Picking berries

Hello there,
I hope you all doing berry well. Pun intended.
Here is a picture of Jillian and I helping picking berries for "Momma bill's Jam".
Jillian said I was great at picking berries due to the fact I was an imigrant.





--Matty3stars--

The tortoise and the scare

Ready Set GO!!!!

Okay I forgot to add this the other and it quite a funny little story.
The Other day I get back from a skate and it is quite warm, the pooches are sprawled out on our new footon couch and Chinchilla (the tortoise) is bashing at tank. Which means I want out and me being a big softy I am, I let her out. I was plugging away at the computer and realize I have not seen the shelled one in quite a while. I get up and to look for her and remember the back door is open. I cruise over to the back door, thinking "oh we have it all fenced up for the dogs, Chinchilla will be out there kicking around". I am sure you are guessing it right now. Yep Chinchilla was MIA.
I look around the fence to see if there is any holes and guess what there was...
So I frantically start the one man search party. Inside the house Quickly. Just to make sure.
Once realizing that there is no way she could be indoors.
I try to get the pooches to pick up Chinchilla's scent. But to no avail, they seriously just look up at me with a dumbfounded face. Lucky they are so cute.
So I head outside searching under and over everything all while I am making kissing sounds and calling my Tortoise like it was a dog. Again Nothing. At this point I am getting pretty worried.
I then call in for back up. Yep I called in a yank tank "Jillianator".
Jillian heads home early from work to join the search party. We both search until Jillian has to go to work at her other job. At this point I am getting pretty down and as Jillian heads off for work I start making a missing tortoise poster. Yes you heard right I was making a missing tortoise poster.
Then I hear Jillian calling my name from the car park out the front, So I ran outside to meet her almost crushing one of the pooches in the process. As I meet Jillian I see she has a tortoise in her hands. A sigh of relief..
Jillian said that she was driving out the car park slowly just to make sure that she didn't run Chinchilla over and saw the sun glisten off Chinchilla's shell.
Jillian later told me that where Chinchills was heading. meaning that Chinchilla must of been twice as far away from where She was found, so probably about 30 to 50 meters from our front doors and add another 20 on top of that as she had to go from the back to the front of the house. After all that Chinchilla is safe and sound. And now I think that the tortoise won the race against the hare on it's on merits, based on what I have seen Chinchills is capible of.
Over and out
Matty

July 13th 2009

Is it a bird? is it a plane? NO it's just me..

Yes is true, In the last week I have gone from a two eyed freak to a four eyed freak.
I noticed that awhile ago that my eyes were getting really tired when I was at the computer for to long. and that my left was acting up more than my right. And for everyone playing at home my left was the one I messed around with in the car accident Feb 3rd 2003. The doctor said that my eyes are not working together due to the car accident. I only have to wear them for the computer t.v and reading.
I have been wearing them just under a week now and I am Still getting used to them.

Over the week Jillian has been studying for her first exam for her prerequisites of chemistry. Her test is on Wednesday night. I think she will pass with flying colors!!
Jillian has also once again working her butt off at two jobs, but still somehow manages to find time to hang out with friends and family, study, go to her friends bridal shower an hour away and all with a smile on her face.

I have been working on my new website, working and I just started TAing again (which I love to do), skating and hanging out with some friends from school. My friends from school were Kenny, Mariette, Jenny and her girlfriend Sloan. We all went out to a bar called Katie's pub to give Jenny a great send off as she is moving to St Louis. We had a great time, many any laugh's were had.
I have a couple of projects boiling up which I am very excited about. I will fill you cats in when I know if they are coming to fruition.
I also recieved a very exciting gift from my close friends The Leahy's. It was 3 skateboards all with interlocking graphics of a local skate spot. I was very excited and will post a picture when I have put them up.

well that is it.. oh not it's not.. JIllian and I took Big Poppa aka My father in-law to the Seattle Science Center to see a 3d imax documentry about the ocean called "Under the Sea" as his fathers day gift. It was fun we also got to see a little skate comp that was being held at a new Seattle Skate park. Plus we went to Pike place Markets. very fun day.

Well I think that is it. here is a photo of my new eyes...

July four and more...

Oh, say! can you see..............

