Honeymoon Pictures Part 4 - Hurricane Ridge and the Coast

On Friday Morning we took a scenic drive up Hurricane Ridge. It was great to get a good view of the Olympic mountains and the glaciers on them!

These pictures are looking toward Port Angeles and Victoria. It was a bit cold up on the mountain.

Within just a few hours, we drove down the mountain and around the park to the coast on the west side of Olympic Park.

I enjoyed the coast as there were great rocks to climb. I'm more of a climber than John, but he did join me on one of the rocks! I was wishing that my younger siblings were there. Lydia, Elijah, Anna and Jubilee would no doubt enjoy climbing those rocks as well. Climbing these rocks reminded me of climbing the great rocks at Joshua Tree.

After a little more driving, we arrived at Lake Quinault Lodge where we stayed for the night. It was a beautiful place and is from what they said, in a rain forest. This was our last night in Olympic National Park so we were a bit sad to know that our time there was coming to an end. Hopefully someday we can return!

Honeymoon Pictures Part 3 - Butchart Gardens, Victoria, B.C.

I just found and downloaded the newest Picasa (Picasa 3) and used its awesome collage upgrade to create all the collages in this post. If you haven't upgraded yet, it's absolutely worth it! Download Picasa 3 here - it's free!

It's been a few days, but I finally have sat down once again to put together pictures from our honeymoon. Early on Thursday morning, we left our little cabin at Lake Crescent.

We took a passenger ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, B.C. It was a little chilly that morning, so I hung out in a covered area on top of the ferry while John spent a little time on the deck taking these pictures.

When we arrived in Victoria, we took a tour bus to The Butchart Gardens. I'm not the biggest flower person, but this really was cool! I enjoyed looking at all the different types of flowers.

I enjoyed taking some of these close up pictures. God has surely made some amazingly beautiful flowers!

Eventually, we had seen as many flowers as is possibly in one day and returned to Victoria on the bus. Once in Victoria, we enjoyed lunch in China town and then did some walking in the beautiful city.

I was tired once we finally boarded the ferry to go back to Port Angeles that night! Another great day!

Miriam Plays the Computer (by her hubbie John)

Well... now that I am married to Miriam, she has given me the rights to post a blog on her site! How nice! So what to write about? As many of you know very well, I now have the privilege of starting a journey of fascinating discoveries about the person who is my best friend. I now even get to go to sleep and wake up with her being very close by.

It is natural, then, to begin a journey of discovery about a person to whom you are so closely related. One thing that that I love to do, as Miriam has now told you all, is to take pictures using a very nice camera that I purchased a few months back(Panasonic DMC-L1).

It is all because of Miriam I bought the camera. ;-)
Well...that's not the real truth. I have wanted a new camera so I created an occasion to justify purchasing a DSLR by proposing to Miriam :-0.
Oops, wrong again. Okay Miriam, I will be honest, I just wanted one :-).

Well, one such discovery I have made lately is the phenomenon of Miriam on the computer. It just seems that Miriam does bond very well to her computer once she gets on it and starts playing it (typing on it). Yes, playing it. You know how people play musical instruments such as the violin, piano, bass guitar, or so on. People play computer too. Just listen to the sounds of the keyboard and the funny noises that come through the computers speakers -- such as when the computer comes on.

Miriam looks completely relaxed and undisturbed when she is at the computer. She is very methodical. Computers can cause heartache and frustration to a lot of people. But for Miriam, whatever problem the computer throws at her, she just calmly thinks for a while and tames the computer to jump through whatever hoops she wants it to go through. I could continue to go on and try to describe what I see. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Enjoy these:

There she is... Mrs. Miriam.

Highly concentrated, like orange juice?

Thinking in search of a solution.

Ahh, I got it!!

Somebody I love is watching me!

Okay, back to work.
Hmm.

Oh, he's taking pictures of me.

He is taking a picture from every angle!

Thanks John, but truly, this is starting to get annoying.

I'll help you make a decision to stop!

Time to go!!

To close, we are greatly indebted to all of you who worked so hard to make our wedding such a beautiful occasion. May the Lord bless you all.

How to Earn $360 an Hour

I would not have believed it unless I saw it, but it's true. You can indeed earn 360$ an hour through a phone call (if only every once in a while). Part of getting married for us involved joining our individual Verizon Wireless cell phone plans. Thankfully, both of us have used Verizon for years and have enjoyed being able to talk "for free" during our many months of the long distance relationship. But as we were about to join our lives with one another, we chose to join our Verizon plans a couple weeks before the wedding. Using the family share plan saves us around $10 a month, so it made sense to us (and it reduces the number of bills we pay as well).

