Pictures (Yippee!)

I posted a whole bunch of pictures online (link on the right). Especially from China. Browse and enjoy.

By the way my friends who are married/engaged list seems to be rapidly increasing.

For those of you who know her, Choi is engaged. I think she is the major contributing factor to why I stayed relatively sane throughout the trails and tribulations of high school.

A Brief History of the Highlights of the Past Month and a Half

(scroll down if you just want to look at the pictures)

I'm feeling a sudden competitive urge as I realize my brother and sisters have been updating and posting on their blogs and I've been a lazy bum about it.

Let me see... Things at work have been going well. This morning (06/12) I had my first EMR shift. I asked for more hours and somehow dug myself into a hole where I agreed to come to work at 6am. Those of you who have lived with m
e probably are sitting in shocked horror that I would voluntarily get up at 5am to go to work. I'm a little shocked to, but I found that I like the early morning shifts. Time goes by really quickly and I am good at it. "It" basically consists of putting out new stock onto shelves.

At the end of May, Janson and I flew out to Seattle to see his mom graduate from nursing school and get remarried. We arrived in Seattle Thursday (May 24th) night and I got to meet Breanna, Trevon, and Gaelen*. Previously I had met his parents and other sister Kalina. Friday I met Camden, the youngest and we all went to the pinning/graduation ceremony. Janson's mom got her nursing pin and master's hood. Afterwards we went out to dessert with all the Hartliep kids, me, Jans' mom, Brian (future step-father), Brian's daughter Brooke, and Brian's parents. Quite the gathering.

*I am not sure how to spell this one's name and apparently neither is Janson (he claims he is "just tired").

Saturday Janson, Breanna and I went to downtown Seattle, ate at a great little Thai and Moroccan place by Pike Place Market, went to the Seattle Art Museum, walked down the waterfront to the outdoor Olympic Sculpture Park where Breanna met up with her friends. The sculpture park had a metal tree. Janson and I then went back down the waterfront and ate at a phenomenal restaurant called the Crab Pot. We had a big bowl of clams, mussels, crab legs, shrimp, corn and potatoes dumped on the table in front of us and it was delicious.
My new gorilla pod (b-day present from Jans) came in handy as I attached it to a sighpost and took this photo of ourselves. We then went to go see Monkey Warfare which was showing as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. It was a pretty good movie, well done and enjoyable.

Sunday we went to Anderson Island for the wedding. Janson walked his mom up to the "altar".

Janson's mom and Brian: It was a beautiful small ceremony of just family and a few friends. It took place at the back yard of a house on Anderson Island (not sure of the connection between homeowners and couple). Janson now has a step-dad and two step-sisters which is kinda crazy! After the wedding we went out to eat with the happy couple, all their kids as well as me and Kalina's boyfriend, Tony.

This is Janson and me in our wedding garb.

Monday morning bright and early Jans and I drove up to Kirkland and had breakfast at the Brown Bag cafe (highly recommended). We met Kalina and tony as well as my sister Andrea and my Aunt Faye. After breakfast we had just enough time to run up to Bothell to see the old house. A lot has changed, but quite a bit still remains the same. Andrea and me:


On the flight back to GR we had an incredible view of the mountains. I was surprised when the pictures I took from the plane turned out faily well. No Mount Rainier though :(

I'm Back

I took a trip to Kentucky at the end of April (the 28th). Janson and I rented a car since the truck has rather low gas mileage. We drove down there (6 hours), saw Carrie and Charles get married and then drove back (6 hours). Several people have called us crazy for making the roundtrip in one day, but it was actually really nice. Janson and I had ample oppurtunity to talk and hold real conversations! Plus the wedding was great. Carrie and I met in the dorms our freshamn/sophmore years at Calvin and then lived together our junior year. I have many fond memories of Carrie and it was pretty crazy cool to see her get married.
The wedding was outdoors and it was beautiful weather. It was a small gathering which I think made it quite relaxing and enjoyable (especially for the bride and groom).

On the way down I had been sleeping for a quick nap when Janson woke me up saying that I had to see something. I groggily looked up and there, across the freeway was a giant Jesus. He promised we could stop and take a picture on teh way back. (see below)


Giant Jesus is on I-75 in Ohio and is 60-some odd feet tall.

Well, that's it for now. I think the next few days will require a fair bit of posting to catch up with where I am now.