For the fourth of July weekend, Jillian and I headed out to our friend Allison's family lake cabin in Spokane (Eastern Washington).
The lake cabin was a delight. Allison's family was very welcoming into the cabin and even more so to the small community they have out there.
Over the weekend we not only got to celebrate fourth of July, we were also given the chance to celebrate Allison's quarter century b'day (which was on the 3rd.).

The weekend was full of fun and games here is just a few...
swimming, skiing, knee boarding, paddle boating, Frisbee, football into the water, inner tubing, bobbing on floating chairs, cranium, dice games, cards, scrabble and more.

We were able to go on the neighbors party boat and watch all the fireworks for July 4th. Which By the way were set off by other neighbors. Some that I have never seen before.

Here is just a sample of the week end...

























It was a great weekend....

3 years and counting

ABC easy as 123,

Well as we all know there is not much worth having that comes easy. And our marriage was no exception.
with long distance between us, friends and family, moving countries, family tragedies and on top of all that a normal marriage. It felt that this anniversary was a mile stone for us. Feeling that our love is stronger than ever and still growing.

Our anniversary is was Wednesday the 1st of July. But because both of us had to work on that night. We decided to celebrate a day earlier by going to a fancy restaurant called "Cafe Juanita".
It is just around the corner from our house, So we were able to get dressed up and walk there.
It was a great dinner with Jillian and I reminiscing over the last 3 years.
While we were reminiscing, we had a lovely dinner and desert.














We forgot to take a picture in the restaurant. So we took one on the way out.

The Return of the 258 Bricks.

Welcome to the Jungle,
Actually there is no jungle, I dug that up on Thursday.

Friday was a usual day for us with work, skating and a trip to a book store.
Saturday was were the action was at.
11:05 is when the 258 Bricks make their not so grand return. With Jillian and I knowing of our fate ahead, we decided to get a jump on our day. We started jumping at 10:00. Jillian went to a flea market and I went for a skate.
We reconvened at HQ (mother and father in-laws house) to start the wall building.
The builders were Kevin ( Jillian's brother), Brad(brother in-law), Big Poppa (father in-law), Jillian and me.
We started at 11:05 and finished at 5:07.
During this time we had to level the ground with gravel, move the bricks from the top level to the bottom level, dig out bricks for under to big piles of dirt, lay bricks (7 high), level bricks, shovel dirt behind wall and then just for kicks we ended up cutting down a few big branches that were getting in our way all day.
Momma Bill (Jillian's Mum) supplied us with drinks all day and then for lunch made us all a personal pizza.

Here are a few photo's that show the process through out the day...
The leveling.

















The thinking/planning.














The laying.














The complaining.














The very satisfied Big Poppa.

















After it was all said and done we were all very happy with the finished product And that we were able to help out the In-laws with something so big.
The bricks were defeated at 5:07. I have heard a rumor though, that the bricks have some cousins who come in the form of a fence.
Sunday was a bit of a full day as well with Jillian and I working. Then the family celebrate Natalie's b'day for the second time, which was great fun. Her and Kevin (The Hodgii) are of to Vietnam for a couple weeks on the 2nd of July or tomorrow. A well deserved trip.

Green thumb

FE FI FO thumb I have the opposite of a green thumb....

Last week I was ask to Help out the HODGii, (aka Natalie and Kevin aka My brother and sister in-law) with some of their gardening. Since the HODGii are so busy with work and my work is very flexible at the moment. Still I was a little shocked that they wanted me to help out with gardening, until they explained that it was the tearing down of an old garden. I thought to myself that is the type of gardenening work I can do.
Knowing they had been busy and had not had time to tend to the garden for a while. I thought I knew what I was in for. I underestimated how quickly everything grows with plenty of sun and water.

I started at the side of their house and then I hit up the front.
Here is some before pics of the side .

Example A.

















Example B.
















Example C.
















So here is an after of the side.
















Here is the finished product at the front.
Where you see dirt was either ivy vine stuff or very pointy holy bush.














Who knew that I would be doing so much labor intensive work once I moved to Seattle. And if you did why didn't you tell me?
Tell you the truth all this labor I have been doing as felt really good.
Love, Truth, Strength
Matty