Well, we merged plans a couple weeks before the wedding and I went on a talking spree and used more minutes in the last couple weeks of August and beginning of September than I had ever used in a month before (386). John used 196 minutes during this period and with only half a month's minutes between the two of us, we owed an additional $90 for all the extra talking.

When I got the bill, I was shocked but resigned that I just lost $90 for my lack of forethought and all that talking. The talking was worth $90 to me and I wouldn't have changed anything, but still I wasn't happy to have spent so much on a phone bill.

John however was sure we wouldn't have to pay the bill. I was sure we would, but he said that if we called and explained the situation, Verizon was sure to forgive our overage. I was more than a little doubtful, and was unwilling to give it a try. Thankfully John was willing to call, and within 15 minutes he had the issue resolved!

Thank you John! Thank you Verizon! I guess talking to people often does work, though I never would have believed it without seeing it!

Wife and Mother - Highest Calling?

I read an interesting article today on the blog Amy's Humble Musings about a woman's highest calling. As a recently married woman (almost 2 weeks now!), I have spent the last 28 years as a single girl. I had the tendency to feel that "everyone" was married, especially by my age. People would tell me how wonderful marriage and motherhood were and that they were praying that I would find a wonderful guy someday.


As I was hoping to be married someday, I appreciated their concern and prayers, yet I also wondered if there was really anything wrong with me working a job day after day. I tried to work to the glory of God - was I somehow less important since I wasn't married and didn't have that highest honor of being a wife and mother? Sometimes it felt that way, but most of the time I knew that God's plan may not be ours, yet it is still a good plan.

If you don't have time to read her full post, at least read this quote:

"The Palin ticket just highlighted some of my friends boasting, “A woman’s highest calling is to be a wife and mother.” This is not what the Bible teaches. It is right to opine that the role of a wife and mother is one’s personal calling. It is also good to note that the occupation is normative when reading the Bible as a whole. I am a wife and mother. It is what God has called me to do. However, this is not true for all women. All women should NOT aspire to be a wife and mother. Instead, all women should aspire to present their bodies a living sacrifice to the Lord. God is glorified in us when we are satisfied with His will for our lives. This is why some marry, some stay single, some have children, and some are barren. Glorify God in your present circumstance, the one you are in right now, not in a future marriage that may or may not happen."

Honeymoon Pictures Part 2 - Sol Duc Falls Trail

Sol Duc Falls is a short (under a mile hike) from the parking area in the Sol Duc are of Olympic National Park. It's a beautiful Falls!

After visiting the lower falls, we continued our hike up the mountain. It was perfect weather for a day hike.

Soon we came to another great viewing area for some higher falls. I've always loved hiking and waterfalls and we both enjoyed the views.

After about 3.7 miles, we finally arrived at Deer Lake. It's a peaceful lake with some camping areas where many backpackers were staying the night.

After climbing a cool tree (I can't pass one up!), we took a break and had some lunch.

The hike down felt a little long, but it was enjoyable as well. We had some more great views of the area. After a day of hiking, we were exhausted so it was nice to be able to return to our nearby room at Lake Crescent that night.

Honeymoon Pictures Part 1 - Seattle and Marymere Falls

Before too much time goes by, I want to post a bit about each day of our honeymoon! We had a terrific time and took well over 600 pictures, so it's a bit of a daunting task to make them into something manageably small. But, since I think some of you might be interested in seeing more pictures, I will attempt to make a post out of each days pictures.




We left the Columbus airport around on Monday 5pm and arrived in Seattle without delay by around 10pm. We were able to stay in a Mariotte Town Place Suites with points that I earned last year due to the business trips to Chicago! It was very nice - more like an apartment than a hotel.



Tuesday morning we got on the road and headed over to the Seattle Ferries. Since we wanted a long ferry ride, we chose the ferry to Bremerton.

The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed the views of Seattle as we left.



Once we arrived in Bremerton, we drove on to Port Angeles where we stocked up on some groceries and other essentials at Walmart - always a very useful store! We bought stuff to make sandwiches as well as some breakfast food so we wouldn't be stuck eating every meal at the overpriced lodge.

Soon we were at our lodge at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park. After taking a brief nap, we took a short 1.5 mile hike to beautiful Marymere Falls.

We got back just in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset at the lake!

I hope you enjoyed getting a "picture" of the great scenery and fun that we had on our first day in Washington state!

Note - you can click on the individual pictures if you would like to see them full screen.