Weekend To Remember

A little bit of a back story;

About a month ago, or so, Liz and I were eating at one of our favorite restaurants, BJ's, and we got on the topic of getting married. We were talking about how we were both being asked by mutual friends and family members when I was going to ask her to marry me. These types of questions were easy for me to handle because, well, I think mostly because I'm a dude and those types of questions don't affect me emotionally. Liz (and all most other women), I learned take those types of things much more serious. As we talked about what those feelings were, she came to share that when I reference future plans or when others talk to her about them, yet there is no ring on her finger, it's as though a carrot is being dangled in front of her. Makes perfect sense. But what she didn't know (and I obviously couldn't tell her), is that I had already purchased a ring.

I started on a long spiel about how our relationship is like a path. There is a definate trail that we were heading down and that I knew exactly where we were and that there was a definate direction that it is heading. But because of specific reasons, she would just have to trust that I have a plan and that I knew which turns still needed to happen before we could reach the next "step" on our path.

On the way home from BJ's, I came up with my plan for asking Liz to marry me.

Fast forward a month, or so. We joined a group of friends and went camping down in the Randle, Washington area, just SE of Mt Rainier. Early Saturday morning, I asked Liz to wake up and join me on a hike that I mapped out just for us. It was a hike that took us to a place called High Rock, which has an amazingly unobstructed view of Mt Rainier. So, we got up early and started on our way. We started down the access road that would lead to the trail head and were stopped almost immediately by a bridge that was completely blocked off by huge cement barricades. Good news was, the access road went all the way through the hills to a spot about 30 minutes away. We started up this side of the access road and were surrounded by all sorts of downed trees and rubble in the road.

This was actualy pretty fun. Of course, about four miles into this winding obstacle course of a road, we met the other cement barricade. Why it was four miles up the road is beyond me.

So we headed back to camp just in time for breakfast, naps, and dogs.

I was pretty frustrated at this point being that I was carrying around this ring in my pocket and couldn't get to the "perfect" proposal point. I found out later, that Liz was actually expecting a proposal on our hike and was a little bit bummed too. To cheer her up, I told her that I had a present for her. Of course she wanted it right then, but I told her she had to wait. Assuming that she thought I was talking about the ring, I told her that I would give her the size of the present. I said it was 5" by 6" and a height of 1/16th" to 1". She gave the best puzzled look and asked if it could be anything inside those dimensions. I told her that i gave her the exact size.

Later in the afternoon, we all headed out on a two mile hike to Lake Packwood. I was thinking that maybe there would be something pretty here and a place for us to be secluded and I would propose there.

This was a gorgeous hike. There were plenty of places to stop and get pictures of the surrounding hills and mountains.

What seemed like nine hours into this hike, I began to think we had taken a wrong trail or were lost from the rest of the group. We caught up with Sarah and Ryan and the told us that it was actually a four and a half mile hike.

Ok. Pause. Right here I'm thinking I'm done. I'm already tired and I still have to walk out of this labryth of a trail. I was thinking that I would just propose anywhere else. But, we marched on. To much of our surprise, the rest of the trail was mostly snow. What a weird place. However, we finally made it to the lake. While everyone was jumping in the water and playing with the dogs, Liz and I walked to the side and found a nice place to sit by the lake. I asked if she wanted her present and she was almost beside herself in anticipation. I pulled a bag out of my backpack and she opened it and found a tiara. I told her that she was my princess and I found that for her. She was very thankful, but I could tell that it wasn't what she was hoping for.

Silence. We sat there for a little while just looking at the scenery and then I started talking about how recent events have really caused me to evaluate our relationship and where we were in our path.

More silence. I was a little nervous.

Then I popped up and got down on one knee and grabbed her hand. I told her that I loved her and that I wanted to be with her forever. Then I asked, "Liz, would you....carry me back to camp? My feet are killing me!!" She said no. We laughed for a minute and as I started to stare back into her eyes, some scary looking guy came up out of now where and said hey.

Ok, I'm on one knee, holding her hand. Seriously man?? So we gave an awkward "hey" back and I proceded. I pulled the ring out of my pocket and asked her to be my wife. She sqeeled a bit and said yes.
Just then, we got word from the rest of the group that they were leaving down a different trail back. They found a short cut that would only be four miles in stead of the previous four and half. Whew, what a relief!!

But before we started back, I told Liz that I had one more gift. I dug into the bottom of my backpack and pulled out two minature bottles of champagne and we toasted to each other and to God.

Random Musing - Eyeliner

Some would say that tattoos have dramatically increased in numbers and popularity over the last few years. I mean, they're cool. And looking cool with a tattoo is much better than looking cool with a cigarette. That's what they should do. Bring back Joe Camel and instead of giving him smokes, give him tats.

Not that there was a huge public outcry to bring the beloved smoking camel back, but there's the solution in case an outcry ever begins...

Anyways, a popular thing to do now is for ladies (or men too, i guess) to have the edges of their eyelids tattooed so that there is no longer any need for eyeliner. Not a bad idea. I guess I didn't realize that putting that stuff on was such a pain that you would endure a slightly different pain to avoid the previous pain...(what??)

