Busy busy busy

Alright alright alright. So, that whole internship thing I mentioned before fell through. It was kind of weird because they e-mailed me to tell me the spots have been filled for this summer already, but the deadline isn't for another month. They must go by some kind of jacked up first come first serve hiring process rather than wait to get all the apps then pick from the best ones. :) Oh well right. Maybe I'll just have to vacation in Montana instead.

The fishing front has been pretty bleak as well. Rob and I decided to try our luck off Whidbey Island last Friday. I would post the pictures for you all to see, but we didn't catch anything. Wait...... not true. I caught a Flounder and it was a monster. Took me two hours to land it.....jk. That's a lie. I did catch a Flounder (wasn't fishing for Flounder by the way) trust me when I say flounder are one of the most boring fish in the world to catch. It's comparable to getting snagged on a log.

I also went out this morning to try and get into some Sea Run Cutthroat. I would post those pictures, but I didn't catch any of those either. What the hell is going on 2010?

On a more positive note, Sarah and I decided to venture out into the world and joined a pub crawl with some friends of ours. (It turned out to be 60 people!) It was actually a ton of fun and was by far the most organized drinking I've ever been a part of, complete with T-shirts, competitions and challenges at each bar, and a band who was booked to play at the last bar. The scores from the competition were tallied at the end of the night, and the person with the most points won some sort of prize. You had to be present at midnight to be eligible to claim the prize, which doesn't sound that hard but considering the crawl started at 4:30 PM, it was easier said then done. At midnight there were only a few left standing........we were not among them.

Continuing on the positive note, a good friend of ours, Eric, bought some tickets to go see his favorite band, Gaelic Storm. We went with Eric, Adam, and Katie. I had never heard of them before but they put on a great show. The songs were great, and they were funny as hell. I think they are probably most famous for being the Irish band playing in third class in the movie Titanic, but I won’t hold that against them. Our friend was ecstatic like a little kid (or groupie) when we had an opportunity to take a picture with them and get some stuff signed after the show.

As you can see from photo, Sarah decided to go all groupie on the lead singer as well.....wtf?

The pups say hi everyone, well Lola anyway, Denali is too busy sleeping. See you soon Grandma Katherine!

2010 Update

Well, so far 2010 has proved to be pretty uneventful, which could be a good thing I suppose.

Winter quarter has started at school and it should be pretty awesome. I have some good classes and we are working on some big projects that should prove to be valuable experiences. In one class we are responsible for putting on a large scale community service event in the seattle area. We are supposed to put this together from start to finish, meaning coming up with the idea, marketing it, getting participants, funding it, and executing it. I could be pretty exciting. I'm also looking for some internships as part of my graduation requirement. The latest is a 12 week long instructor position at a fly fishing camp in Livingston, Montana. The focus would be conservation and recreation managment. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Sarah is doing great as well. She has been starting new projects at work and is really expanding her experience at Amazon. She impresses me everyday with how hard she works. She has also started to get back in the gym after the holiday break and is tearing that up as well. Not a surprise. It was pretty funny though, we have been back from our snowboarding trip for a few weeks now and she said while trying to do sit-ups at the gym her tail bone was still hurting from the falls she took! : ( Yikes.

On a bitter sweet note, I just helped Sarah's grandma ship her 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 out to Chicago as a surprise for her youngest son's 40th birthday. The car was her husband's. He bought it new in 69' and the car was his baby for nearly 20 years until he passed away. The car has been sitting in the garage, mostly untouched for the last 22 years. It was tuff to watch the car get put on the truck and drive away because I knew she was having a hard time letting it go, even though she knows it is going to someone who cares about it so much. I could imagine having something with that type of sentimantal value right there everyday, and then coming out to your garage just having an empty space where the car use to be.

We did a little rearranging of the apartment the other day that really opened the place up. This little apartment can get pretty cramped sometimes with both of us and the dogs, so we were pretty excited about it. Sarah got us a new rug and a new lamp that she has been wanting for long time and it looks great.

Before

Before

After

After
(notice Lola mooning the camera)

After










The end. Bullock, OUT.

A Great Holiday Season!

The holiday season has been great thanks to all our family and friends. We spent Christmas here in Seattle with Sarah's family. Her aunt Jane, uncle David, and cousins Aaron and Eva came home from the Marshall Islands for Christmas. It was great to see them again but reminded us of how much we miss having them out on Whidbey.

