Did I mention I'm in school? I am! Finally! I started classes on Monday and we are going strong. It is going to be a very busy year! We started with 17 in my cohort and are down to 16 on day 4 :( So far I am enjoying just about every class, though. I have "teaching math," "intro to teaching," a special ed. class, "ed psychology," and a tech class that is pretty boring so far but hopefully will move fast. I have seen Brandon a total of about 3 hours this week, but some of that is because I'm house-sitting, too. Hopefully it will get better when I'm living back at home. On the other hand, living alone I've been a lot more productive!
By the way, one of my biggest accomplishments this week: I figured out the bus schedule and made it to and from class on the bus every day without going anywhere extraneous!!!
Other things I did this week: cleaned up a mouse head and tail and the mess caused by a cat leaving a mouse head and tail around. Got up at 6:00 a.m. three days!!! Learned that there is a "new" math. Started getting to know the other people in my cohort. So far I've read every word of the assigned readings for every class. (I expect that to last about 2 more days!)
Well that is all the time I have. Have an amazing day!

CFSC-the memories

In early June our Captive Free teammate came to visit us for a few days. We spent a lot of time reminiscing, reading old journals, and laughing. We also showed her some of the Bellingham sites!out on the lake at campsunset at Boulevard Park (over Bellingham Bay)napping with Smokeyon Mt. Constitution (Orcas Island)-half way upthe view from the top of Mt. Constitution (or lack thereof!)then we hiked down to Twin "Lakes" (more of a pond-very disappointing for all the work it involved!) and felt a great sense of accomplishment that we made it back to the top!
When we got back to the top there was a very brief break in the clouds (Jess almost missed it going to the bathroom!)and we could see the lakes we had hiked down to.
Sorry that the pics are so small, it says they are medium :(

Kendall's Graduation and Commissioning

Carole's baby brother was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant Seli
and graduated from college all in one weekend! Way to go, hon!Kendall takes his oath.The family!
Kendall receives his first salute.
2nd Lieutenant Seli gets his diploma!

Bandit

Well, it looks touch and go for our darling Bandit. Apparently our trip made him very depressed because I cleaned his bowl today and when I went back about an hour later he was laying on the kitchen floor. It seems he took the opportunity of an over-filled bowl to try and commit suicide. We have placed him in fishy ICU, but so far he isn't doing much. His gills are still moving but that is about it. We'll keep you posted.

Update: Bandit seems to have made a complete recovery and has not tried jumping out again so far!

Spring in Washington

We recently had several guests join us for a week, Mel, Brandon's sister, and her "baby" Drake, our friend Mindi, and her boys Ethan, Tristan, and Noah. Daisy also spent most of the week with us celebrating her birthday (the big 3-0!), and we saw the tulips, went to Washington Park, played a lot, and ate a lot!

Daisy and Carole!

Mindi, Tristan, Ethan, & Noah at the Tulip fields

Back to the 80's!!!

What fun!!! Our friend Nichol's youth group had an 80's themed lock-in and we went for a few hours to take pictures. It was fabulous the outfits that these kids, some not even born in the 80's, found! And we looked pretty good ourselves!

I'm In!!

Well, good news! Carole got into the school program she was applying to!

It is weird for it to now be real, she'll be starting classes on June 25th.

To contribute to the cause checks can be made out to Brandon and Carole Scheer (Just Kidding!!!) We now get to start stressing about money, which is a negative, but Carole won't be able to complain about being bored anymore, which Brandon is looking forward to!

She'll finish up at the church around June 1st, depending on when a replacement is hired, and spend a couple weeks relaxing and helping out at camp to get ready to hit the books!

Back to School?

Well, Carole interviewed today as the last step in her quest to go back to school. It was quite the process with a group interview, individual interview, and writing sample to do in the 4 hour session! It seems to have gone well and we should know in a week and a half or so whether or not we'll be paying more student loans!!!

Brandon & John Do New York

After a conference in Lake Placid, Brandon spent a few days with John in his new hometown of NY, NY! They went snowboarding, did a lot of hot-tubbing, and saw the city....

The Statue of Liberty

The view of the city from the Ferry

Brandon's "homeland" the Apple store!
The big city (Times Square) at night


The fountain near Rockefeller Center

So, a long time since I did anything here. Sorry! You should also check out my new myspace, created for me primarily by Nichol. She thought it was unbelievable that I didn't have one. It is pretty fun to update with backgrounds and music and whatnot. Speaking of music, my new favorite artist is Corinne Bailey Rae, check her out!
Here are some photos from a recent trip to a park near us. Great fun, and don't we have the cutest dog ever?

Life Happenings...

Well, although life has been pretty slow lately we thought we should at least say hello!

