Busy August. do you see a trend here?

Well, I bet everyone is wondering about how things are going for us. Work has been lousy. I sell around $45,000 per month, but in July I sold $450! And up until the 22 of Aug I hadn't sold anything! But I'll get to that in a minute. First of all we went on a cruise to Alaska. I love Alaska, I didn't that the cruise was all that great. I enjoyed the food. Probably a bit too much. I really enjoyed time with all my Bros' and Sis'. I really enjoyed seeing whales and Dolphins and what not. I think that the thing that I did not like was not being able to more fully experience Alaska. It's analogous to eating a giant cake with a toothpick, with a timer running. With the short time you have in port, and the expense of any of the "excursions" [$180 pp whale watching] you simply could not do much. The weather did not help either the first couple of days. (this pic shows the weather, it also shows the size and luxury of the ship. Outdoor movie theatre) Although ironically the rainiest day (Juneau) was the day me and Riley did the most hiking. We hiked 7 miles in the rain. We came back to ship soaked to the bone. We saw some really neat stuff though. The next day was decent weather and our port was Skagway. When we got off the boat we witnessed a train derailment. It was interesting, no one got hurt and we enjoyed watching them re- rail it. Now keep in mind we took over 300 pics. We had to narrow it down to the most beautiful and descriptive.Here is an example of not being able to get "into" the landscape. We took a "tour" in which we simply drove along the highway and stopped every 10 minutes for about 10 minutes to snap photos. It seemed that no one cared to experience it, they were simply content to get the photographic proof that they were there. I would rather hike the land for a day without a camera than to take a thousand pics of it in an afternoonHere we are leaving Skagway. The ships seemed so large and magnificent when we were parked next to them. As we pulled out they nearly disappeared in the shadow of the large mountains that were in the background. Gods creations will forever trump anything that man can come up with. I just wish that I had more time to see His work. The next day we went into Tracy Arm. It is fjord that is large enough for the ship to enter. We saw the most stunningly beautiful valleys and cliffs. And the glacier...It was so blue. As were the icebergs floating around the ship. It was neat that the ship had sideways thrusters, so when we got into the end of the channel we merely turned on our axis to spin the ship around. On of the problems that the ship created is that it is so large that it distorts your sense of proportion. The viewing deck is probably 50 feet up, so when you see icebergs you can't tell how big they are. I would love to return one day with a sea kayak and 3 days supply. This is a pic of the voyage between Tracy Arm and Ketchikan. It was so tranquil. We spotted lots of Humpback whales clearing their blowholes and breaking the water. We just sat there in the warm(ish) sun and watched them. Until they hooked and Xbox up to the outdoor cinema screen and let kids play Xbox at a very loud volume! That is one of the worst things about the cruise. If you go to Alaska you go because you want the wilderness experience. You can get noisy Xbox anyday anywhere. Over all though it was neat. Especially that night at our fancy Formal Dinner, when about 50 dolphins were swimming along side of the boat at pace with it. They were all jumping in and out of the water. I think that is one of the best parts of the cruise. "Formal night was made bearable by my fathers pimpin' plaid dinner jacket.
Here is a pic of the opulent main area, The Piazza. The blue column that you see with leaves on it is one of the 16 elevator on the ship. They went between 17 floors.

The ship was 930 feet long. Her you can see one of the main cabin decks. Riley took the pic, and I am at the far end of this hall. No surprise that you can't see me as I am almost 900 feet away!Like my cake analogy, it was good, it just left me wishing for more. All in all I had a good time. I wouldn't choose to do it again. Well maybe when I'm too old to go backpacking thru 3rd world countries and climb mtns.
I am thankful to have had the experience, Thanks Dad.
So back to the sales at work. The Monday I returned to work, I sold $45,125 in one day! I had been working on it all before hand but everyone waited till then to sign. So that is kinda cool. I have been consistently the top producer int eh company for most of the summer. I have outsold the other 2 guys combined, plus some. I love my job. The economy is worrying us though. work over all has been slow. usually we are scheduled out about 4-5 weeks at this point. Right now we are 4-5 days out.
I have crying kids breaking glasses and I can't concentrate very well. Everything is going well.
Hope that it is for you too.

