A bit of a change....

OK, so many of you who keep up on this already have heard, but we are making a life change and moving away from camp! This weekend we went down to Portland and Brandon interviewed and was offered a job as a low-voltage electrical apprentice. He accepted and starts the beginning of January. We are excited to be close to some friends and family and have a new start. While we were making decisions we also found an apartment and reserved it, we'll move our stuff in while in Portland for Thanksgiving with family and then live with the bare necessities at camp for the last couple weeks before we leave on Christmas vacation. That seemed simplest, when we come back from Christmas break we will be coming back to a new home and new jobs.

Take a look at our apartment complex, we are excited because they take large dogs, have washers and dryers (hey, it is the little things!), and it is close to a walking trail and parks. We'll have a 2 bed, 2 bath. Here are a few pictures that I found, one of the middle of the complex, our unit is facing the outside of the complex rather than the pool.
and our kitchen (but it doesn't have red walls, they are "Relaxed Khaki")
and our living room. With fireplace, like we are living in the country!
I guess that means you are updated. We are excited for the changes, although not so excited about packing up all our stuff! Wish Carole luck as she tries to get lined up with some subbing in Vancouver, where our apartment is. And wish Smokey luck as he has no idea how much his life is about to change!

Life as Usual

Greetings from Washington! We were feeling like we should at least share a hello with those of you who keep up with us this way. Things are going well and we have actually been getting to enjoy some time together!

Carole is staying about 1/2 busy subbing, and picking up a few hours on the challenge course here at camp as well. She isn't doing the cooking here, the schedule with the other cook just wasn't working out. We'll see how things go and maybe find another part time job for the weekends if that seems to be needed! She is having a great time on the days she does sub, a lot of those days have been at Larrabee Elementary, the school she interned at, so it is comfortable and fun!

Brandon continues to stay pretty busy with work, but this year is nice in that Carole can take a day off with him during the week. We have been doing some hiking, stuff around the house, and sleeping in! His latest project has been trying to speed up the internet in our apartment so that he can MarioKart online. This has been hampered somewhat by the rain that has once again started. It would seem that this is not the year of sunshine and warmth here in Bellingham. He continues to think a bit about what he might like to do if/when he leaves camp, but things aren't going too badly as far as camp goes. They continue to say things like "right now we have the money to pay you through December" which is more than a little stress-inducing!

Smokey is doing well, he has been liking the hikes we get to do, and is back to chasing the geese off the water front. He is also busy training us in our parental skills, the other night he started retching and Carole sat straight up and yelled "your dog is going to puke!" while simultaneously Brandon went bounding out of bed and ran Smokey outside. We laughed afterwards that if we have a real baby we'll have to relearn the appropriate response and not throw them out on the porch!

Our only big news lately is that we are going to be godparents, Cailyn asked us via video chat and of course we said yes! We are definitely going to be the coolest godparents ever, we have already found an awesome Christmas present :)

I guess that is about it, hope you are all well and having a wonderful Fall!

One Baby Girl

"I did decide that if we ever have a baby girl it wouldn't be the end of the world." That is the quote that pretty much sums up our mini-vacation from last week. We headed down to Portland to visit Jon, Briana, and Kadyn and Brandon ended up a bit smitten with Kadyn. Despite one minor spit-up incident he decided she was pretty darn cute. We enjoyed some down time just relaxing with Mama and Daddy, too. It was very nice just to take it easy, eat on the patio, go to the bakery in the morning, take walks and go to the Arboretum, plus a trip to the new Portland Ikea! We also had a nice lunch with Connor before heading home. While it was a quick trip it was wonderful to get away from camp for a few days.

It's Official

I'm a teacher! Got my certificate today...now if only someone wanted me to use it...

4 Years!

We celebrated our 4th anniversary in style, and cheaply :) We headed up to Mount Baker and went for a great hike. Originally we thought we'd do a 4 mile in and out to a lake, but when we got in we were feeling cool (and had met a lot of people we thought we should be able to outhike) so we decided to try the whole loop (7.5-9 miles depending on the map you look at!) We finished in a solid 4 1/2 hours, and other than the last mile and a half which was literally stairs felt pretty good. Mt Shuksan from Picture Lake

Nooksack Falls

Family Pic in front of Mount Baker, from the high point of our hike

The boys

Mom's Visit

As we left the Scheers at the In-gate of the airport we walked downstairs and picked up Carole's Mom at baggage claim. It has been a nice visit with her as well, less Mario-Kart, but good! We have done some shopping and a little bit of hiking. We also went out to the islands again in an attempt to see whales one more time, but had no luck. The weather was much nicer, and it was a great day even without whales. Smokey got to go along this time as well, and had a great time digging in the sand at the beach.