Some highlights of the new year so far have been:
*Brandon turned 27 years old!!!
*Carole continues to work on her application to a program to get her teacher certification. So far this has included a lot of work on an application essay, taking Math 99 at the community college, and taking the WEST-B. The WEST-B is a skills assessment for people who want to go into a teaching program. I think mine went pretty well, I feel confident! My math class has actually been fun, and has made me feel a little more confident about going back to school, so that is good! There is still a long haul left on the application process. If I pass the test and they like my application then I face a group and an individual interview. Hopefully the time passes quickly so I know soon whether I am in or not! If I do get in I'll start in June and it is a one-year intensive program that combines my schooling with several days a week in a school in Bellingham.
*Brandon has started the recruiting portion of his year, so far he has visited Concordia in Portland. This will culminate in his visit to Lake Placid, NY the end of February to trade applications with the other camps of the Lutheran association that Lutherwood is a part of. He is getting excited for this trip because he'll also spend a few days visiting his best friend John, who just joined the Secret Service and is now in New York City. Carole, unfortunately won't be able to make it as planned because of class and work commitments. =(
*Smokey's jaw has healed completely, you can't even see where it was broken on the x-rays. He's enjoying chewing things again!

I guess that sums it up for the most part. Don't forget, we are always open to having visitors!!!

Whew, a scare!

We had quite the scare last night. We thought Bandit had gone on to fish heaven. Which is easy to think when he has his head shoved under a rock on the bottom of his bowl and his tail is sticking straight up. But when Brandon gave him a nudge he seemed to be just fine. We did move him a little closer to the heater, because we are having weather that is just not supposed to happen around here and our furnace is having a little trouble keeping up!
We have about a foot of snow (which Smokey is loving, at least) and it hasn't gotten above freezing for 3 days. In a place that it rarely gets BELOW freezing we aren't sure what to do with that!!! But, the good news is...it has been sunny!!!! Yeah!!!!

=+=I'm a math genius!!+=+

So on Tuesday I started the math class, Math 99, I have to have before I can get into the teaching program I'm applying to and I left class feeling like I was a) old and b) very far behind, since everyone else in there had just finished the Math 98 class last quarter. On Wednesday we got our first homework and as I did it I thought, "hey, I remember most of this" On Thursday our professor asked if anyone had any questions and I realized "I'm a Math Genius!" (I know, I know, there are no stupid questions, but still!)

Memories of Vacation

Hi everybody! We just wanted to let you know some of what our Christmas vacation was like. This year we decided along with Carole's parents and brothers to take a trip somewhere fun. We chose Zion National Park because we could then also catch a Phoenix reunion of Dad's parents and brothers, and all their families.
Zion was amazing. Every morning we would walk out of the lodge and just look up and up and up, and go "wow" We spent our days like this: Breakfast (a yummy, yummy buffet in the Zion Lodge), followed by a 2-4 mile hike, then we'd come back to the rooms for a bit, have a snack, then go for another hike, or a drive, or to the visitor's center, then come back, have a glass of wine by the fireplace, go to dinner (delicious every night no matter where we went!) come back, go to sleep, start all over. It was fabulous. We were there from the 23rd through the 27th.

Then we drove the LONG drive to Phoenix. Mom decided to chase some non-existant =( California Condors, but Connor, Kendall, and we instead detoured to some Anasazi ruins. These were really amazing, too, just the fact that they've survived since 1100! We drove past Sunset Volcano, but didn't get out and look around because it was getting late and it was SNOWING! Luckily we soon dropped back down to the warmer part of the desert into Phoenix.

Phoenix was not as warm as we had hoped it would be but it was a load of fun. Carole's Dad has 4 brothers, and when you add up all the aunts, cousins, grandparents, and one new grandson-in-law (Brandon) we came to a whopping 21 people. The most fun was just getting to see our family again, since we hadn't seen any of them since the wedding. Cousins Laura and Matt had to work, so we didn't get to see them all that much, but we did spend a lot of time with Cousins Livvie, Emma, and Noah. Emma and Noah didn't even remember us, so we had a good time making them think we were fun. Of course we are old, so they thought we should be aunts and uncles, not cousins....
Some of what we did in Phoenix: The Heard Museum (a museum of native cultures, mostly Native American tribes in the Arizona area. VERY cool place), PF Changs for lunch (yum!) followed by a trip to the busiest mall I've ever seen, the Phoenix zoo, and a delicious Mexican restraunt that I can't think of the name of (not Brandon's favorite part of the trip), the obligatory photos of every possible combo of people. Other than that we pretty much ate. and ate. and ate. Fudge, cookies, barbeque, smoked pork fajitas, shrimp gumbo, turkey soup, ahhhhh...I do love food =)

Brandon and I departed Phoenix around 11:00 the night of the 30th after dinner out for Mexican with everyone. We were flying of of Las Vegas so we had about a 5 1/2 hour drive. We got to drive over the Hoover Dam, which we both agree we'd like to see in the daylight. We got into Las Vegas about 4:00, dropped off the rental car and got to the airport so early they wouldn't even let us check in our luggage yet! Once we had finally done that we crashed at our gate for a few hours before getting back to Seattle via San Jose.

Seattle was unusually kind to us and allowed the sun to come out long enough to greet us! Our awesome friend Nichol picked us up and the three of us (plus Smokey and Everest) had a very nice New Year's Eve watching "The Devil Wears Prada" (not as good as the book) and "Little Miss Sunshine" (stinking hilarious, sweet, all around great movie) The next morning we tried to go have a nice breakfast but it turns out all good chefs take New Year's off, so we ended up at IHOP. Then we drove home. It is good to be home.

