2008 year in review

Well, we are a week into 2009 and what better way to commemorate the wrap up of 2008 but a blog post dedicated solely to that. It's a great idea, but not original. I'm following my friend Megan's lead on this one. I will stipulate that this could be a long post. As I was going through pictures, I realized there were some things that I never blogged about. Oops. So, I will do that in this forum so that our journey in 2008 is fully remembered and documented.

At the end of January (the 30th, to be exact), we said goodbye to poor truck. He got into a fight with three semis on a snowy mountain pass and lost the battle. Luckily, Tim was not injured at all. Surprising, judging by the after pictures of the truck (I don't have any of those, but that's probably for the better. It was rough).

On the same day the above picture of the truck was taken, Tim gave Winston a wash as well. It just makes me laugh because he was a wearing a hard hat due to the pouring rain. Who washes cars in the rain?? Apparently people that live in the rain for months and months on end!

Also at the end of January, we kicked off busy season in style! It was our last free Saturday before we started to work Saturdays.

No idea why this picture is so small but I'm too lazy to change it right now... Valentines day of 2008 was girls night! What a great time!

At the end of February, we got Winston a new brother: Duncan the FJ.

Duncan and Winston posing.

The weekend after we got Duncan, we decided to take him on a drive to see how awesome he was going to be. We took him 2 hours north to Bellingham, Washington to explore around and hike. I had never been up there before so it was a great day trip.

By the way, did I mention that Bellingham is beautiful? Here I am standing by the ocean.

Shortly into March, we did the Edgewick hike. It is a short hike about 20 minutes away from where we live. It's low enough that we don't really get into the mountain snow so it is a perfect winter hike. And anything not related to work at this time of year is pretty much the best thing ever.

In April, we hiked Rattlesnake ridge on my birthday weekend. It is one of our favorite hikes in the area... short but challenging and with amazing views of the Cascade mountains. We take a lot of visitors on this hike.

Happy birthday to me! My favorite german chocolate cake with raspberries...yum! But geez, that's a lot of candles!

Also on my birthday weekend at the end of April, we drove to Ocean Shores (the pacific coast) for the day and rode horses on the beach. It was awesome!

And after riding horses, we walked along the ocean for a while. Being at the ocean is one of my favorite things ever. Even if it is the freezing cold pacific ocean!

And for my birthday, Tim got me samurai swords, er, kitchen knives. Actually they are the best kitchen knives ever... they are Shun's and what many of the professional cooks use. Although, I am very far away from being a professional cook... but they are still amazing!

During June, we hiked Mount Si for the first time. It is an 8 mile round trip day hike and it is very challenging. It was awesome though... we loved it. And seriously, look at the view. Amazing. Right around this time (well the end of May to be exact), Tim graduated from paramedic school with his bachelors in paramedicine (and also tested and got his certificate to be a nationally certified paramedic) and we moved into our new townhome.

Our next hike after Mount Si was mailbox peak. Keep in mind that this is JUNE. And we were hiking through snow and boulder fields. It was the most ridiculously hard hike I have ever been on. We were hiking for about 8 hours and not just hiking but scaling up the side of the mountain. We were so incredibly sore the next day. Apparently the majority of people that do this hike are training to hike Mt. Rainer. Which is why at the top, we were asked if we were training to hike Mt. Rainer and when we said no, the response was "oh, you're just trying to kick your own ass." Um, yeah, pretty much.

I can't get this picture to flip. Oh well, you get the idea. This is us at the top of mailbox... yep, there is really a mailbox on top of the peak!

Above all of the other peaks around at mailbox peak... beautiful. This is why this hike was worth it.

At our favorite beach ever: Madison beach. It's awesome because a) the people there are very fun, colorful... and liberal. Very exciting to people watch and to meet new friends. b) It has a diving board into the lake. We go here as much as possible during the summer.

Diving off the diving board at madison. July 2008. For some reason, I don't have any pictures of the fourth of July. I also don't have several other key event pictures: The Stacie and Rich house warming party at the beginning of July where we played flip cup for hours, many of Rhett's parties including the SeaFair kick off, BP golf day and beach volleyball, etc. Go figure! Someone has pictures, just not me. Also at the end of July 2008, we hiked Mount Si again and Tim severely sprained his ankle. He was out of commission for several weeks. It was sad.

