Coming out from under my rock...

Yes, I do live. I live well, as a matter of fact. I'm sorry this is such a long time coming, but I can explain! For a while I was Internetless and since getting Internet my other housemates have been connected to the modem at the times I had a spare moment to blog... we have since gotten a wireless router, so I'm golden! But I've been gone all weekend in Shelton/Portland, so here I am! A lot has been happening...

I turned in my last date of work a while back, so effective the 27th of this month I am unemployed again! WAHOO! I'm very blessed to have the job I do, especially for the pay and for the amount of time I was available, but man it's wearing on me. I'm getting a little tired of being yelled at all day. I could talk for days about some of the calls I've had, but I won't bore you and to be honest I'm trying to block them out haha. My boss was upset that I wasn't sticking around for the school year, but I want to see how stressful my final semester at Whitworth will be before I add on a job including a commute. If I can find a job on campus, shwing! If not, helloooooo super-budget. Anyway, I came back to work today after a long weekend and only 10 days left! Wahoo! That and only one more tutoring session... I can't believe the summer is wrapping up so quickly!

So, as promised, I am ready to reveal my house! Below are pictures of my room, bathroom, living room, kitchen and dining room. Enjoy the adorable college housingness :)

Please don't mind the dishes drying on the rack or soaking in the sink... I just wanted to give you a picture of how it will likely (hopefully) look like throughout the year. Having no dishes at all would be unrealistic and downright dishonest! It was quite the road to get all the bills transferred and names changed and such, but I washed my hands of the old place and am starting anew! To celebrate, when Steph came back into town, we held a barbeque for our friends and second family. There were about 15 of us, it was great! The badminton net was up, the tiny football barbeque was... well, useless until Tarig, the father of my Sudanese kids, came over. Fire + inexperienced barbequer = flipping burgers on the stove. Anyway, we all had a blast. I did take one picture though with my camera. Asim, the 5-year-old, apparently starved himself all day, telling his parents "I don't want to eat yet, I'm having barbeque at Chels and Steph's". So by the time we finally got food warmish, Asim asked for this impressive masterpiece.

Oh yes, the boy I've never seen finish a piece of chicken asked for a double decker cheeseburger. After eating half, he put it in a ziploc baggy and put it in the fridge as a snack for the ride home :)

This past Tuesday (or a week from today if you will), it was Richard's friend Alice's birthday so a small group of us went to Silverwood Theme Park. It was so fun! I had never been so it was great to finally trek over and try it out. There were many memorable moments, including the accidental hour-long detour around Hayden Lake (fun fact: it's a pretty large lake), being spit on by kids while riding the ferris wheel at sunset, helping Richard overcome his fear of rollercoasters (slightly), and trying to skillfully and discretely pick my atomic wedgie in front of the whole group after going down the super duper cool waterslide. It was great, I could go there every day! Except I will admit, after about 7 minutes I wanted to kick/punch/slap each and every speaker in the park that was playing nonstop kiddo banjo music... I can still kind of hear it now... anyway, here's a picture of Richard and I on our Silverwood day of fun! Kinda goofy (on his part... but I'll get him someday):

I haven't figured out how to turn it, so... sorry! Enjoy :)

This past weekend I took a roadtrip with my friend Kendel to Shelton (the parents' cabin), Portland, and Eugene (didn't actually happen, we were going to visit the University of Oregon but decided to wait for when class was in session... I'm looking there for grad school, they have the 4th best program for Masters in Education in the US so it's worth a look!). It was phenomenal to see my wonderful family as well as an old friend (Shoes, or Emily as she was called at birth, goes to Portland State University), but fairly self explanatory so I'll just show a few pictures:

The stunning sunset at the lake cabin :)

My niece is b-e-a-UTiful, she's so perfect! And she's getting SO big...

An example of the beautiful driving weather we had for our nomadic weekend.

I've still got quite a few things to plug away at until the summer is over (school starts September 8th... I think...), so I've been keeping nice and busy in my off time! But don't worry, I play plenty too :) I hope this finds you well, please keep me posted on what's going on with y'all, and have no fear I will not go this long again without blogging :)

Peace out, rainbow trouts

Chels