It's cool to be square.

This past weekend we got a chance to go to the first teach social even for Northwest Christian (where Brenda teaches). It was out in the Green Bluff area of Spokane at one of the teachers’ house. The event was a barn dance and they got a square dance caller in to host the event. Brenda and I have never square danced, but it is pretty easy to catch on and by the end of the night we felt like old pros.
Here are a few of the folks.

Brenda is the tall one in the tan jacket....it was cold, but just right for dancing.

Work has been very busy and we are trying to get all the field work wrapped up before the bad weather hits, but no such luck. The forecasted high for the week is about 45F and it should be raining or cloudy all week. In Wallace ID, where my jobsite is, there is some snow on the ground at the higher elevations and I suspect that there will be some snow at the lower elevations by the end of the week.Pic from today.

We are pretty excited to close on the house on the 8th and can’t wait to get our stuff in there. We hope to have Thanksgiving at our place this year with my parents and the in-laws. We would love for them to see the house….oh ya and help out will some of the work we want done as well (suckers). I also have to go and cut some wood to get a good stockpile before the snow is way too deep to access the National Forest. This is really just an excuse to go out in the woods and use gas powered tools, but I say it as if it a necessity.

As soon as we get into the house I also have a long list of tools that I want (I hate it when people say they NEED things that are really just wants). I am pretty pumped.

Short list of things that I am currently annoyed with
- Political advertisements. I Think I am going to go and vote for anyone I have not heard of. If I see a name on the ballot I recognize, it must have been from some BS commercial and I will automatically reject their name and move on.

- Ballot measures. With all the measures we have to vote on these days, it kind of makes you wonder what we are paying out state reps to do. I thought that they were paid to make these decisions, and if we did not like their decisions then we vote them out. Next they are going to ask us the wipe their butts as well…if I have to hold their hand the whole time we may as well do their job for them…oh wait…we already are.

- On 60min last night they had some sob story about a guy who got laid off and could not find work. They tried to make us feel bad about the adjustments his family had to make. Their poor fragile lifestyle had to change. He used to make 200K a year and now was trying to whine that he now cannot afford to send his kid to college or pay the mortgage on the house…Mortgage…couldn’t he have paid that off in like 5 years making 200K a year? Oh, wait…he is an idiot and wanted a band new Mercedes for everyone in his whole family instead of paying off his debts (Want to bet he leased the cars…bonehead). As for college, let you kid get loans like everyone else….or…wait….get a job. My company is trying to hire a lot of people right now and if you are willing to travel there are jobs out there. Were we actually supposed to feel sorry for him?
I do have a lot more things for this list, but I don’t want to be thought of as bitter.

Lets play what's wrong with this picture....it probably took you about 2 seconds to find it(name not matching the picture), but apparently the dumb workers at the BOA here in WA cannot figure it out. Since California is on a different system than Washington we had to open a new account. I thought that was why I banked with a national company....so I didn't have to do that. I have had it with the BOA up here. The personnel just ask if you called customer service when you go in and ask a question...hello that's why I am here. They make you fill out deposit slips as well...Isn't that what they get paid to do? They don't have a clue how the bank functions, but sure can spit the robotic crap that gets ingrained into their brains during their initial training. We will be switching banks as soon as the house stuff gets worked out.

Home sweet home.

I thought that when we moved to the city of Spokane it would be a nice change of pace from the busy area of San Jose. That has not been the case so far.
We have been thinking about getting a house for some time now and found a realtor. Last Sunday was our first face to face meeting with her. We let her know the type of house we wanted to buy, and then looked at a couple online. We found three we wanted to take a closer look at and went out to check them out. The first two we did not think were that great, but the third one we thought was pretty cool. I emailed our realtor the next day to thank her and let her know we liked the last house, and she said the house just had an offer put in on it so if we did like it we would have to move fast. Not good news seeing as we are first time buyers and had only seen three houses. To make this long story short…we got the house and should be closing sometime in November (the exact dates I wanted to go bear hunting in North Carolina, but I guess I got to take on some responsibility sometime).

Gardening area.
It is a really neat house, but we are still negotiating some of the repairs that need to be completed prior to actually signing the papers, so you never know what could happen.
Stats on the house.
- Lot is over 1acre (just what I wanted)
- 5bed, 3bath, 2car garage
- small shed outside, the other owner had horses so it is set up for animals
- It is Outside the city limits so less rules and more fun. The house does need some work as stated before so we will be very busy this winter with small projects all over the place.

