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.

Sept 9th '07 a great week

Wow! I can’t believe it is already the 9^th of Sept. My, how quickly time passes. Especially this week. We have had a lot of significant events here in the Nelson family. Wed was Ferns 1^st birthday, although we celebrated it on Monday because Mom and Dad Nelson were able to come over form Ephrata. It was very neat to see Fern learn how to open a present. Once she did she was so excited to do the next one. She really loved all the clothes that she got. She loves to pull things over her head, we believe that she likes playing dress up. We are fearful for her teenage years and plan on hiding our credit cards. [see birthday pics below]

Also, this week I handed in my Letter of Resignation at my Dead-end, going-nowhere Job as I accepted an offer from a landscape design company named Lifestyle Landscape. It is a HUGE step up for me and is what I have been dreaming of for almost 8 years now. The interview process was tough with up to 5 people in on the interview. The nice thing about tough interview is that you know that if they examined you that thoroughly you must be a good candidate. I didn’t think that I had a chance but less than 1 business hour later (the next morn) the made me a nice offer. It will be a significant, not large, pay increase. A huge increase in benefits. 10 days vacation with All paid Holidays Vs. 5 days vacation with 1 paid holiday, for example. Oh and did I mention that I will be finally be a full fledged designer? Anyhow it is in south Seattle, so the commute will be rough, but we are looking into some different housing options that are closer and cheaper, although probably not nicer. Our home here in Woodinville is very beautiful and comfortable.

[see Barclay Lake pics below]

Well with the week off before I start my new job we painted our bedroom and took some time to just hang out as a family. Henry who is 3 1/2 and I, went on his first overnight backpacking trip. We went to Barclay Lake. It is listed in one book as 1.5 miles and another as 2.2. I think I would lean towards the 2.2. It was a good hike. I am really impressed with Henry's hiking aptitude. He has incredible balance and agility and great endurance. I had to push him hard on the way up so that we didn’t get stranded in the dark. He went at a good pace almost the whole way which was almost 2 hours. At the lake we where the only people there and it remained that way for 18 hours until lunchtime the next day. We found a nice spot on the shore of the lake. We cooked our dinner on my campstove. We tied our food up in a tree to keep it out of reach of the bears. In the tent we colored picture before we fell asleep. The next morning was so beautiful, the sun was shining on the meadow at the end of the lake and mist was curling around the tip of Baring Mountain. I could hardly take enough pictures. I took some pictures of Henry, because he appeared surprisingly grownup. I really am proud of him, to me he is such a great kid. He is kind and gentle, yet tough and rugged. He always wants to help other people. He is smart and has an awesome sense of humor. No kid is perfect, but I think that I have and exceptionally great one. We cooked breakfast on the shore in the sun to keep warm. We then hiked around the lake to see what we could find. We saw thousands of mushrooms in myriad colors. There was yellow, orange, red, burgundy, pink, light purple, very dark purple, white black, brown, green and cream. Also there were a lot of ferns and some massive old growth trees. We had a great time and Henry has not stopped talking about it. In fact, at night I no longer “tuck him in”, I “zip up his sleeping bag”. I look forward to the many hiking and camping trips of the future. I hope it will not be long until Lyn and Fern can join us. (occasionally)

Climbing to Lake Serene 8-18-07

So Saturday me and a couple of guys from the ward went hiking to Lake Serene. I was worried by the weather prediction of 60% rain but I decided to go anyhow. I'm glad I did as we didn't see more than a couple of drops of rain late in the day. On the way up we stopped at the base of a large waterfall. [pic1] It was very interesting, it reminded me of the movie Last of the Mohicans. Anywho. One guy,Ken had a full pack on getting ready for his trip to Yosemite in Sept. Dave and I had day packs on so the two of us decided to skip the switch-backs and climb what was essentially a cliff. We saw alot of wonderful things and at times thought 'What in the heck are we doing?' We ended up climbing approx 1800 vertical feet [pic2] [pic3] when we got to the lake.[pic4] The lake is surrounded by massive cliffs on the south side.[pic5] we could see into the water 25-30 feet with crystal clarity. I was really beautiful. We hiked and fished and had lunch and just had a good time. We made our way to the far side of the lake to a snow cave. [pic6] It wasn't really a cave it was just where the snow melt comes out of the base of the the snow but we could hike in quite a ways. We hiked along the talus slope down to the lake the water was so clear, with a hint of turquoise [pic7] that i couldn't resist going in for a swim. The only problem was that I didn't have a swim suit or a change of clothes... oh wait! that wasn't a problem. It's not like a swim suit would offer any insulation in a snow fed lake anyhow. :D [no pic] So after the swim we hiked back down the trail passing Old Growth forest along the way. Some of the trees had a dia. of better than 8 feet! It was very impressive. I had THE best time. I have not felt that alive and energetic in a long time. If only I could spend every day in the mountains. We were supposed to be back around 3-4pm instead we didn't get off the mountain until after 8 and by then we were hungry so we had stop by a great Mexican food place and replace all those calories that we burned off earlier.

Many thanks to my sweet wife Lyn for not only allowing me to be gone that long but enthusiastically supporting it.