Finally, some news!

It has been a month and half since I have updated my blog. I’m sorry about that. Things have been a little crazy. Nearly all my free time is spent with Emily, and so I haven’t had a chance to update my blog. I’ll try and do better though. So, lets see what has happened…

 

June 10 – 16

This week we had a Bob-BQ. That is like a BBQ, except that you finish the night by watching What About Bob?. It was a ton of fun. A lot of my family was there. The steaks Emily and I made turned out great. It was also Emily’s first time watching What About Bob?. It was a great night.

I moved out of my apartment on Tuesday. Emily went home on Thursday. It was sad to see her go, but luckily I was going to get to see her again in just a little over a week.

Unlike the rest of the week my car had some serious problems. I tried to get the AC fixed, and on Monday I got it back. Unfortunately, the new AC died on Tuesday so I had to take it back in on Wednesday to get it fixed. On Thursday I had it since we were waiting for another part, and on the way home it completely died. I had to have it towed to the shop. So annoying. It wasn’t until the next week that I found out what was wrong. It turns out they nocked some cables loose while fixing the car. Luckily it got all taken care of, and I currently do have a working car.

 

June 17 – 23

This week started with getting me to Washington. On Monday and Tuesday I attached a hitch and bike rack to my car. I also loaded up the car with all my stuff. Everything fit in pretty well.

On Wednesday I started my drive. As I was driving I got an email saying they weren’t expecting me till Sunday. Oh no! Luckily I was able to get everything straightened out.

On Wednesday night I stayed with Grandma in Weiser, ID. It was a lot of fun to get to spend the evening with her. The next day I drove to Yakima, WA. There I stayed the night, and drove to Bellevue. My key wasn’t ready for pickup when I got there so I chilled in the library. I then moved into my apartment. It is really nice, though a little far from work.

On Saturday I finally got to see Emily again! I got to go to her brother’s baptism. I even got to stand in the circle when he was confirmed a member of the church. It was really awesome to meet her family in this way.

After the ceremony we went around town. I actually realized I had been her before, precisely when I attended the WA YSA conference during my first internship. it was really cool to know that it was the same place.

Besides Emily’s family I also got to meet her paternal grandparents as well as her aunt. It was fun. That night we went on a boat ride, and finished the night by going to Panda express for dinner.

 

My new apartment

Grandma, and food from the trip

My car’s nicer cousin

Emily’s family at the baptism

 

July 24 – 30

On Sunday Emily and I watched a movie called Something the Lord Made. Besides for a little language it was an amazing movie. It talks about early cardiac surgery on babies. It is an amazing story. I certainly recommend it.

On Monday I had my first day of work. Everything was pretty normal, and within the week I was up and running on my project. I was happy how well things went. It was a good week at work, but who really wants to hear about my work

On Tuesday Emily came to visit me. We went to the temple to do baptisms. After the temple we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant It was really good food. I finished the night by showing her around Microsoft and my house. She then had to go home which was the only sad thing during the week.

Emily wasn’t able to have me come and visit her this weekend, so instead she came and visited Saturday night. We decided to eat inside, but first had to go shopping. We ended up making some chicken salad. It turned out well. We then watched a movie and just enjoyed getting to spend time together.

 

July 1 – 7

I went to my own ward for the only time I have had gone so far. The bishopric is different than when I was here last, but I did recognize several members of the ward. I was feeling sick so I didn’t go out of my way to say hi to people, but that is just how life goes sometimes.

This week I took two days off and were able to spend Tuesday night to Sunday night at Emily’s house. On Tuesday we went to an Indian food restaurant she loves. She then took me around Gig Harbor. It was great to get to spend time going around town, seeing the places she loves the best.

On the fourth I tried to go water skiing. I still didn’t manage to get up, but maybe in the future I’ll finally get it down. I also go to go on the get ski, and that was a lot of fun. We then helped get some stuff for dinner. We then watched fireworks from the hot tub. Eventually we moved to a blanket on the ground when the hot tub got to be too much. Overall it was a great night!

