Starbucks & Missionaries

A lady at my work thanked me for helping her with a project by giving me a $7 Starbucks giftcard. The only problem is, I don't drink coffee. In fact, Mormons are not to drink coffee at all. I almost gave it to my boss but Chris reminded me that they do sell hot chocolate so we decided to keep it. We went in on Saturday and got two nice cups of hot chocolate and a bagel. We sat in the coffee shop for about five minutes and then got in our car, still with our hot chocolate, and went on to the next errand of the day. We saw the missionaries from my church (the one that says to not drink coffee) and thought we'd give them a ride. They climb in and one says, "It smells like...Starbucks." The funny thing is, we had thought about that as we were pulling over and what to say. Chris said, "If they say anything, just say 'Don't judge me!'" So of course I did and they started saying how they weren't but we started laughing and it was fine. The whole thing was kind of funny and ironic.

You Know When You're From the Northwest When...

About a year ago (Feb. 16 last year to be exact), I got his email from my brother-in-law that lives in Washington (about 45 minutes from us). I have to say, I didn't quite get all of the jokes back then. I just re-read it after living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest for almost five months and now think it is absolutely hysterical!

How To Tell that You're From The Pacific Northwest According To Jeff Foxworthy
1. You know the state flower (Mildew).
2. You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.
3. You've used the statement "sun break" and know what it means.
4. You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.
5. You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.
6. You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a nice restaurant.
7. You stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the "Walk" Signal.
8. You consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain.
9. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle's Best, and Tully's.
10. You know the difference between Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye Salmon.
11. You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Issaquah, Oregon, Yakima Spokane and Willamette.
12. You consider swimming an indoor sport.
13. You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, and Thai food.
14. In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark - while only working eight-hour days.
15. You never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho.
16. You are not fazed by "Today's forecast: showers followed by rain," and "Tomorrow's forecast: rain followed by showers."
17. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.
18. You know that Boring is a town in Oregon and not just a state of mind.
19. You can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover.
20. You've used the phrase, "The mountain is out" to comment on the weather.
21. You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but still wear your hiking boots and parka.
22. You switch to your sandals when it gets about 60, but keep the socks on.
23. You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.
24. You think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists.
25. You buy new sunglasses every year, because you cannot find the old ones after such a long time.
26. You measure distance in hours. 27. You often switch from "heat" to "a/c" in the same day.
28. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat.
29. You know all the important seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Raining (Spring), Road Construction (Summer), Deer & Elk Season (Fall).
30. You actually understood these jokes and will probably forward them.

By the way, Chris and I didn't go running on Wednesday. I'm not one to work out in the morning and the evenings Wednesday-Saturday were PACKED. I'm thinking I'm going to have to change my ways and just get up out of bed and do it.

Tiger Mountain

We went hiking with Jason and Marie on Saturday. It was 2.6 miles each way and climbed 2,000 feet. At the top they say you can practically touch Mt. Rainier because it seems so close. Unfortunately for us, after a full 5 working days of gorgeous weather and beautiful sunshine, the clouds were at 500 feet on Saturday and we saw...trees. But back to the climb, I had no idea I was so out of shape! It was still a lot of fun even though I can barely walk today. I got whooped good by the pregnant lady but I'm okay with that. Because we were so sore, Chris and I went running today. I would say, we "started" running today, but that would imply that we will definitely do it again on Wednesday like we plan. That has yet to be seen. It actually felt pretty good though. I still can't walk, but I ran!

St. George!!!!!

Chris and I are going down to St. George President's Day weekend and we are so excited! The weather is supposed to be 70's. It's still cold and rainy in Seattle and I'm ready for some sun. And, we're going down so that Chris can meet people and get advice on how to get started in healthcare administration, so that should be good. He's applying lots of places and I will go anywhere, but I'd love to go south of the latitude of Provo as long as it doesn't go up in altitude. The idea of no snow and warm winters sounds sooo nice. Chris has also applied to jobs in CO, VA, and a couple more places, but we're just going to have to wait and see what happens.