Work has been busy with me and with Brenda. Her work is about 40min away and will continue to be that far seeing as our house is only about 3 miles from where we live now. She is getting very tired of the drive, and I can sympathize because I also have to drive to get to our project site in the panhandle of Idaho (only for a few more weeks). Needless to say with all the papers we have to sign and inspections we have to get, we have been very busy and normally not getting home until about 8-9pm or so last week.

Updating my blog is not exactly on my priority list nowadays.

When our realtor asked us to be completely honest the first day we met her I proceeded to tell her I told her I wanted to be able to pee in my backyard without anyone seeing me....you should have seen her face when I said that...priceless.

Ben and Laura visit

We had the most lovely weekend last week with Ben and Laura Eisenga coming up here. They had not been away from their kids for the weekend in like forever. They left the kiddo's at home with the grandparents and stayed two nights up here.

Saturday we got a chance to go to the apple orchards just outside of town and it was perfect weather.
I had to carry the bucket and picked an apple from about every tree I passed....not sure which ones I got in the end, but most of them are good.

Ben and Laura

We also went up to Mount Spokane and warmed up by the fire in the summit house.

Holy cow is that one good looking couple.

They actually really still love each other even after kids.

Brenda and Laura are a little too much like high schoolers when they get together minus the pillow fights.

With no kids we had a chance to go out to a nice restaraunt downtown call the Catacombs. It was a very small restaurant in the basement of a historic hotel and really fun.

For more details or pics you can check out Laura's blog....off to yet another week of work.

Brenda also made a giant leap into the 21st century this weekend. She finally got a cellphone. After the years and years of resistance we thought it would be good for her to have one for the very long drive she has to take every day. I don't know much about phones, but I have tried to teach her as much as I can and she is now out there and mobile so world beware.

To the westside...last weekend

Thursday I got a chance while the woman was out of town to got o the "Pig Out in the Park" downtown Spokane. There was two stages with great music and about 50 food vendors. everything but the food was free and I had a great time.
Live Bluegrass is so much fun to watch.

Here is what I had for dinner....Gyros are very goodAnd here is another band

And a overview of the mob of people down there on a Thursday night.

So last weekend we got a chance to go over to my parents house in Burlington. It takes over six hours, but with the three day weekend it made the drive worth it and it also was nice that we got a chance to drive through the Cascades. We had a great time going on a couple of walks/hikes and going blackberry picking. Blackberry bushes are on every roadside there and they are huge. It was amazing that at every stop the bushes had thousands of berries on them and no one cared if you picked them. We came home with two big ziplocks and have made a pies we almost polished off with friends last night....it was very good.

Hiking along the waterfront...such a good time.

Here are my rents acting like they like each other...and after three kids.

Sunsets out here are great because there are clouds. In California they only had smog which did make for good sunsets, but then you couldn't breathe... you can't have it both ways.

Fairbanks or bust

It was a week ago now that I was up in Fairbanks Alaska for work. I got a call a couple weeks ago and they needed my services for a job up there for one day and I said sure. Free ride to a state I have never been to....of course. I booked the ticket for being in AK for two days but only ended up being there for about 40 hours total. I got in late the first night and worked the next day and then had a chance to go fishing (good thing I brought my rod). Jason is one of my coworkers from KY and he had been there for about a week so had the spots scoped out and killed them the previous night. Then I flew out the next day which made it a very short trip, but a good time.

Lots of grayling were caught and we had a blast. I got one on my second cast...now I know I am a good fly fisherman, but I think it was also a good spot to fish.

Here is Jason laying siege to the aquatic sasquatches. He caught more than I did, but I know next time to bring more elk hair caddis flies.

Brenda has been very busy since she got hired two weeks ago or so at Northwest Christian. She is going to be teaching PE, health, and a leadership class to Jr. High and Sr. High kids. She loves it and although I lost my home cooked meals when I get home from work...I think she may like that better. Actually I know she likes it better.

This weekend we went to the northern Idaho fair. It was cool to get back to the standard fair atmosphere you only find in a small town.

Here is Brenda posing next to the animal creations out of vegetables and fruit. I can't believe that people submit these things, but I think they were kind of interesting.

We watched the Rodeo and it was pretty interesting. They had all of the standard things, but since it was a "pro" rodeo there were almost no locals entered in the events. Not the small town stuff I was hoping for.

Of course there is a lot of patriotism here. It is really kind of cool to see how everyone seems to really love the US up here and does not complain about it all of the time. Everyone was reverent during the entire national anthem and then they actually prayed in public. In CA there would just be a "time of silence" so no one would be offended (political correctness gone over the edge and yet another example of liberals scarred of normal average Americans).
Here is a bareback riding action shot.

Washington does seem to be a bit behind the times. Example: there is no place to recycle here. I mean, we got bottles and cans coming out of our ears and everyone here just throws them in the garbage....really.