What the heck?!

It’s been almost 9 months since I actually wrote anything?! Hmmm. There’s probably an explanation for that. Here’s a quick jot of the last 9 months:

Fall 2011 comprised of:

MCDM Gift Committee and MCDM Happy Hour Committee meetings, organizing MCDM Game Nights, homework, work, too much freelance, and too many startups to the point that I had to back out of all of the projects (mostly after a lock-jaw/TMJ incident… and then severe sleep apnea diagnosis gave me a reality check). Then final quarter of grad school. Then a crazy, 24 hour series of flights from the west coast to the east coast and back again in order to get the boys to Seattle with us. What followed next was a crazy packing/moving out period and a two-week cross country drive with the boys, John, Chowder (the kitty), and  a car full of belongings. Which leads me to…

A cross-country trip:

We traveled down the coast on 5, 1 and 101 which was amazing. Slow, but amazing. We saw several amazing sunsets and I probably could have stayed on the coast for a few more days. We had a vote and started to venture off of the coast just below San Francisco. Then it was across the Southwest until we got to New Mexico. The plan was to visit a close friend… until an ice storm interrupted us. So we continued on our way, across the southern states and then up the middle of the eastern US states. Highlights from the trip included: amazing sunsets on 101, amazing photos of the boys at sunset, videos of the boys acting crazy as they ran down sand dunes on the Oregon coast, the Redwoods, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas… and a room on the 36th floor of the Four Seasons, lots restaurants and hotel rooms (and the boys’ reactions to all of them), and multiple chorus-in-the-car-sessions to random pop songs… the most memorable being I’m Sexy and I Know It by LMFAO… and listening to the boys and John sing the wrong lyrics which of course, ended up being the lyrics from then on.

Back on the East Coast:

We stayed with Dad from January until my birthday in March. On the eve of my birthday, I signed the closing papers for a house! We moved in the next day. The boys moved in with us on February 1st, and have been with us full-time ever since. Since then, we’ve all slipped into our routines of school or work with time left over for dinner parties, more work, school, sports, walking to school (and then back up the hill with Donna), super improved grades (!), Cards Against Humanity sessions, television series marathons, eating Jacob’s first game (a wild turkey), Minecraft creation comparisons, lots of reading (the boys might say too much), and other good stuff.

And that brings us up to now. In a few words, it’s good to be back. I am missing Seattle completely, but it’s nice to be able to keep in touch with friends and talk on the phone every day with coworkers. I am seriously missing coffeehouse lattes, sushi, Thai food, walking through the city every morning, sunrises in the Colombia, bus rides (aka people watching), Living Social coupons, checking-in new places, new places (!), school, going to the office, office lunches, MCDM, and especially missing a few certain somebodies. BUT, I’m going for graduation next month and I can’t wait to see everyone!

Where’d Summer Go?

It looks like the only thing that I’ve kept up with on this site is the photo gallery. It looks like the last time that I wrote was in June. It’s now October. Since June it seems that I’ve managed to get my TMJ symptoms under control (mostly be trying to kick back a little bit and get more sleep), my YouTube post of the Seattle Rock Orchestra has received almost 900 views, and we successfully squeezed in as much touring as we could.

June and July were filled with trips to the Hood Canal. The canal is now on my list of favorite spots – and a place that I would love to have a cabin some day. We “picked” oysters, mussels, and clams every morning and caught over 40 or so dungeness crabs. I picked up moon snails, held monstrous starfish, chased around tiny little crabs that littered the shore, and took some pretty cool macro pics. We spent time with friends, Jansci and Brianna (and family) and sat around playing board and card games.

July was also spent at a birthday party on Lake Cushman, at a Candlebox/Verve Pipe/Toad & the Wet Sprocket concert, at MCDM Game Night, at a Seattle Sounders vs Manchester United Game, at Julian’s birthday party where we saw the Blue Angels fly, and at the Seafair Torchlight Parade. The Sounders game was awesome, but I was a little bummed that more than half of the crowd was cheering for ManU. Yes, I love ManU – they’re my favorite team – but I also think you have to cheer for the home team when you can. The Sounders got creamed, but it was still impressive to see the two teams play. MCDM Game Night has been steadily growing since June which is awesome. I’m pretty bummed that I won’t be around for them after December. Hopefully I can get someone to take over the planning. One of the first things that I’m doing when I get home is setting up a Game Night for anyone to come to. There are so many “indie” games that are amazing. Until the gaming class, I had never really played anything aside from card games and the standard Milton Bradley-type games. Who knew that there were games like Werewolves, Guillotine, and Munchkin out there?