August 9, 2008. Tim and I at our friends' Steve and Krystal's wedding. It was the perfect outdoor wedding... the ceremony was just overcast and as soon as we stepped into the covered reception area, it started dumping rain. Oh, and the ceremony was exciting because right as Krystal was walking down the isle, a bird shit on me. It was hard for everyone in our row to remain composed. I have a penchant for getting pooped on by birds. It's weird.

Dancing at Steve and Krystals reception.

In August, 2008 my parents and brother came out to Seattle to visit. This was towards the end of Tim's back drama (where he was lying flat on the floor for a week, completely unable to do anything). It was really scary! Following a visit to the ER, we took him to the chiropractor to find out he had dislocated his spine. He went to the chiro daily for over a week, and the chiro was a lifesaver. The first day of my parents' visit, Tim was still unable to do much... he was much better, however, and for the first time in over a week was able to get out of the house (aside from chiro visits) to go out to dinner with us, but he was not in any way able to explore Seattle. That day, we went to the space needle (above), to Pike place, the experience music project.

Oh yes! And that day we found my favorite place ever by pike place: the crumpet shop. Amazing tea and crumpets.

Outside of the monorail and experience music project with a bouquet of gorgeous flowers from pike. Also, I have my crumpet tea and my brother has his coffee from the original starbucks.

On the second day of my parents visit, Tim felt well enough to join us! It was his first day he was feeling this well in about two weeks. We went to capitol hill first, hit a couple of coffee shops that my brother wanted to see and then went to pioneer square where we were going to do the underground Seattle tour. Um, unfortunately, Tim had not been used to being up and moving around. That tends to happen when you are restricted to solely lying on your back not moving for a week. This picture was pre-passing out. Shortly after, I am in the bathroom and my mom comes in and says, "some poor man was just lying on the men's bathroom floor, passed out." And I thought, "uh, oh." I told my mom I hoped it wasn't Tim because he had gone to the bathroom too. I found out right after that when I walked out and saw him pale as a ghost sitting next to my dad that it definitely had been him. He woke up by the trash can in a bathroom at pioneer square in Seattle. Yikes. The tour was about to start but I drove Tim back to Kirkland to the chiropractor to make sure he was ok. We then got a snack and some fluids in him. He was probably just not used to moving around that much. We missed the underground tour but had all planned to go on a boat tour that night at 6pm. Tim wanted to make it to that so we turned around and fought rush hour traffic to get back to Seattle... 5 minutes before the boat took off. And by the way, it took us TWO hours to go 10 miles. Gotta love it.

And post passing out on the boat tour. It was an absolutely gorgeous day!

The next day we all explored Kirkland... which is when we also found our reception spot. Heritage Hall in Kirkland... a cool little historic spot that had been renovated. There was a wedding that day and we were able to see the inside of the building that morning since it was open for the wedding later that day. My parents and Tim and I all thought it was perfect and my parents offered to have a wedding reception for us. Yay!

We then took a boat tour of Lake Washington. Beautiful day for this boat trip as well!

And later on, we played golf at the Mount Si golf course. Gorgeous!! Later that week we played golf again and got to about the 12th hole when it just absolutely started pouring on us.

Finally at the end of August/beginning of September, Tim was free from injuries and feeling better... so we got to hike! And this picture is why we live here. Beautiful. On September 20th, Tim's sister Emily got married out in North Bend by Mount Si. It would have been awesome except for the fact that September 20th was the only rainy day we had in the month of September. And by rainy, I mean torrential downpours. I felt really bad for her but it was still a great time. Not surprisingly, I don't have any pictures of the event! I was feeling weird at the time from having my neck adjusted by the chiro who convinced me during one of Tim's appointments to come in. So for the whole whole prior week I had been fighting trying not to pass out... lame! At Em's rehearsal, we had to leave early as a result. But I was fine on the night of the wedding, I just need to get pictures from someone of the event!

