We're on a blogging roll!

As we thought, we have so much to share with you all right now! We know at least most of you have never been to Nashville so we'd love to share some stories and pictures as we explore the city for ourselves. First, we have a few more pictures from our trip to share, and then some pictures from our trip to the local Farmers Market. Don't forget you can click on the pictures to enlarge them!

Some of the beautiful red rock just east of Salt Lake City, UT

There were tons of huge windmills in the Wyoming high country

The arch was really exciting to see in person!

FINALLY!

The Tennessee State Capitol sits on the highest point in the city limits. It overlooks a mall similar to the one in Washington D.C., but much smaller. Earlier this week, Heather and I took an official tour of the Capitol building. Some highlights included the House and Senate Chambers and the Governor's outer office.

These pillars run along both sides of the mall. The space between each pillar represents one decade of the state's history. On the stone wall across the walking path, historical events that took place during the decade symbolized in the pillars are engraved.

Tennessee history = Civil War history

What the? We think it is mini okra.

It was interesting to see what types of fruits and vegetables are grown down here. Most farms had the same things: tons of tomatoes and squash, peppers, corn, watermelon, peaches, and cantaloupe. The cantaloupe and watermelons were HUGE! The cantaloupe is about twice the size of Hermiston melons and the watermelon was about 3 full hand-widths.

Unpacking and the Anniversary

When we got to the apartment on Saturday morning, it was already hot outside and we were NOT looking forward to unloading the entire truck. But the truck wasn't going to unload itself so piece by piece we emptied it. It was quite a bit of work to find homes for our 2-bedrooms worth of stuff in a one-bed townhouse. After a few loads to the dumpster and a couple big loads to the nearest Goodwill, we made it in! I'll put a few pictures of the apartment down below. We explored Vanderbilt one afternoon and found Heather a good Vandy shirt to wear around now. Cami, we found a burrito place that seems to be related to Chipotle, called Qdoba. It's just like Chipotle but a little bigger and better! Oh yeah!!! We'll be just fine down here!

Yesterday was our first anniversary! We had a great day together. We made a delicious breakfast, ate some of our wedding cake, and went to see a movie (Julie & Julia) which was pretty cute! And for dinner we went out to a good steakhouse in downtown Nashville. Seth and Emily gave us a gift certificate to Jimmy Kelly's Steakhouse as a graduation gift so we used it last night. After a couple of the best steaks we've ever had, we drove all around downtown to check out the Saturday night hustle and bustle of the city. It gets pretty busy down there but we are both really excited to check out the nightlife sometime soon!

We are still searching for a job for Heather and will continue to search vigilantly until we find the right job for her. Please continue to pray for us that we would find the right job soon. I am getting very excited to start school in a few weeks! It will be refreshing to be reminded of why we moved oh so far away from home. Now check out some pictures!

Best Friends...


Seth being a goof...


Our first dinner with chairs!


Some of the really interesting architecture at Vandy


Proof that we actually made it to Nashville ;)



Our makeshift dining table + two chairs!! WOOT!


Remind you of a certain someone with Buttons?


She won't admit it, but she does have fun playing video games every once in a while!


This cake has definitely seen better days


Our two beautiful diplomas!

Eastbound

We have been meaning to write about our big trip for a while and I'm sure many of you are eager to hear more about the details and see a few pictures from our trip. To start, we made it all the way to Nashville in just 4 days of traveling! Considering our average speed on the freeway was between 65-70mph and most other traffic was in the 75-85mph range, we felt we made pretty good time! I'll break down the trip into 4 sections to make it easier to read and to write.

Day 1: Started in Walla Walla. We had our first and only glitch in our trip before we even got the truck rolling down the road! While getting all of the last-minute things packed in the truck, I (Tim) managed to lock the one and only key inside the cab. Fortunately we became AAA members before our trip and thanks in part to being in Walla Walla on a Tuesday morning, the tow trucks were standing by and arrived in just 10 minutes! If only they could get to you that fast when you're stuck on the side of the freeway! We felt very lucky to have such a quick response and before we knew it we were on our way to Adrian, OR. We made it to Adrian in time for a late lunch at the Mirage which is the only restaurant in town. After a deliciously greasy lunch, Nana and Pappy gave Heather a tour of town and their beautiful new house. After about 90 minutes in Adrian we were ready to hit the road. Our goal was to get to Twin Falls, ID for the day. We made it to Twin Falls with plenty of energy so we surged ahead hoping to make it through the high desert and into the Salt Lake area. We spent the night in Ogden, UT on Tuesday Night.

