My Blogosphere Hiatus

Oh boy, I just looked, and I haven't posted anything since the end of June. The last couple weeks have been a blur and this will be a summarizing attempt of my vacation from real life! 

From our hike through some of the tallest trees
I have ever seen. Beautiful!

So, I took the first week off in July and headed to the Tri-Cities for some much needed downtime. On the way there I made an out-of-the-way stop in Pullman to see a couple of friends from the NuHouse get married; marking the first NuHouse couple to get married. (For the uninformed, the NuHouse was the co-ed Christian home I lived in while going to WSU. More couples have come out of that house then I can keep straight.) I hung out with my buddy Alan and we of course hit our favorite restaurant spots that we always go to during Pullman visits. 

Sunday, I made it to the Tri-Cities in time for church and enjoyed a nice day catching up with old church friends and family. The next day my parents and I headed to Mt. Rainier for a rainier camping trip than we would have liked. I'm so proud of myself for catching the spelling on that; makes me wonder if there's more to that name! It did rain for the majority of our time there, but it was still very relaxing and I had a great time. We chatted about my life and future plans and just enjoyed each other's company; something we used to do all the time that doesn't happen much anymore. We saw lots of elk and deer on the way up but we didn't see any bears so I count the trip a complete loss! I'm kidding of course. During the 7 minutes of sunshine we had we were able to take advantage of a couple trails near our campground and do some hiking, so all was not lost.

We headed back to civilization on the fourth and of course there was nothing but blue skies. Oh well, I guess that's how it works with camping. For the fourth we attended a 4th of July BBQ at the church. It was another great time catching up with people and throwing the pigskin around a bit. 

Friday, we had a family birthday BBQ for the two July babies: my cousin Kaleb and myself. I had the opportunity to help craft my own cake and frankly, it was a masterpiece of deliciousness. And most likely in the tens of thousands of calories but boy was it tasty! It was a cookies and cream ice cream cake with an ice cream sandwich base, an Oreo layer, a whipped cream layer, a cookies and cream ice cream layer, another cream layer as the frosting and then a topping of crumbled Oreos. It wasn't the most attractive cake, but it was still a hit according to the taste buds. 

On my birthday I also had a chance to go to lunch with two friends with whom I have spent many birthdays playing video games late into the night, eating homemade pizza and monster cookies! Many great memories with these two chaps: Rylan and Phil. This year no video games were involved but somehow we still coped and were able to enjoy a lunch together and then see the new Spiderman movie. It was a great time! 

It was a great week off and so great to see many people that I love and miss. Now time to get back to work!