At the beginning of October, my friend Ashley visited us from Missouri. We took her to all of the hot spots in Seattle, including the space needle of course!

Here we are on top of the space needle. She couldn't have picked a better fall weekend to visit. It was sunny!

Beautiful view of Mt. Rainer from the top of the space needle. Another reason why we live here.

We rode the ducks (a seattle tour) with Miss Welch! It was FREEZING on the water.

And waiting in line with our duck quackers.

On October 15, we went to Maui, Hawaii! We were there for a week, and on Kauai for a week!

And on October, 20, 2008... we got married on the beach on Maui! Perfect!

It was the best day ever from beginning to end...by far.

Gorgeous sunset on our wedding day.

Two weeks after we returned from Hawaii, we had a reception back in Seattle on November 15, 2008. Here we are before the reception started outside of our venue.

The day of our reception was absolutely gorgeous... which was good since we were running around all day... picking up the cake, flowers from pike place, speakers, rental stuff, etc. It was a busy day.

Another shot of the gorgeous sunset.

Can't get this one to flip either... oh well! Here is Tim buttoning me into my dress. My mom really wanted me to wear it for this... I wasn't complaining! I love that dress.

Our family (Mom, Dad, and Jon Baker) prior to the reception.

With Tim's sister's girls... our three neices.

Here I am reacting to my brothers toast... the part in which he was told by my mom as a kid to "spy" on my boyfriends' and I. I had no idea. (And then he ended his toast by saying that he has seen all the guys and that Tim is the best for me... he is so very right. I love my brother!)

My hilarious boss giving a toast to us... he is telling the story of how we met. I love how he tells it... I think everyone was laughing for 10 minutes straight.

Toasting to us... cheers!

Our guests look like they are having fun...Yay for good friends to celebrate with!

And after we showed the DVD of our wedding ceremony, I gave an impromtu toast as well. (Tim talked before the DVD).

And my mom and I after my toast.

Beautiful cake... and probably the best tasting cake ever from Metropolitan Market.

Kaylene, me, and Tiama.... all of the pictures of the reception were curtosy of these two friends. They showed up an hour early to help out and then became photographers for the night. They are awesome ladies.

Stacie and I... also known as our cats' god parent (she and her fiancee watched our cats over the holidays and the boys loved her!)

As a side note, I have not posted about the reception yet because, although it was an amazing and fun night for many reason, there is also a big chunk of it that was not so amazing. I do not feel compelled to go into much detail but I will say this in regards to that night: Some people did not agree with our decision to have a private wedding ceremony and although our reception was intended to be a celebration of us, they made it about themselves. It was humiliating, tactless, and utterly disrespectful... everyone there that night was asking us about these certain peoples' actions and even though we did celebrate with the people there that truly supported us, it is hard to feel 100% awesome about the night as a whole due to certain events that happened as a result of others' selfishness. At least I can say that I now know true colors of certain people... I only wish that we would have known before hand what the outcome of having these people there would be. We may have just changed our mind about extending the invitation to them. I guess through it all, I am just left baffled. I just don't understand people sometimes. It just seems as though there are many people in the world that just aren't happy with themselves and as a result, can't be happy with or for anyone else. I realize that the problem has never been with me or with us, it is a problem that the people have within themselves. And, knowing that, I just feel truly sorry for them.

Around Thanksgiving, we broke down and got a dyson. Everyone was right... it's pretty much amazing.

We had our own little Thanksgiving this year... and we made our first turkey! We got an organic free range turkey from whole foods, then we let it soak in some brine for about 20 hours. This picture was on thanksgiving morning, getting ready to put it in the oven.

Here I am making green bean casserole and boiling potatoes for garlic mashed potatoes. Yum!

The Thanksgiving spread... round 1. Once we started cutting into the turkey, we realized that it was still pink around the edges. My dear husband told me, "well, that just means that it's better, right? Because like steak, it just means that it's more rare." Ummm... sorry hon. It's poultry, doesn't work like that. So we had to pop the turkey back into the oven for about an hour longer. It was pretty funny! Oh well, it was our first turkey attempt ever!

And later that weekend, we got our Christmas tree!

After Tim's birthday, right before Christmas, we got hammered with 20 inches of snow. We didn't go to work for a week!