Day 2: Thanks to our extra energy the night before, we got a 3-hour head start on the day having driven past Twin Falls and into Utah. Our goal for Wednesday night was Cheyenne, WY. Let me just say now that while the goals were nice to have, we drove past every single one of them! Day 2 was the day we realized just how much road construction is going on across the country. You wouldn't believe how much of our freeway is torn up and being resurfaced/repaved right now. We saw signs that said "Road Construction Next 41 Miles". It felt like we would see one of those signs every 41 miles or so! Obviously it wasn't THAT bad, but we were amazed at how much construction there was. Normally it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but when you are in a moving truck with all of your stuff, you are much more aware of the extra bumpy/unsteady roads out there. Nevertheless, we made it through the construction of the day and through some of the most beautiful country of the whole trip. Eastern Utah is amazing (pictures to follow)! The red rock formations are fantastic and they seem like they never end. Of course before long we were in the western Wyoming high country and to say it is desolate is an understatement. The three words that kept coming to my mind were Wide Open Spaces. Little did I know at the time just how much I preferred this type of driving over some other environments soon to come. Not much else to say about the drive through WY. It was high, mountainous, beautiful, and boring all at the same time. We soldiered on and made it to Cheyenne in good time and with plenty of energy, so we drove on through. I had my eye on North Platte, NE but Heather was ready to stop at dinner time. We put down for the night in Sidney, NE which, I believe, is the home of Cabela's.

Day 3: Our "goal" for Thursday night was Kansas City, MO. We made our way through Nebraska which turned out to be nearly as monotonous as Wyoming. Let me tell you, we thought there would be quite a big of corn in Iowa and neighboring states like Nebraska. We could not believe how much corn there actually was! Through almost the entire state of Nebraska (and many others to come) there would be solid fields of corn lining both sides of the freeway for hundreds of miles! We were both pretty amazed at just how much corn really does grow in the Midwest. When we left Nebraska we were expecting to enter Missouri but we ended up going through Iowa for about 10 miles! Add that one to the list of states! Our next state to conquer was Missouri. It ended up being very similar to Nebraska but slightly hillier. We found Columbia, MO to be a good stopping place for the night so, like every other night on the road, we used our GPS to locate hotels in the area and called ahead to make sure they allowed pets and to make reservations. Traveling with an atlas is nice, traveling with a GPS is convenient, but traveling with both is the only way to go! Being able to look up local businesses is a huge plus on the GPS, but being able to look several states ahead of us and see detailed road maps was also invaluable.
We had one minor hiccup in Columbia that is worth mentioning. We pulled into a hotel to check in. I was planning on driving through the drive-thru/keep you out of the rain thing. Even when I got closer to it, it looked like I would have plenty of clearance for our truck. I didn't see any warning signs about the clearance height until I got my front axle under the roof. Then I saw it...I sign no bigger than a bumper sticker that said "Clearance 10'". Oh great. My truck says it is 10'6". I got out of the truck and inspected the roof to try to figure out if I could actually make it or not. It should be noted that we had received numerous warnings about backing up our truck with the tow dolly attached. Apparently it acts like a double trailer because the trailer pivots on the hitch and it also has its own pivoting piece that the actual car sits on. Our options included: trying to drive through under the "low clearance" roof, take the car off the trailer, unhook the trailer and back up the truck, or back it all up together. Our solution was to carefully and very slowly back up the whole thing. Fortunately we successfully backed the truck and trailer and drove around the poorly signed roof thing. Whew! The man in me still feels I could have made it underneath the roof! ;)

Day 4: This is where we made the biggest detour from our original goal. Our original plan was to drive to Memphis for the night and make it the rest of the way to Nashville on Saturday. What a silly idea that turned out to be! I can't believe it hadn't dawned on us to just drive towards Nashville and stay somewhere along the way. Well, the two of us eventually figured out that from Columbia MO, we could make it all the way to Nashville by about 4:00 (thanks Garmin!). We went east from St. Louis into Illinois and spent quite a while in that state. Guess what? They grow corn in Illinois too...lots of it! Thanks to a two-hour delay in traffic we made it to Nashville around 6. It was too late get into our apartment so we spent the night in a nearby hotel. We finally made it! 5 days of driving and approx. 2,500 miles later. I'll write a bit more about current events in the next post which will include pictures from the trip.

The Journey Soon to Begin

Well, I can't believe that the big moving day is almost here. In just 4 short days, we will be packing up all of our things into one big truck and moving it across the country. Wasn't I applying for grad schools just a few months ago?! My how time does fly. Heather and I have enjoyed our year in Bellingham so much! She has said repeatedly that Bellingham is the first town besides Walla Walla that she's ever felt like she could settle in. We know that there are so many exciting things waiting for us in Tennessee, but we sure will miss the spectacular view of Mount Baker to the east, and the beautiful sunset over the water to the west.

There are so many mixed emotions surrounding our big move. We are both pretty sad to be leaving our first home together, but at the same time we just want to get it over with! We have been planning this next step for so long and we are ready for the anticipation to be over. Then again, moving so far away from family will be difficult for both of us. We know it won't be long until Christmas, and we hope we will get to see you all more than once a year for the next 3 years. It's a bit hard to think about that reality even now. But on the brighter side, we are following Gods will! We also know he has great things planned for our lives in Tennessee. We are eager to grow closer together through this crazy adventure. And someday, we WILL move back to the west coast!