August was comprised of another Game Night, a Mariners vs Red Sox game, and touring with Linda. The Mariners game was excellent – we’re definitely going to have to hit up a Red Sox game at Fenway when we get home. Touring with Linda was awesome as well. We hit the Peninsula and made stops at several beaches including the La Push beaches. Those were amazing and I got some of the coolest pictures I’ve ever taken. We stayed the night in a camper that Dan’t brother Dave was nice enough to let us use. They said we’d be “roughing it” but it was the cleanest, nicest camper ever. Obviously, they have no idea that we lived in John’s cabin for a few years. Dave’s family has a huge lot of 20 acres with a trail that leads down to a secluded beach. Again – amazing. We walked down right before sunrise and watched the sun come up. Linda and I took the Victoria Clipper up to Victoria, BC for one of the days. It was pretty cool. Linda got tickets for a bus to take us to the Butchart Gardens which didn’t seem cool at first, but then I started taking photos and getting into all of the color arrangements – so then I was excited. The next day we hit up Jade Garden in the International District with Alison and Julian. It was Julian’s first time having dim sum – and chicken feet. He thoroughly enjoyed grossing us out.

August also consisted of PAX Prime. Incredible. There were 6 floors of the Washington State Convention Center full of board games, card games, and video games. I’ve never seen so many gamers – they actually set a PAX record of over 70,000 attendees. I probably won’t make it back to Prime, but I’m going to register for PAX East as soon as registration opens up. I’m glad that I bought two passes for Prime when I did – tickets sold out (all one and three days passes) within two weeks and the sale started in April. Ali and I ended up going to a bunch of education/games panel discussions and Zak and his buddies used the passes at night. It was a blast and the panels were inspiring. They weren’t telling Ali or I anything we didn’t already know, but it was inspiring that so many people are starting to get behind mixing games and learning. There is a worldwide movement to meld the two and it’s getting serious backing from game companies, as well as all major charity/grant foundations and the US government. PAX inspired us to change our independent study to focus on games and learning and we’re hoping to expand it into a post-grad capstone that will hopefully be funded by grants if we can secure them.

On to September. Game Night once again. The September one was huge compared to the rest – we had over 20 people show up and it was a blast. Zack came and stayed with us for two weeks. He seemed to like the city more than I thought he would. He was thoroughly interested to go to tourist attractions, museums, and even try dim sum (which I still haven’t been able to get John to try). We went to Bumbershoot. In general the festival was pretty cool, but the evening shows that we went to at the Key Arena were awesome. We decided to go sit for the act before Wiz Khalifa (which was the whole reason I picked Sunday for tickets). It turned out that the act before was a local artist that is turning superstar act – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. It’s a hip-hop group that was extremely impressive from beats to lyrics to the light show. The crowd was going crazy for them. The arena was actually full to the brim. The finale act of the day, Wiz Khalifa was awesome. I love all of his songs to begin with, but not only did he keep the arean filled, teens were jumping over the walls to get closer to the stage. The thing that blew me away the most is that a few seconds after the show started the arena was full of smoke. It’s not something I had any interest to partake in, but I was stunned at how many people were. There were “clouds” all over the place. Crazy.

Speaking of crazy – we took Zack and my friend Derek down to Mount Rainier. That was awesome. I didn’t realize that they had  road that gets you very close to the mountain. The mountain and valleys were impressive. We walked over this crazy log bridge (literally a log stretched across rapids) out onto a trail that led to a hidden waterfall. I’m glad we made it down. It looks like we won’t make it to St. Helens, but there’s always another day.

September was also when Ali and I introduced ourselves to GrubWithUs. It’s basically a networking site involving food and trying different things with strangers. The owners of the site put together meals at city-specific restaurants once a week. You view the menu, pay for a seat, and show up. Five-to-eight other random people show up and you all eat together family-style. It’s an awesome idea and we attended two in the last month – one at Petra Mediterranean Bistro, and one at Kingfish Cafe (southern food). Both groups of attendees were great and although you’d think something like that would be awkward – it wasn’t at all. I’m thinking of trying one with John just for kicks. Wish me luck.

36/50 States Down By Return Trip

Yeah, so I have this goal that I want to visit every state in the US in my lifetime. Then of course there are a lot of countries on a larger list. By the time we return to Bradford I’ll have the list narrowed down to 15 14: Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Missouri, and Louisiana. The trip out here was 13, the trip back home is 14, and of course, we’ll be passing through VT, PA and NY twice. Trips to Florida, drives to Maine, and multiple drives down to Washington, D.C. account for the rest. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited for the trip home just to see everything we have on a growing list.

Plus, as of this weekend, the boys are going with us on the way back! They’re a little nervous about flying by themselves so I’ll be flying back home, meeting them, flying back to Seattle, and driving from there. So it looks like the trip will consist of: driving down the majority of Route 1 (right on the coast of California), the Redwood Forest, the Golden Gate Bridge, Route 66, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and a bunch of other cities and national parks that look like good ideas. See a zoomed out map below.

UPDATE: I struck through Utah and changed the count to 14 because after posting the route on Facebook, several people said if we’re going towards Vegas, we mine as well go up to Zion in Utah and then down to the Grand Canyon instead of down and over. Sounds good to me.