Merry Christmas to us!

And here's to 2009... I really have never gotten into resolutions. I just try to do and be the best person that I can be. Resolutions just seem overrated to me. I just try ever year to life my life to the fullest, to stay healthy, and to be the best partner, friend, daughter, sister, aunt, and kitty mom that I can be. If I do the best that I can and always follow my heart, then I can never fail, right?! 2008 was a year of great events and memories but I am so looking forward to what the future holds. Cheers to another great year and to the beginnings of a new year!

From snow to rain...

Last month, we got 20 inches of snow, this month we are being flooded out... much of the flooding is due to the massive amount of snow that is melting coupled with torrential downpours and "tropical rains." Ok, seriously, they said tropical on the news. Maybe it is warmer than normal but in my book 45 degrees is not tropical.

Here are some pictures of the pacific northwest under water for your viewing pleasure. It just struck me that the only way out of Seattle right now is by plane. Freeways/roads are all closed going north, south, east and west. Yikes. Fortunately for us, we aren't getting any of the severe flooding... all of the below are about 5-10 miles away from us.

Snoqualmie river...just a little bit above its banks, to say the least.

We have taken many visitors to see the Snoqualmie falls. If the road weren't closed, it would be pretty nuts to see it like this!

Close to one of our hikes we do quite frequently... we might have to put that one on hold for a while unless we bring a boat.

An aeriel shot. Wow. There really are no words. That is so much water.

December 2008 in pictures...sort of

December 2008 was a great month. And I am, for the most part, horrible at taking pictures. We did a ton of stuff like everyone seems to during this time of year but my picture documentation seems to be lacking. The funny part about this is that I always, without fail have my camera with me. I just don't snap the shots.

The first part of the month was marked by holiday parties... I do have printed pictures from my holiday party but I didn't take any on my camera. The chances of getting those pictures to this blog are pretty slim to none. Oh well.

The second week of the month I was in Alaska. I have a picture that was taken by a restaurant up there when we took my coworker out for his birthday. Again, probably will not get that picture onto this website.

But then, at the middle of the month, I started to take more pictures!

Tim's birthday, December 15 and the cake I got for him. Yum!

For one of his presents, I blind folded him and drove him to it. Awesome. The blindfold was the first present he opened. Notice in the background the beginnings of the snow...

Birthday boy! With his stack of presents minus the one we had driven to earlier in the day and after a dinner out at Purple, a cool wine bar in Seattle.

And on his birthday night, the snow started to fall....

Ok, so one of his birthday presents also benefited me. That's ok, right? I bought us all stockings from pottery barn and had them embroidered. And yes, there are stockings for the cats. This might seem retarded but cats live for 20 years, people! I would hope that I will replace my stockings by then... It seemed so much more complete having stockings for our whole family rather than just Tim and I. Plus, the cats got gifts, too!

Later in the week, the snow continues to pile up. We have about 4 inches here.

I think this was on one of our many snow days (where we couldn't even leave the house unless it was by foot or sled). At this point, the wind had knocked off the previous 4 inches off the bushes, caused drifts, and then it snowed another 6 inches!

We decided to see if the cats like snow since they kept batting at it through the windows. Tyson ran the hell right back in and looked at us like we completely betrayed him. Calvin on the other hand appeared to be quite the little snow kitty.

Exploring in the snow, trying not to sink in.

Oops, he sank in. And then just kinda stayed there. Then ran as fast as he could into the house... once he got out of the sink hole.

Here are the tracks from him and us. This is relevant.

Because that night, they are completely covered. We got another 6 inches! Unbelievable.

Another shot of the massive snow. At this point, the airport is a mess, the city is a mess, and we are just crossing our fingers that we will be able to get to Kansas City in the next couple of days!

