Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Jake Gartland

Off to Hood River for a beautiful wedding! Our friends Jake and Ashley got married on Sunday June 29th. The wedding was gorgeous, couldn't have been better, and you could tell Jake and Ashley are so much in love. Here's to many, many years full of love and laughter!

The Beautiful Couple

Beautiful Scenery

Daniel, the Best Man

Let the party begin....!

!!!!! Congratulations Daniel !!!!!!

It's official :-D Daniel had his Firefighter badging ceremony on Friday the 27th and like I described in the 6/16 post he is done with his year-long probation. Here are some pictures from the ceremony where he was sworn in to protect life and property. I am very, very proud of him!

More pictures from Mom's Birthday Trip to Lopez Island

My Beautiful Mom

Brrr cold hiking on the island!

Who Loves a Frisbee?

Reuben does! He just got a Ruffwear frisbee and is finally learning that there's a world out there above his head.

There are kids that play with him in the park ....it's sooo cute..."Reuben's here!, Reuben's here!". I don't think that a lot of them had ever touched a dog or played with one before. One time when Reu was super hot and tired and his tongue was hanging out one of the little one's asked "What's wrong with his tongue?". Daniel dared him to touch it and he ran over and poked it with one finger and then ran away as fast as he could :-)

South Early Winters Spire

On Monday the 16th Daniel and I left to drive up to Washington Pass to do some alpine climbing in the North Cascades. We dropped Reuben off with Mom and Dad as usual and camped overnight. Tuesday we started the climb with about an hour approach. We did the Direct East Buttress, Grade III+, 5.9 – A0 or 5.11, 9 pitches. It is granite trad with a couple of pitches of bolt ladders for aid. We really enjoyed the climb, it was varied and quality. Weather was great and clear, It started out really sunny with us in tanktops but then got quite chilly. We had felt silly initially but were really glad we brought our down puffys! Nothing like cascade climbing, going from tanktops and sunglasses to down jackets, hats, and glvoes.

Our climb goes up the right side of the tallest lefthand rock formation

Two problems with the trip. The first, Daniel didn't seal out platypus water bladder in the back of the subaru and it leaked allll over my duffel with my clothes in it. I had to go to sleep with my wet clothes on and dry clothes over the top in order for them to dry them out for the next day. Nothing like wetness next to your skin to make you feel warm and cozy. The second, I got even in stupidity. Close to the base we re-organized out geat into one small pack to carry enroute. We were juggling things around and I somehow forgot to get all of our food from point A to point B into the small pack. We discovered this maybe four pitches left and spent the rest of the time accidently snapping at each other and then laughing it off because we knew we were hungry. I even got shaky on one pitch and thought it was nerves until I continued to do it at the belay. lol, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right?

Yay for the top!

We descended down the South Arete only to meet a very posessive mountain goat. I rappelled down to the base first and the mountain goat stalked me like a cougar. I had to boulder up a little on the rock because I wasn't sure what he would do! "Daniel hurry up!" . Maybe he just wanted to give me a little lick ;-) Definitely past the point of blood sugar alltime low, we hightailed back to our packs for some calories! Enjoy the pics...

Hanging with the Davii

Daniel passed his probationary test!!! After a year-long saga of being a probationary firefighter with academy, monthly tests, training on the weekends, and hours and hours in the books, it all ended with his final written and practical test. This means most importantly no more studying, but also that he "belongs" to Scappoose and can't be fired, gets a raise, and gets firefighter on his badge. I'm so proud of him and very excited to have him back :-D

My Sexy Firefighter
Directly following we had five days off together. We had entertained the thought of going to Squamish or doing some other long climbing trip but instead decided to stay home. We were soooo tired and had so many things that had been neglected around the house and Portland. Soooo we stayed in town, we could tell that we neeeded it when we slept in until 3pm the next day.

My Men
On Saturday we went to a park in Vancouver with Nathan and Pam and AJ. Nate wanted to try out his wetsuit before the Blue Lake Triathlon he was going to do. They were babysitting their friends' yellow lab DJ so it was quite the circus with three dogs. Anastasia was super-cute wearing her little summer outfit that her Aunt Sasha had sent over from Boise!

