool and rainy this 65 degree weekend seemed like heaven. Indeed I hope heaven looks something like this. The fall colors were pretty awesome and of course it always feels good to have warm sun shining on your face while a cool breeze is blowing. It was about 4 miles to the camp at the far end of the lake. On the way to the camp we found several big thickets of Huckleberries (Wild Blueberries) so we spent some time munching down on them. We could've eaten them all afternoon, but we needed to get to camp and set up before nightfall. (Next time we do this hike (we are hoping to make it an annual event) we are going to bring pancake mix and have wild blueberry pancakes in the morning!) We got to camp, explored a bit, got the tent up, found a nice, high limb to tie our food up in to keep it away from the bears, and made a good diner with our backpacking stoves (No fires allowed) Just as we finished dinner it was dark, and I mean dark. Since there was nothing to do outside but freeze we hopped into the tent and yaked a while. I was exhausted from a long week of work so I didn't last long and by 8:30 ,was out. That night was cold. I was OK in my 20 degree bag, but was just cold enough to be uncomfortable. I even had all my clothes on and a heating pack too. What I lost in quality of sleep I made up in quantity, I slept for 12 hours which is more tan i have slept in several years. The next morning was gorgeous. We just stood on this log at the edge of the lake and watched the sun come up and the mist float across the lake. I could have stayed there the entire day, but we had to pack up camp and get back down. Next summer I am going to take Lyn and the kids up there and we are going to stay for several days. There were some nice shallow areas of the lake that would be great for swimming in, in August. We had a great time and think that we got to know each other better as Bros and hopefully formed a tighter bond. In my Sunday School lesson today we were talking about the purposes of life. One of them was to form solid family bonds. If through Christ we live for eternity, who else would you want to spend it with? Maybe if heaven looked like Lake Dorothy and we can be together as family forever, Maybe forming solid HIKING bonds is a good step...
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When Riley and Micah were here the night before the hike they helped me purchase my new, old refrigerator. It is to the best of my deducing a 1949 GM Frigidaire. (see pics)
It is in pristine condition. It looks as if it rolled of the assembly line a year ago. What a beaut!
We absolutely love the Art-deco styling of Mid-century design. It is quite the addition to our pearlescent turquoise kitchen. Every time I see it I just fall in love with it allover again. Now if I could just get it to run correctly...
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On the family front, we are all doing well. The kids are healthy. Lyn is keeping sane (relatively). And I am enjoying the creativity of being a designer. Henry is his usual sensitive and caring and imaginative self like usual. He is the joy of my life. Fern has been walking for about 2 weeks now, and it is very cute to see her waddling around everywhere. Right now she has FOUR molars coming in. I have to say she is NOT gracious when it comes to pain. Her already sassy/spunky attitude really gets magnified. It is hard to deal with sometimes, but hey whatyado?
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As and update to the family gift exchange: We will still be doing it, but IF you feel specially inclined to give someone else besides, in addition to, your chosen person, you may give them a gift too. Just don't feel obligated to. and don't feel entitled to a gift from everyone. We are doing gift EXCHANGE.

Oct 7

Well this weekend was conference weekend so we wen to my parents house and watched conference. We also visited my friend Terry from college. That was pretty cool she has 35 acres up in Okanogan, WA and has the beginnings of a nice farm. I don't really have tie to type much tonight since I have to catch the 5:47 bus in to Seattle in the morn. I need to get to bed. I Do however need to put up our family's gift exchange list. Names were chosen at random out of a hat and both Lyn and Riley can verify this. So heres goes:
---- gives to -----
Caleb - Logan
Lyn - Audrey
Logan - Caleb
Audrey - Lyn
Kaynie - Micah
Riley - Kaynie
Micah - Riley

I think that it would be appropriate to spend $15- 20 on your person. If you were to spend $7 per person and got something for everyone that would be $49! So $15-20 will be a big savings and still get something nice for your person. Try to put some thought into the gift and get them something that you think they would really enjoy and use. Not just a DVD. (Unless you really think that they will watch it many times and enjoy it.)
You can get something for Mom and Dad as desired and Kids can do from cousins to cousins as deemed appropriate.

Alright I've spent too much time but I love you all and hope to hear from you some time. Especially YOU Kaynie!! :)

Time Flies ...

...when your having fun. I can't believe that it has been a whole month since I last posted to the blog. I can't believe that it has been a whole month since I started working at Lifestyle Landscape. I am having soo much fun as a designer and I am learning a ton. My brain hurts at night. I feel like I'm in college again. Well I found out that my company is one of the most expensive premium companies here in the area. My first design the I was assigned to was $75 k for a 1000 sq ft yard. And I exceeded the budget! Don't worry the client bought it, I think. I love being able to be purely creative. Whatever I can dream up I can do if there is a budget for it. As you can see the budgets are quite large.

Ferny took 12 steps today. She had taken 4 earlier today which was her record but when I came home she was so excited that she just came running and that's where the 12 steps came from. I think that she will be walking by the weekend!

The weather up here has been cool and rainy. We really didn't have much of a summer and we aren't getting much of a fall either. It just kinda went straight to winter. Oh well! whatyado?


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This months music is themed around lost Oldies, but still Goodies.