But here's the concern. A certain person who is very close to me, who we'll just refer to as "mom", had this done. She said that it hurt incredibly bad, and she already has some tattoos. This was nothing like those. However, after suffering through it for however long it took, she proceeded to care for her new tattoos just as you would any other.

The picture below, was an unfortunate side effect of having eyeliner tattoos.


She woke up one morning and noticed that her left eye was no longer tattooed. It had rubbed off somewhere in the course of the night. Poor "mom". So now, she had to decide whether to go through the pain of having it re-tattooed, or suffer the pain of applying eyeliner to just one eye.

I love you "mom".

The Simpson Ranch

During the school year, our church, OSBC, does something called small groups with the high schoolers. Well, at the end of each year, when all the planned lessons are finished, each group gets to go out and do something fun to celebrate.

The lessons that we were working on, before the end of the year, were variants on "What is a man?" One of the things noted that a man is, is someone who steps up. They don't wait to be asked to help. If they see a need, they do what they can to either meet that need, or at least, help out.

So, when it came time to plan our fun event, I proposed that we spend that time helping out a friend who has a TON of work to do on his house. his house needs a lot of work so that he, his wife, and their newborn baby have a place to live. My guys decided that was a more than acceptable way to finish out the year. Instead of wasting money and sitting around eating food, we grabbed our work glove and headed over to the Simpson Ranch to help out any way that we could.

Here are some pictures from the day:
The main task for the day was to move an enormous pile of garbage, from one side of the yard, to the dumpster on the other side of the yard. This pile was made up of a few walls and linoleum taken out of the remodeled kitchen, sheet rock, and all of the old roofing that was no longer any good. It was quite a massive pile.




There was even still a little bit of roofing that needed to be finished before the weather turned bad. Which, in the PNW, could be any moment.


Of course, you can't forget all the tons of nails that poked out of just about every piece of wood that we touched.


After a few solid hours of work, we were able to get to the bottom of the pile and separate all of the large pieces from medium pieces and get the itty bitty pieces in the bottom of the dumpster.

The dumpster was pretty full by the time we finished. I think that Josh said that there were only nine pieces of plywood that wouldn't fit. Not bad. It was a good day, and a great opportunity for the boys to help out.

4 of a Kind, Anyone??

Keeping in mind my last post about poker and how I am destined to always lose by one card or very rare circumstances, within a week's time, I won with three of these.



I guess I won't give up poker just yet.

House Hunting

I started looking at houses. Pretty much the Tacoma area along with some Federal Way, Fife, and Pacific/Algona. There is a lot out there. That is, if you're not picky. I did find a really nice house in E Tacoma.

Here are some pictures:

After some talk about what I could get the house for with some things like the fence being finished all the way around the back yard, I was really excited about buying my first house. Then, one Sunday morning, I receive and email from the realator website informing me that the price had dropped $10,000!! So, I got on the phone and called my agent and let her know I was ready to do it. She said she would draft up the papers and send them to me at work and we'd officially put down an offer. I was very pumped!

So, as I was waiting at work for the papers, I did a little bit of neighborhood research. I went to the Pierce County website and found out that within a half mile radius, there were 25 registered sex offenders...25?!?! I called my agent and promptly cancelled any type of offer that was about to be presented.

No thank you.

Needless to say, back to the drawing board.

Shout Out

This is a special shout out to Denise.

Hi Denise!!

I heard that you look at my blog and were bummed that I hadn't posted anything for a while. So here you go. Something special just for you.

Have a great day!!

Random Musing - Poker Skills?

If ever I thought I had any skills at electronic fake gambling (which I have yet to think about myself), it was crushed today. No matter how good of a hand that I think I have, there is always someone with something better.

Here are my cards with the flop...

A full house on a flop?! Are you kidding me? This never happens. I'm going to run this guy for all that he has.

Then he turns over his cards...

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! What are the odds? That's it. I'm never going to Vegas.

Random Musing - Vitamin Water

So, which flavor of vitaminwater mutil-v would you choose?

Yum...

National Road Trip - Home Stretch

Here we are. 500 some miles away from home. From my own bed. My own shower. My laundry machine. And of course, from Liz :D

It was sad to be leaving the Barklow's, but it was nice knowing that the miles that laid ahead of us were nothing in comparison to those we'd already crossed.

We hoped on the road around 7:45 and before we knew it, we had a choice to make. According to the weather reports, the route we wanted to take (Snoqualmie Pass), had gotten a ridiculous amount of snow and if the pass was open, chains were required. Eric did not have chains. Even if he did have chains, they wouldn't fit on his little-itty-bitty-modified-homemade-kit of a car. So, without too much debate, we decided to hug the Columbia River and take I5 from Portland. The unfortunate part was that we weren't going to be able to stop at my mom's for a short visit.

Sorry Mom.

And because it would be the middle of the day when we hit Portland, we weren't going to be able to stop and see Shawn.