On the next day we met up with Jessica Stewart and Serena (Wen Yuan). We went to Seattle with them. We first went to the Pacific Science Center. We also went to Pike’s place market. It was a lot of fun. We finished the afternoon by going to an Asian store in Seattle’s Chinatown. It was a lot of fun, and great to see food I haven’t in a while. I got some Lichi so that Emily could try it. It turned out that Wenpei (Emily’s younger brother) also loved them, and so he ate most of them After shopping we returned to Emily’s house and made dinner. We then went out on the boat. Finally Emily and I took them back to their house. It was a really fun day.

On Friday we went to the zoo with Emily’s cousin Beth and her little sister Grace. It was fun. We got to watch the walruses being fed, and that was pretty awesome. We also got to see polar bears and a bunch of other fun stuff.

During the rest of the day we kind of relaxed. Emily and Beth went knee boarding. I also read a book called A Thousand Suns. It is a pretty good book. It talks about life in Afghanistan for the last forty or so years. Certainly a great read. At night we built a fire and roasted marshmallows.

On Saturday Emily and I went to Seattle and participated in PuzzleDay. This is an event at Microsoft where you solve puzzles. It was really fun. Emily did wonderful. We were the two best solvers on our team. Unfortunately that was a bad sign since we weren’t that great . Our team ended up in about 72nd place

After the main event we went to Steamers in Tacoma. It was really a good place to eat. We then walked between the ocean and the railroad tracks. It was a lot of fun. We finished the night by watching How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying. I love that movie!

 

Pictures from the Zoo

July 8 – 14

At work things continued to go well. Nothing to really report there. On the weekend Emily and I went with a MSR group and visited Mount Rainier. It was a lot of fun. It was crazy hiking in the snow. It was so warm and bright, it was just unreal. It really was a fun time. I guess that is to be expected when you have a girlfriend as wonderful as I do. I love that she loves to be active and do all these things

To end the night we did the most manly thing we could think of. Yep, you guessed right, we watched Pride and Prejudice. It is the newer version and I have wanted to watch this version for a little, so it was a lot of fun.

 

July 15 – 22

On Wednesday Emily visited and we went to the IMAX at Pacific Science Center to watch the new Spiderman movie. It was really fun. First we checked out the center itself. One of the coolest part was the butterfly cages. There were so many butterflies, and you just got to walk through them. They were awesome! Afterwards we got dinner at Dick’s, and finished by actually watching the movie. It was so great to be able to spend that time with Emily!

On Friday I went to visit Emily again. As soon as I got to her house we hoped into her house and drove for another two hours. We went to Ensign park for a campout with her YSA ward. It has been a while since I have been camping, but it was great fun. At none point we even got to look at stars. There was such a great view.

On Saturday we went tubing down the Yakima river. We ended up going nine miles. It took us three hours, but Emily and I were together the whole time, so it was a great way to spend the afternoon It was pretty tame, but it was still a lot of fun. Emily and I did seem to have a knack for hitting the sides, but that just made it a little more fun.

After we got finished we drove back to Gig Harbor. Since it was a three hour drive from where we got off the tubes we stopped in Auburn to visit the Super Mall. We walked around inside, and even did some shoe shopping. It was fun to watch Emily get so excited about shoes We also visited a cool candy store. I got Emily a giant jawbreaker. Earlier she had mentioned that she never go to have one when she was young, and so as soon as I saw it I had to get it for her. We also got other candies that we loved from when we were children.

After that we finished the rest of the trip back to Gig Harbor. It was great. I was a little sunburned, and so didn’t feel like doing too much. For this reason we decided to watch To Live. This is an incredible Chinese movie that really helps you feel for what happened during life in Communist China.

On Sunday I made Emily some chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. I then helped prepare some stuff for her families lunch. After lunch we went to church. It was a great meeting. After that we came home and just spent some time with each other. We finished the night by making an apple pie. Emily’s family has canned pie filling, and we were able to use that to create a fresh pie. It was a lot of fun. It also tasted really great.

 

And that brings my blog up to date. Sorry that it was so long. I probably should have split it up a bit. In the future I plan to try even a little harder to keep it up-to-date.