Oh, so many things to think about! The thought of this move away from home can be unpleasant, but being reminded of God's plan is the most reassuring thing we have. We are thankful for all of you, excited to see most of you this next weekend, and will miss you so much. We promise to keep in touch through this blog. Have faith Cami! We can do it!!!
I'll sure we will have plenty of pictures to post, and stories to tell when we get to Nashville!
Until next time...

Camping Trip '09

On this weekend's agenda, CAMPING!!! Heather, Draco, and I went to Silver Lake Park near Mount Baker. We had scoped out the area with Mom and Dad when they came up to visit a few months ago. One look around the park and we knew we wanted to camp there before we left town. So this weekend was our time to camp! We have been waiting to go camping since we got married. You may remember that a major motif of our gift registry was camping gear. We tried to find a camp site on several occasions last fall but were unsuccessful. Needless to say, we were very excited to spend some time outdoors (sans hiking).

Being the planners that we are, we made several checklists and packed our gear at least a week in advance. Excited? Nay, Thrilled to camp!!! We barely fit our stuff + Draco in the car but we made it and set up camp Friday afternoon



This is proof that I can build a fire! But don't be fooled, the wood was a bit wet and the fire barely hung in there. It took the both of us to keep it going all evening.


This is a part of Silver Lake. Aside from sitting on its bank and enjoying the beauty of the surrounding mountains, we went on a paddle boating excursion directly to the nearest shady spot! I think we both had forgotten how much work a paddle boat can be! Despite the unwelcomed workout, we really enjoyed the time together exploring the lake and searching for fish swimming below.



We had the best time camping together! We learned a bit about "surviving" outdoors and will be even better prepared for next time and we hope we can find some good places to camp in Tennessee.

Oh, Draco had a ball too! Does it get cuter than this?


Next weekend Heather's parents will be coming to visit and the week after that we will be packing and moving. Oh my goodness...Uff Dah! Until next time...

Graduation and After

Here is the second part of our graduation weekend in Bellingham. The graduation ceremony was all that we could have hoped for. Despite having to read over 600 names in my ceremony, they were able to finish exactly on time in only 90 minutes! We all sweat through the ceremony and then had a bit of time to cool off before we had a great dinner celebration at the Hearthfire Steakhouse on the water. We spent several hours at the restaurant talking, laughing, and enjoying being together as a big family. I'm pretty sure that Dad got about 10 times as many pictures on his camera as I did so be looking for more pictures from him soon.



On Sunday after everyone left town, Heather and I spent a little time together just trying to relax and then we decided to take a drive and try out the new GPS! Heather found a county park that looked pretty interesting in Ferndale, just a few miles north of Bellingham. We excitedly got in the car and hopped on the I-5. We were barely half-way down the entrance ramp when we noticed traffic was at a standstill and backed up for quite a ways. It didn't take long to figure out that there was a pretty intense situation up ahead and we probably wouldn't be moving for a while. After only 5-10 minutes of waiting, people started to turn around and go back up the entrance ramp to the surface streets!! Heather and I couldn't help but just stare at people with our jaws on the floor in disbelief! She captured the whole thing with our camera. Yes. Those are several rows of cars on the same side of the road, going in different directions. Brilliant right? Not so much...



The first thing we found at this park was a fragrance garden. It was full of all kinds of varieties of sage, mint, thyme, rosemary, and other aromatic flowers and trees. It was such a unique garden and was very interesting to explore!



Later, we look some really neat trails through a large wetland area. It was full of all sorts of wildlife and plantlife that we don't usually see. We weren't able to get a good picture, but as we were pulling into the park, a bald eagle was circling overhead! They are such majestic birds. Feel free to click on the pictures to make them much larger.

Here is a Blue Heron



While standing on a bridge taking pictures of the Heron, we noticed this little guy silently swimming down the stream at a pretty good pace! At first we thought he was a small beaver but he turned out to be a muskrat. Too cute!

New Dog & Graduation

Preface: There is much more to come from this great weekend! Tonight we had a bbq at our apartment. Woah, talk about a full house! We managed to entertain 12 people (including Addi) in our not so huge apartment. We bbq'd and ate outside at the picnic table. We were fortunate enough to have beautiful weather today and the best company in the world!



Oh wait, what's that horse doing next to Emily? He's no horse, but he is our new dog! Correction, our new HUGE dog!! Draco was brought to us from Walla Walla today and we are so excited to finally meet him! I must admit, it was a GIGANTIC surprise to see him for the first time. We knew was a bit over weight, but when we met him, we saw that he is COLOSSAL! His new nickname is "the sausage". We offer for proof, the next photo. Please, try not to laugh too hard, he is very sensitive about his weight. As we're posting this I am singing "Fat dog with little leeeggggggssss....."



That picture definitely reminds us of the more famous shot of a pig from the same angle. We are looking forward to giving him the exercise and diet that he needs to be a healthy, long-living pet for us. He's going to be a TITANIC chore and will require much patients and care, but we love him already and can't wait to spend time with him! And here are a few pictures that are more flattering of his ROBUST physique.