Sorry Shawn.

Of course, as soon as we made the decision to stay in Oregon, it started snowing. And before long we found ourselves driving about 30mph on iced roads with horrible traction. Eric seemed to have things under control so I decided to close my eyes for a few minutes. I fell asleep to these images...

And before I knew it, Eric was pulling over at a rest stop and this was the view.

I was quite surprised. I couldn't believe that I had been asleep for that long. And long enough to pass through a complete climate change. I was even thinking I was dreaming. But nope, I had just really been that tired. So then it was my turn to drive. I finished the drive all the way back to Tacoma. These are the last pictures taken before Washington.

And wouldn't you know, it hadn't been but five minutes into Washington state, and it started raining. Not the mist rain that most people complain about, but the kind of rain that makes you wonder if we were experiencing a second flood. It was intense. But it was nice to be back to the familiar.

Here are the times that we entered the remaining two states:
PST
07:30am - Oregon
01:38pm - Washington

So, after 42 hours, 12 states, 3060 plus miles, $219 in gas, 15 or so bathroom stops, 3 or 4 naps each, 49 cigarettes (smoked by Eric), 2 fast food meals, 6 Red Bulls, 3 sermons, 3 episodes of The Office, 1 bag of chips, 5 candy bars, 0 salads, countless songs on Eric's iPod, almost being pulled over once, 3 semi trucks trying to run us off the road for blinding them with Eric's headlights, and Eric telling me to go easy on his stupid 'Lambo' doors 4 times we made it across the country.

Welcome home Eric.

Amazing Race??

National Road Trip - Nampa, ID

Ahhh...this was the relaxing part of the trip. We did a whole lot of nothing. And it was exactly what we needed. We woke up to amazing Barklow Breakfast Burritos and got to hold baby Jude for a little while. She is a very precious baby (as if there would be any doubts).

So here are some pictures...

That first afternoon we went to a restaurant called Donnie Mac's Trailer Park Cuisine.

It really liked this place. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. The setup really played off the whole 'trailer park' image. Shower curtains were used to separate the staff from the public. There were random couches and car parts all over and the table seats resembled the back seat of most old school cars. There was even a car that was turned into a special eating area.

Menu items ranged from standard burgers to fancy ones, mac n' cheese, meatloaf, and spaghetti-o's still in the can. Good food, good music, and good times. Good company helped too.

The rest of our time in Nampa was filled with naps, laughs, LOST, video games, naps, fajitas, and just good old relaxing hang-out time. It had been too long since the three of us had so much time to just hang out together. Being able to spend time with Brandi and baby Eleanor Jude (who I have decided that I will be the "uncle that always calls her by her middle name) was also very much appreciated.

Thank you Barklow family for allowing us to come crash in your spare bed room and hang out with you guys. We love you all very much.

Oh, and here is a picture of Slick. Joe has had this turtle for more years than I can think of. When we lived together in Sea-Tac, Slick and I would whistle back and forth to each other. I like to think that he remembers me.

And now, we're homeward bound.

National Road Trip - Big Leg

This was kind of ridiculous. We left Janice's at 9pm or so with the intention of driving for 24 hours straight to Joe's house in Nampa, ID.

For the first few hours, we stuck to this plan pretty well. But after trading driving back and forth a few times, Eric finally decided to pull over at some parking area in the middle of Illinois. I remember waking up, seeing nothing but pitch blackness, and asking if we were at a rest stop. Eric said yes, and apparently I crashed back out.

We stayed there for a couple hours and as the sun started to make it's way up, we got back on the road. He drove for a few hours, then I took over. I was still pretty tired, but Eric had been driving for a while and deserved a rest. After about an hour, I could tell I was starting to fade, so I stopped for a Red Bull. Everyone talks about the energy you get, and the ads say you'll get wings. So I drank 2 Red Bulls and a bottle of water. I'm pretty sure I drove for another 8 hours or so, with 2 more Red Bulls in there somewhere. I was hopped up on something fierce!


I started driving in Iowa and Eric took back over somewhere in Wyoming. He drove through Utah and the first half of Idaho, and I finished up to Joe's.


For the most part, the weather was really nice...until we got to the snow storm moving through Salt Lake City. We were reminded of the movie "Stargate" when we'd flip the high beams on.

Here are some of the other pictures I was able to snap across the country.







Here are the times we entered each state:
CST
09:37pm - Illinois
12:05am - Iowa
08:38am - Nebraska
MST
03:20pm - Wyoming
09:12pm - Utah
11:54pm - Idaho

We pulled into Joe's at about 3:15am, or so. As we made our way to the back side of the house, we were really worried that we might have the wrong house. That would have definitely changed the story for this posting. It probably would have started like "National Road Trip - Jail Time". But, we were in the right place and were welcomed by a well made bunk bed. I was very much excited to sleep horizontally.

So now we're here for two days to spend some quality time with our friends Joe, Brandi, and new baby Eleanor Jude.

Here's a sneak peak of Eleanor;