The busy month of July :)

July has been a busy month. (OK, which month of the summer isn't busy?) Anyway, here are a couple of pix of what the Nelson family has been up to.
Henry and Dad (me) went to the Greenwood annual car show. There were over 300 cars of all vintages, and it was awesome. This VW "21 Window Bus" was my favorite. It was sooo cool! Look at all those windows. And a retractable roof, and the windshield lifts up. It had white leather interior with cream tweed accents. My oh my, would I like to have that.We took the train over to eastern WA to visit Caleb's family. It was a long trip (5 hours vs. 2 3/4 by car), but really neat.The scenery was fantastic, and it was neat to be isolated from the highway giving you a feeling of being further out in the wild. A really fun way to travel. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins and Henry is still talking about how much fun the slip and slide was. Lyn and I came back after 3 days, leaving the squirts with the grandparents for 4 more days. Unfortunately Lyn sprained her ankle 2 blocks from the train station, rendering her 4 days of freedom to mere recovery time.Of course the kids are always reading, or painting, or playing outside. Our family rule is that there is NO TV for May-Aug. They are quite the creative little kids. And Fern is ever the mess.
This weekend we went to Jack Pass to go camping. I was so much fun. Of course it is always way too short, but it was relaxing to be out away from everybody and just enjoy each other and the beautiful scenery. Henry is becoming quite the experienced camper. I now trust him to build the fire pretty much by himself. (I split the kindling and start it though) We stayed up way too late eating marshmallows, and pop. We played in the river, made dams, flew our kite, and just generally absorbed some sun and fresh air. As we went to pack up a summer storm blew in and we took down camp in record time. Henry is quite scared of thunder and wind. (think Timpanogos cave, and winter storm 2006) But I told him that this was an emergency and that I needed his help[ to get everything down as fast as we could so that we could leave. Despite his worst fear he bucked up and helped out greatly since Lyn was pretty gimped up. We really had a good time, and are hoping to head back up this coming weekend.




The weather is really hot right now, 88. And it is expected to get way hotter over the next 10 days. Wednesday is supposed to be 94. Humidity is around 80% so, WOW. We plan on heading to the river every afternoon to cool down. Unfortunately we have not air conditioning to our home gets quite warm. If anyone has a spare portable air conditioner that they are no longer using feel free to send it up to us! :)

Work is going OK, it's kinda slow, and we are very worried about the winter coming up.
But right now we are having fun, and growing our garden and harvesting berries and what not for the winter. Our Chickens should start laying here in a couple of weeks, so that will be neat.

Other than that I can't think of much more to report on.
Take care everyone, and Happy Summer to you.

Memorial day weekend and June visit to UT

Busy month...but fun :)

For Memorial Day weekend, Caleb and the kids camped in the backyard. The kids thought this was the greatest! (I thought it was great that we didn't have to pack and unpack the car and drive somewhere to set up tent...) We also had a fire and roasted marshmallows. Fern didn't bother with the roasting part and just ate the marshmallows.
Fern, Henry and I went to UT to visit my family for 9 days, while Caleb stayed home and worked. (Landscape design doesn't slow down for summer vacation...) The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. It was tough to get them to go to sleep at night...but that's another story :)

A group of us went on a hike to Timpanogos Cave while my dad stayed home with the younger kids. It was a fun hike up, but Henry wasn't a fan of being inside a dark cave...thank goodness for uncles---Peter for bringing a flashlight he could hold and Taige for helping him going down narrow passageways--since I couldn't be in front and in back of him at the same time :) This is a picture of our whole group.
And on the way down there was a torrential downpour. We got to witness big boulders come rolling down the mountain...along with a waterfall....and cover the trail ahead of us.....and after the water slowed down (and we were freezing...), the ranger said we could go ahead and hike down. Luckily there was a couple and their two 20-ish year-old kids that were able to help us traverse the rock slides...definitely not my favorite part of the vacation...but we made it down. (Also, luckily uncle Taige carried Henry all the way down the mountain...when the thunder, lightning, and buckets of rain started, he was DONE...and that was before the rock slides...) This picture doesn't do this rock slide justice...it was much bigger from the other side's angle and on the other side that you can't see there was a stream... (I didn't even take pictures of the other slides, for fear of ruining my camera with rain.)
Fern loves her cousin Judy and at every activity wanted to be with "Judy boody".
Happy Henry on a horse
Happy Fernie in a small playhouse
It was lots of fun to go and spend time with all the cousins and everyone.