A Week To Go

We can not believe it but there is only one week of camp left! It has been a crazy summer, but a good one. For those of you who have not heard Carole still is unemployed and feeling a little off balance with nothing really to do! After dropping Stan and Karen at the airport we picked up Carole's Mom, so they have been hanging out and watching the Olympics.

Since nothing came through for Carole the current plan is to hang at Lutherwood for another season. Could be that we are getting a message on where we are supposed to be this year, but a little gentler message would have been nice! Lutherwood has hired an interim executive director and Brandon is excited to see where that leads. Although he is tired from an understaffed summer there is some anticipation of changes that will hopefully make things work a little more smoothly here. Carole will be substituting in a couple districts near camp and helping out with "hospitality" (that is cooking and cleaning to the layperson) around camp. There is something to be said for a lighter load after the intensity of the last year of school. She is also hoping to begin learning Spanish on the side.

We hope you are all doing great, give us a call if you'd like to come visit beautiful Northwest Washington!

The Fun Continues

The last several days of vacation have been pretty awesome. On the way to take Mel to the airport we took in some Seattle sites. The Market, Queen Anne Hill, and Golden Gardens Park. It was a fun day to spend together.

Then on Friday evening we spent some time at the good old casino. Brandon was the big winner at the craps table, turning his $20 into $200!! He had a lot of fun, and after the rest of us gave up on the slots we enjoyed watching and trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

Saturday saw us headed out to San Juan Island. It was a kind of nasty day, but turned out to be worth it. We drove over to American Camp National Park with the intention of a hike down to the beach, but as we geared up it started POURING. We made the call to head back into town and do some shopping and whatnot and see if the rain broke. We went to the whale museum and when we came out the sun was peaking out. So, we decided to take advantage of the break in weather and try the hike again. As we came down to the cove Carole said "Wow, look at all those boats, my friend Erica says that if you are looking for whales just look for all the boats. THERE'S A WHALE!!"
We got to spend the next hour and a half watching whales cruise by us and play a little. It was a pretty amazing thing to catch. About the time the whales faded out the rain started and we headed back to town. What perfect timing!!!

We also caught a great sunset to finish the night out.

Scheer Reunion

Papa Goat helps out in the Lutherwood kitchen!

The scooter arrives!!! Finally!!!!

Unfortunately it takes 2 days for us to figure out the assembly instructions in Chinese and get all the parts they "forgot" to include :( A frustrating experience, thank goodness Stan was here or my hog would still be in the box.

But we prevailed and I was off! Then I let a few other people give it a shot.

Goat catches some air and Stan catches it on film. OK, not really because it is a digital camera, but the rapid fire capabilities of Brandon's camera were Stan's best friend. He took 800 pictures of us on the water! (Don't worry, we didn't post them all.)Mel gets going again on the wakeboard.
Brother and sister sharing tube time.
Bottoms up!
Mom and Dad speeding around the lake.
Then Dad goes a little more exteme on his own!Look Mom, no hands!Synchronized tubing.

So far we have been having a great time, more to come, I am sure!!

Guess What We Did!

Well, we took the plunge and bought a new car yesterday. Faced with repairs costing more than the Forester was worth we went to "look." Of course we walked out with it, what were we thinking?? It is an 05 Honda Pilot (with more features than we know what to do with.) From the dealer we took it for a drive to pick up Mom, Dad and Mel from the airport. On the way home we hit REI (of course!) and had dinner. We also took family pictures in both the elevators we rode in. We have an action packed week ahead of us, it should be a great time to all be together.

Cailyn

Our other new cuddle-bug, Cailyn, taking a rest on the quilt we made her (it looks pretty good from this distance!)

The Downside of the Job

A couple weeks ago Goat got the bad side of the cleanest cabin reward. The cabin that has been the cleanest all week gets to make a staff member of their choice jump in the lake at the end of the week, and for the first time he got the call! He did it with style, despite the fact that he was giving a tour to several people at the time!

Brandon Makes the News!

No, not for his triathlon performance, but for camp! Here is a link for an article you can read about the challenge course. We are trying to track down copies Moms and Grandmas!!
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/lifestyle/story/465149.html
The online version is a little different from the print version (fewer pictures), but here is a link to a slideshow of some of the pictures. The one with Brandon that was actually in the paper didn't make the slideshow, but there are a few others.
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/galleries/gallery/464533-a464525-t2.html