Clammin' in Western Washington

We had so much fun on Jan 20. Chris' friend from his single's ward (who also got married over the summer to a girl living in Utah) called a few days before and said he was going to look at a colt and a horse trailer in western Washington and did we want to go? The colt ended up being sold before Saturday but he bought the trailer!
Then he had looked for fun things to do while we were out that way and saw that Clam Digging was that weekend. He had been the year before and said it was a lot of fun. I have to tell you, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
First off, we had none of the proper equipment and the proper equipment was $20+. No way were we spending the money on "Clam Guns" when ordinary shovels that we would use again were $4. So we got in line to buy them at the local Walmart in Aberdeen. For those of you who know nothing about Aberdeen, it's a little like West Virginia. So of course the people around us start chatting and find out we're going clammin' that night. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone laugh that hard. We had everyone around us trying to convince us that the shovels would not do the job and that the clams would get away from us. Jason and Marie had brought smaller shovels that weren't so hefty so we told them we were getting these anyway. It was a riot.
Then we get down to the beach about 4:00pm. The clammin' isn't supposed to start until 7:30pm. We watched the surfers for awhile. I thought "They're INSANE to be out in that water, even with wetsuits! and mostly old dudes too!. Little did I know what was around the corner for me.
Then we go over to check out the beach we'll dig up later and catch all of the 60 clams we're allotted. We were so happy to see that there were already people there! We decided we might as well start now.
We go out there with all our equipment (people chuckling at us along the way) and we start pounding the ground. From what I was told in the beginning, you hit the sand and watch for bubbles to start coming up about 6 inches from your shovel and then you start digging like mad. I tried it for awhile without seeing any bubbles. And then I saw a yellow lab with two older gentlemen so I just went over and asked if I could play with their dog while they dug for clams. The dog was awesome. And if that's all that had happened for the night, I would have been happy.
Our friends and Chris came over pretty soon after and we asked the dog's owner, Tom, for advice on how to find the little buggers. He let the four of us follow him around and showed us what to look for. It was pretty funny scene with all of us following him like puppy dogs.
We got the spirit of things pretty quick and started pounding away again. The main problem with our method came from us not wanting to get wet though. Everytime a wave came up to where we were, we all ran away, had to wait for it to recede, and venture back out again. Pretty soon it became apparent that this was not helping our search. I had tied garbage bags around my legs earlier but they shredded within an hour. So we consigned ourselves to getting wet up to our knees in the Pacific Ocean. Oh it was cold.
FINALLY, Marie yells out that she saw the dimple in the sand that actually indicates a clam (no bubbles, no hole). Jason starts digging furiously and after a few tense moments, rises up with our very first clam of the night!!! We all got pumped up after that and about 10 minutes later I found a dimple too! Both girls, how about that?
Jason comes running over with his smaller shovel and as soon as he gets a little hole, dives down in with his hand. At this point in the game, he's the only one willing to do this so we all just wait. But then...a wave came crashing to where we were and buried Jason up to his shoulder in cold, cold ocean water. I told him I wasn't sure the clam was worth it but he wouldn't let go. This picture to the right is Jason with his hand in the sand and the water coming up over it.
Then he says, "Uh Oh, I think I cracked it's shell". Whoops. Now we have to get it cause it's dead anyway. But now Jason's hand is stuck and he can't get out without letting the clam go. After a few tense moments I throw my shovel at Chris and dove down in to dig Jason out. I found the clam in his hand, a wave washes up, and we pull up at the same time with the crushed clam in tow. It was hilarious. And I was done for the night. Jason and Marie wanted to keep going though so we told them we'd meet them back at the car and we'd change clothes.
Back at the car we were all ready to go. In the ten minutes they stayed behind us, Jason and Marie did not get the 58 more clams that we could have taken home that night, they actually didn't get one more. Oh well.
Tom and his son got their limit though and finished the same time we did with our two. We were pretty proud of ourselves and had to take a picture with our mentor for the night. And Willow (the dog) was fun to play with.
Did I mention Marie is 5 months pregnant?

Does this count?

My church asks us every month a list of questions to see how well we are doing with some goals we have set together. One of them asks if you write in your journal regularly. Does this count?

It was a Christmas Miracle!

You've now read about the brutal northwest storms and all the havoc they caused. However, you did not hear about brighter side of the power outage.

The following story needs a little bit of background first. We had absolutely ZERO cell phone reception in our apartment when we first moved in. We knew it when we signed the lease but it's a whole other story why we signed anyway. To talk on the phone we had to go outside in the parking lot, and with Seattle being what it is, it was usually raining and pretty miserable. I called people as little as possible and tried to do everything while traveling. It was a pain to say the least. Anyway, the day after the power outage, we suddenly had cell phone service!!!! It was a Christmas Miracle! I said a big tree must have fallen that was blocking our path or something and Chris completely negated this as a possible cause but couldn't come up with anything better. Whatever the reason, we were thrilled. Except every day we would come home and expect it to go away. We didn't want to get our hopes up too much. But one month later it's still around and we're getting pretty used to being able to answer our phone without running outside first.

You may have seen that my blog name is eringee. This has a story too. Chris' sister said her daughter, Avery (2), couldn't get that there are two Erin's in the family. So finally she told her (pointing to the picture) that this is Erin S. and this is Erin G. Apparently Avery latched onto my name very quickly and if you hear her say it, it's all one word. Kind of like Orangey or something like that. Hence the name Eringee. It's very cute when she yells it out.

We went to Utah for Christmas and New Years. We drove down so that we would have a car and could leave and come back when we wanted. We ended up leaving Friday at 4pm and getting to Utah at 7am. We were going to stop if we got tired, but we never got tired. I drove from 1-7am and about 3:30 our gas light came on and we were in the middle of NO-WHERE. The next sign we saw said "Tremonton 90 Miles." I was so nervous. I've never run out of gas before in my life and to do it in the middle of the night, on a strange highway, during the holidays was not going to be fun. We were lucky though and something else came up about 60 miles away. My gas tank filled up to 15 gallons and it's a 17 gallon tank. Eeeks.

My whole family caught the flu bug over the holidays so it made for an interesting holiday season but it was nice to see everyone, sick or not. My parents rented a house with 6 bedrooms which was very nice and had a pool table and pinball machine. It was also VERY nice to have laundry, which was used constantly with the state of health as it was. Bryce got married and went to San Diego on his honeymoon. It was a beautiful wedding and I think we're all not in least bit sad that it's the last.

It snowed again yesterday in Seattle. I hate the snow.