Sporting the Aviators

Nate, Daniel, and Rogue lounging

Three's a Crowd

What do you think?

I saw this in a coffeeshop and had to share. Hopefully Daniel will just stick to the pants! Well actually, maybe I take that back, his butt is waaayyyy cuter than that...hands down ;-)

Mom's 50th Birthday!!

My Mom's 50th Birthday is on June 15th. I decided to take her to Lopez Island in the San Juans for a little Mother-Daughter weekend. Our friends the Gartlands were gracious and let us stay in their always wonderful house. I had a lot of fun and relaxation reconnecting with my Mom, just her and I. I hope she had a good time too!

Friday the 6th I got off work in the morning after a three day stretch of 12hr night shifts I hit the road to pick up my Mom in Olympia. I had to phone a lot of my more verbose friends in order to stay awake and left a few voicemails consisting of "please call back..I need to stay awake!" I dropped off Reuben with my Dad and we loaded up their outback with the kayaks and bikes and off to Anacortes we went. We caught the ferry after an hour wait and headed to the Bay Cafe for dinner. It is slightly pricey, but well worth it, the food, especially the seafood is sooo good. We shared a couple of plates of halibut and crab cakes and topped it off with some bourbon caramel cheesecake complete with a candle and an embarassing happy birthday song! That evening my Mother insisted on sleeping in the little daybed instead of sharing a bed with me because I apparently kick too much :-) She'll probably kill me for posting this pic but I had to immortalize it

The next morning we were off on our bikes to Holly B's bakery, so so so good. cinnamon rolls, almond danishes for breakfast and quite a few other options for throughout the day were to be had. We headed over to the Farmer's Market to peruse, then biked to Odlin park, then over to Spencer Spit Park, and back to the house. With the biking and hiking it was about a 6 hour day. Though cold in the morning the sun peeked out and it was very pleasant. When we got back Nina and Rich, Kacie, and Colin had arrived at the house. What a treat to have homemade dinner waiting for us when we got back! The Gartlands spoil us all the time but I am not complaining :-) Then back out that night to watch the sunset at Iceberg point, cold but pretty.

Sunday we woke up to action again. Of course we had to hit Holly B's and coffee in the morning. It was slightly less windy so we decided to brave the water in our kayaks. My Mom is an avid kayaker, they travel and around and take these amazing multi-day vacations kayaking with orcas etc..! but I for some reason have a huge fear of water, put me a 1000feet off the deck on a rock wall but get me in the water and I feel sooo anxious. Bless her heart, she wanted me to have a good time, so we put in at Hunter Bay and just went out and back along the coastline for a couple of hours. I actually enjoyed it this time and got into a rythm with paddling and feeling comfortable, thank you to Mom for doing something simple, I hope you weren't too bored! We then drove over to my favorite secluded beach in Watmough Bay and laid out blankets and read and napped.

Dinnertime we biked down to Buckey's for burgers and braved the hill back home with full stomachs. Finally we headed out to Shark Point for another beautiful sunset.

Monday, we packed and cleaned and took a morning ferry in order to visit my Grandpa (my Mom's Dad) in the hospital at the VA in Seattle. It was good to see him, it's been a long time. Then back home...Good times!

I hope to post more pics when I get them from my Mom!!

Team Harro and Baby AJ

So my niece Anastasia Jae is very picky currently about who she likes to hang out. I think we finally developed a mutual understanding of each other a while back when I helped out Pam with getting Ana's three month professional pictures...sooo cute! Three meltdowns and subsequent rallies later the project was done! Theses are just a few I took and then I'll attach more when I can get them from Pamela.

On Monday Pam had a dental hygienist working interview to reenter the "workforce" once again. I headed over at 7:30 in the morning to take the little tyke...and then Daniel joined me around 10:00 when he got off work. We had a good day with the little baby, running errands and showing her off...the peanut attracts a lot of compliments :-) Oh my goodness though, I can't imagine having twins or triplets...or babysitting 8 kids like my Mom does...How tiring just for a day...and how difficult operating with one hand at best! AJ is very opinionated and when she finally decides she wants something she actually wanted it 5 minutes ago...and you best be turning back time to get it or she will let you know! My beautiful niece is taking after Reuben...if you're cute...you can get away with just about anything :-)