Caleb was very glad when we came back--he missed all the chaos of having all of us around :) Seems that the house is far too quiet when we're gone. We're glad to be back too.

Well we have been busy enjoying the sunshine. I have been very busy at work, which I like. I am selling alot and I hope that we can keep busy thru the summer. We went to the zoo the other day to see the new penguin exhibit. You all know that Henry is the worlds biggest penguin fan. He has been anticipating this trip for nearly 9 months now. He was so excited that he took his stuffed penguin to show him. It was pretty neat. The penguins are desert penguins from Peru. The volunteer that was educating people was also from Peru. They live on the shore near Nazca. They build their nests in the guano that piles up 1-2 foot thick. (It used to be several hundred feet thick but Guano harvesting in the late 1800's reduced it down to the level it's at today)
Any how the exhibit has thick plexi-glass windows that let you watch them underwater. They had one window that was a inwardly dished and you could sit "in" it and be surrounded by water.
It was very cool. Me and Henry sat there for probably 45 minutes, watching the penguins. But wait!... Where was Fern? Behind us chatting on the phone, with Laura (our friend, Ferns hero)
Afterwards we went out for pizza (Lyn had a coupon! the only way we eat out.) On our way back to the Trooper we saw this sign. "Henry Nelson Real Estate" Then we went by this neat park and gardens in the Wallingford area. It ended up being a late night but was lots of fun.
Yesterday Henry and I spent the day finishing the chicken coop, then we went on a bike ride along the Sammamish River Trail. We biked 7 miles! Everyone always says that Henry looks like a young Lance Armstrong, Now he bikes like one too.
Tonight we are going to set up the tent so that we can "camp" in the backyard, since tomorrow is Memorial day and I don't have to go to work. Instead we will be going to the Folk Life festival in downtown. (really just a bunch of hippies--yay!)
Oh and we need to paint the chicken coop too. That should be fun!

Family Update 7:35pm

As I am typing this (well just before) Henry lost his first tooth. He now has a cute little gap on his lower teeth. Hurray for Henry!!!
Now the Tooth Faerie will have to pay a visit...

Spring is here...maybe!

OK, the sun has come out of hiding and we have tried to make the most of it. The past couple days we went to the park, the Seattle Center, the UW arboretum and yesterday went on a walk, Caleb and Henry went on a bike ride, danced in the rain, etc. (This beautiful tree is at the arboretum--very cool picture by Caleb.)
Henry is really not one for posing for pictures--every time I try to take his picture he usually turns around, runs away, or covers his face, so this was a lucky shot! (In contrast to Fern...every time the camera is out she flashes her smile and poses...)
Fern and Caleb running away from the International Fountain before the water started back again. Henry wasn't too excited with the tradition of touching the silver on the fountain in between songs/waterdisplays--he was content to sit and watch the people getting wet.
Two little kids sitting still in the midst of lots of flowers and things to explore? We were lucky to have them both looking at the camera at the same moment!
We went on an exploring drive down a dirt road near the Wild Horse Monument on the Columbia River. Turns out that it just takes you up to the top. The view was cool, but the drive was a little tippy for my taste. (I am constantly worried of the truck falling off the side of the mountain and rolling down...I'm told that it takes a lot more to overturn a vehicle...but try to explain that to my gut...)
My little helpers... I like having a garden and starting my seeds, but I think I'm learning patience more from letting the kids help in the process than from waiting for seeds to sprout...

Grandma Nelson, Fern and cousin Carli snuggling on the back porch

I'm hoping for more sunshine and beautiful springtime weather this week. I find that I am so much more productive and happy after experiencing the warmth of the sun. Yesterday I organized/cleaned out my bathroom, vacuumed the whole house, did laundry and folded and put it away, organized the computer desk, cleaned all the dishes and put them away, took care of the paper party in the kitchen (bills, coupons, to-do lists that congregate),.....and felt great.

Off to read books with Henry. (I've been trying to do this while he is watching/commenting on lava movies on youtube on the other side of the screen..needless to say, I'm not doing so well on the multi-tasking as well as managing the conflict of not being as attentive as I need to be & feeling guilt for not doing either thing well...so that's it for today!)