But, alas, we made it with only an hour delay in our flight! Not too bad considering people were stranded at the airport for 5 days! Here is Tim on Christmas day at my parents house... with a pile of presents and his new driver from Santa. And, lucky for us, the weather in the midwest is so quirky that while we were there we had several 60 degree days so it was perfect golfing weather for my dad and Tim. Where was I? Oh, my body just has great timing... I got the flu on the 28th. This was also the day that my parents had a reception for us to celebrate our wedding with all of our friends/their friends in Kansas City. Going to that on that day was not fun. I basically just sat there trying to be social but not breathing on anyone and getting up every two minutes to go to the bathroom. I literally lost 10 pounds in 24 hours. I know this because I weighed myself just to find out.

Tim and I on Christmas morning.

My brother and I on Christmas morning.

The day after Christmas, Tim and I made the two hour drive south to see one of my best friends from college (who was also my roomie for 4 years) and who is also 6 months preggo! It was so awesome to see her and to hang out with her for the day.

And Tim with us squatting because he is so freakin tall. That night all of my dad's side of the family came into town so we drove back and hung out with them which entailed games, games, and more games. The day after was the 27th and was my dad's family's Christmas (and also my dad's 65th birthday- happy birthday dad!) It was a great day until I didn't sleep at all that night because I had come down with the flu. At first I just thought I had food poisoning or something of the sort until my body felt like it had placed itself directly under two buses and let them run over me repeatedly. Like I said, the 28th was the reception. I spent the morning sleeping since I hadn't slept at all the night before while I was busy shedding the majority of my 10 pounds and then I had to drag myself to take a 2.5 minute shower, get dressed, and sit at the reception. Then I passed out again. But on the morning of the 29th, I felt like a champ! It was a really lousy day to get the flu and I was really disappointed because I didn't get to visit as much with everyone that came to see us. And, I wasn't much in picture mood. There were a few taken but not by my camera. Anyone that has pictures, pass them along!

BUT on the 29th, one of my great friends from high school came over and spent the morning with us. She is such a great girl and I was so happy to see her and spend time with her. Here we are sitting down taking a picture... since I was still practically dying from dehydration, standing up was still not much fun. That day was one of the days Tim went golfing with my dad.

The next day, the 30th, we saw Miss Jilly Marie and her guy Kyle for the majority of the morning. Jill is one of my other best friends... I have known her from high school but we really became inseparable during college. We have been through a lot together... it is so neat to see where she is now in her life, to catch up and to feel as though no time has really passed. The best thing about seeing her this time was meeting Kyle and seeing how genuinely happy Jill is now. Of course, I don't have pictures. I guess I had reached my max by this point.

The 31st we flew back into town. We had a couple hour delay. We ran in the door, then right back out again to the Rich and Stacie new year's eve party, where we spent the bulk of our night. It was a great time although we were both kinda jet lagged and I was still feeling a bit gross from the flu. But regardless, we got to see a bunch of friends that night and we stuck it out to bring in 2009 in style! But, guess what? Even though I had my camera, I didn't take any pictures. Maybe that should be my new years resolution... take more pictures!

And, one of the first major events of 2009- putting on Winston's new Washington plates!

Kauai Day 3, October 24, 2008: A journey through the middle

Our third day on Kauai was relatively uneventful. We decided to drive northwest to kind of the middle of the island. We didn't really know exactly where we were going, just thought we would explore some more.

Our first stop was this waterfall... beautiful! And the rainbow even shows in the picture.

When you are driving around the middle section of Hawaii, this is pretty much what it looks like. Green lushness and tons of green mountains. It definitely lives up to its name of the garden isle.

After stopping at a couple of waterfalls (a couple we really couldn't get that close to so the pictures aren't that great), we decided that we probably wouldn't make it to the northernmost end of the island (Princeville) and would just save that for another day when we could get up early and go straight there without any stops. So we decided instead to do a hike in the middle of the island. It was very green. Not the best hike we've ever been on... it was about 3 miles and VERY humid. I guess that is why everything is so freaking green! This picture was close to the top of the hike. Very pretty.

One of the shots towards the top of the hike.

Towards the end of the hike by a cool banyan tree.

Walking back to our car, we found a little friend.

After the hike, we decided that we needed to go lay at the ocean or the pool. So we went back to the Hyatt and hung out by the pool all afternoon. That night we went to dinner in town at Ray's...another great seafood restaurant. We ended the night laying in hammocks listening to the ocean. Low key but perfect.