Pictures from our trip

We'll post more soon, but wanted to at least get a few up....

I love copy machines!!

OK, that is kind of a lie. Right now (and I'd like you to note that it is about 20 minutes after I was supposed to leave) my hero the copy repairman is tearing apart my machine because it abruptly stopped doing anything about 50 copies shy of my goal (somewhere around 700 bulletins) I think he could hear that I was about to burst into tears because there was no one else to handle getting the copier fixed so it had to happen before I leave ona plane at 6 a.m. tomorrow!!! Alleluia, he is here. Now we are just praying it is something fixable without ordering a part or something equally time-consuming. For those of you wondering why this pushed me within about an inch of meltdown....it is because the exact same thing happened last year as I was trying to leave for Christmas!!! This copier does not like Christmas (I think it is a "Happy Holidays" copier!!!) That is me, the crazy copy girl, signing off in hopes of leaving soon!

Merry Christmas!!!!

We just wanted to wish everyone (all two of you!) that visits our blog a Merry Christmas! We are heading off to Zion Nat'l Park, UT and Phoenix, AZ with Carole's family, so we are looking forward to some sun and warmth! Smokey is excited too, that he gets to go to Bowzer's B & B (we are telling him it is a spa, not a kennel) Hopefully all goes smoothly there!
In other news....
last night we got complimentary tickets to an improv comedy theatre here in Bellingham that is owned by Ryan Stiles of "Whose Line Is It" Mr. Stiles lives on the same lake the camp is on and so therefore knows our buddy Nichol who used to have Brandon's job. They went to visit and long story short he got us some free tickets. But the really exciting thing was we didn't think he would be performing, it wasn't advertised at all that he was. But he did!! We had a lot of fun and it was a good evening out, even if it did mean a short night's sleep!
We aren't sure how much chance we'll have to update while on vacation, but we will if we can!!
~Carole

We have a Neph-dog!!!

Brandon's sister Melissa just adopted this cutie-pie, Drake. He is an American Bulldog and at 60 pounds is probably about half-size! Uff-da! He'll be able to put Smokey in his place, for sure!

Just another picture

Well, I thought this was a very "Washington" picture of us, so I thought I'd post it. This was taken at a state park on the coast about 20 minutes from the camp. We just visited for the first time and it might be one of my (and Smokey's) new favorite places. I'm sure it's beautiful in the summer, too, but this time of year it is just exactly what I will always imagine when I think of Bellingham. (After I move somewhere that is dry occassionally, someday!!) This picture is a little blurry but shows you how even rain can be beautiful (sometimes)

Happy Thanksgiving

We have had a wonderful week and a half of family visiting over Thanksgiving. Here are some highlights:

A "little" electrical work...thanks Dad!

Going to Larrabee State Park with the parents. We even saw a seal! It was a bit damp but all in all a beautiful view of the Puget Sound

A visit to Orcas Island in the San Juans by ferry.

Waking up to a little snow on Saturday....

And a LOT of snow (15 inches!) on Sunday!

See you next year!!!

John and Pam got Married!

Brandon's best friend John got married this weekend in St. Louis, MO,
so we were there for the occassion.

The Scheer clan with the new Mr. and Mrs. Havecker.

The wedding party headed to a nearby park for some fun pictures before the reception.

John was somewhat perturbed that
a) he had to put the veil over his head, and
b) he had to kiss Pam in public for the second time that day
but I think that this picture is so cute!!

Pam got John good when he went to take off the garter and she was wearing her long underwear. We missed the photo op but she jumped up and did a jig with her dress over her head. It was pretty stinking hilarious to see the look on his face!

All in all we had a wonderful time and the wedding was gorgeous.
Best wishes, guys!!

Our First Trip to Canada!

Well, we finally made a trip to Canada. We went up and roller bladed around Stanley Park, which is an island just off the coast in Vancouver and the whole thing is a city park with walking, biking, and rollerblading trails around the perimeter. It was about a 10 km. trip around, and the coolest part by far was that you were pretty much on top of the sea wall the entire time, and on the outer side of the island the waves were shooting straight up the sea wall and crashing on the trail! We did a good job of timing our sprints and didn't get washed out to sea =) We didn't have the camera with us for that (didn't want to fall and break it!) but we did get some amazing sunset shots after we were done roller blading.

We didn't get a picture of the welcome to Canada sign-Brandon was pretty worked up about the whole border crossing thing (he forgot where he lived when asked) and wasn't thinking about photo ops. But he was a little calmer on the way back (and we had a longer wait) so we got a Welcome to the US pic!

Happy Howl-a-ween!

Happy Howl-a-ween from Everest & Smokey!

and Brandon, and Carole, and Nichol! We had a great time at the Lutherwood Harvest Festival (we were pretty much the only ones there) and Smokey and Everest wore the Halloween costumes from Auntie Melissa. Smokey was a Fire Hydrant and we tried to turn Everest into a fire fighter, but he wasn't big on the costume thing!