Rocky Mountain Rivals

Our soccer teams played our final games of the season. Joe's team took a trip up to Couer D'Alene to play the college of Northern Idaho. After driving all night they were completely exhausted and got dominated 3-0, but both of our awesome mothers came along for the trip, and my dad drove across from Richland where he was on business, making it well worth the drive.

Joe's team redeemed themselves by ending the season with 2 huge victories. First, they beat the Mexi League All-Stars 5-4 (they beat the Real Salt Lake reserves and defeated Joe's team 8-1 earlier in the season) and in their final game they defeated Utah Valley University (formerly UVSC) 3-2.

And we are the cheering section. Go my favorite sport's team, Go!

Seattle

I flew from New England (see post below) to Seattle. I had originally planned to drive up to Seattle with Joe's sister Amanda, her husband, and five children, but took a 2000 mile detour to New England when Joe research trip got planned for the same time. When I arrived in Seattle, I spent a couple of days with the very awesome Jen and Mike Kelley (It was sooooo good to see you guys). They live downtown in a beautiful apartment. Jen took me on a tour of downtown Seattle (including a stop at the famous Pike's Place Market).

Then, I met up with Manda, Teri (Joe's other sister who lives in Seattle) and all of their adorable children. I spent the next few days exploring other parts of Seattle with them including the aerospace musaum, Snoqualmie Falls, and Ensign Ranch. We stayed at Teri's beautiful home in Duvall.

It was a wonderful trip. The only hitch was a snow storm that hit as we were driving home across the Idaho/Utah border. We traveled approx 2 miles in 3 hours. Our fourteen hour drive turned into 20. It is definitely an adventure to spend 20 hours in the back of a suburban with 5 kids. Luckily, they are five of the cutest, coolest kids ever, and even a 20 hour drive turned out to be fun and memorable adventure.

New England in the Fall

Well, I have been somewhat of a slacker lately (haven't posted anything new for 2 months) so I guess I have some catching up to do.

Joe made a trip back to New England to do research for his thesis at the beginning of October. I spent the first half of the trip with him. We drove around New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. It was the beginning of October, and the autumn colors were beautiful.



We spent some time in Laconia, NH where his mother grew up and visited the famous Lake Winnipesaukee (even spending a night at the Margate resort with the beach right out our bedroom window.

While in Maine, we visited some old family friends. They live on a fjord in Bar Harbor. We walked down to the ocean (only 20 yards from their house) and collected sea water to keep our lobsters fresh until we were ready to cook them; I ate and cooked my very first Maine lobster while watching sail boats out their picture windows as the sun set. Maybe we should move to Maine . . . .

(I have to credit google maps for the above 2 photos, both were taken very near our friends' house. The pictures recreate very well the atmosphere from their beautiful home).