The day after Christmas we flew out to Salt Lake City to meet up with my family for a week of snowboarding and hanging out. The condo we stayed at was awesome. We spent the days out snowboarding and skiing and then came back to the condo where we spent most of our time either playing pool, foosball, and airhockey, or eating. We spent a few days getting Sarah into the swing of things. Just like the rest of us, she took her lumps. Learning how to snowboard can be a painful experience as anyone who has tried knows. But, by the third day she was tearing it up and taking full runs without falling down (much).

When we go to Utah we met up with all the Ferraris (aunt, uncle, cousins) and even got to see Rob and Joe's Grandpa Twisty. It's always so great to see everyone, but sucks so bad to leave just because we are all pretty spread out these days, and don't get to see each other as much as we would all like. It make me miss the days growing up in Ely when just about everyone was right down the street.

Well a big thanks to JB and Jeri, who were sick the whole trip. I brought back a cold that kept me down for a few days. I elected to break in the new year by being layed up on the couch watching bowl games....not too terrible I guess.

Finally feeling better on the last day of vacation before Sarah goes back to work and I go back to school, we decided to reward Denali for being so awesome and took him on a day trip over to Leavenworth, WA so he could play in the snow. We had a great last day of vacation. It was a perfect way to end the break. Spending the day with Sarah and the dogs in such a beautiful place, a guy can't ask for much more than that.

Thanks again to all our family and friends for such a great holiday season! We love you all. God bless you.

First Post!!

Welcome to our blog! Where to start... Life is good. Sarah and I are getting ready for the holidays, we put up some lights on our little overhang at the apartment, put a wreath on the door, and decorated our "tree" which is really sticks with lights and ornaments, but it looks pretty festive.

I just finished fall quarter at Seattle University working on my masters degree in sports administration. I think I did pretty good but stay tuned for some grades. I also did pretty well in the summer quarter, so I''m  excited about it. I only took one class but I got an A.

Other than that I've been fishing as much as I can, and Sarah has been a pretty good sport about it. What more could a guy ask for right? Cousin Rob and I have been getting out pretty regularly and have both caught some really nice searun cutthroat in Puget Sound. And when we can't fish, we have a pretty good time sitting around with Maisy, watching fishing videos, and tying flies.

Denali (Poop Boy) and Lola (Freak) are doing pretty good. Unfortunetly Denali is starting to get bad hips and some minor cataracts but he's pretty tough. We gotta tell you, he is fired up about the weather around here. He loves the cold. He wants to stay out there all day and it has been right around freezing. Lola, not so much. She pretends to be excited, runs outside, then runs right back in when she realizes how cold it is. It's pretty funny.

Okay, now to the good stuff....my part!! Yeah right. I'm usually the boring one in this equation.To touch on the above a bit (thank you for writing Chris), Denali (Boo Bear) and Lola (Skinny Princess) are doing well. Lola has lost some weight recently which is a good thing considering I received some Tootsie Roll comparisons! She is back down to where she should be and I think Denali is happy to have all the food in his bowl there when he wants to eat it. The weather is cold, were lucky to get above freezing and Boo Bear is in Husky heaven. Lola is not so much a fan but hanging in there with her new sweater from "Grandma Katherine".

I have certainly tried my best to be a good sport about fishing! That takes up a good amount of energy at times. I'm sure that at times my best could be better, but there are just times where the only fish I want to hear or think about would be on my dinner plate! Haha. The guys have a good time and between Chris' school and Rob being so busy with Maisy, I'm glad they get to enjoy something together that makes them both so happy. I just need to get better at going up to hang out with Heather and Maisy Doodle when the guys are gone, us girls gotta stick together!

Work has been crazy busy. It always is getting ready for the holiday buying season. I need to make sure Amazon doesn't run out of things for people to purchase! I did a bit of traveling in September and October to meet with some of our big media sellers. You know your gone too much when nice hotel rooms and King sized beds are no longer fun. I actually started to miss half hanging off the bed because Lola is sprawled out like she owns the thing.

We will be here in Seattle with some of my family for Christmas. My immediate family (hi Mom, Tom Allison and James, I love you!!) will be staying in California this year, hopefully we'll see them soon. It will be nice to finally spend the holiday with Chris for the first time. We're very excited to see my Aunt Jane, Uncle David, Eva and Aaron. They moved to Kwajalein a few months ago and our weekend trips to Whidbey are sorely missed. Christmas will be low key with only them and Grandma, but nice and relaxing too. Here's our Christmas company....

Utah will be waiting for us the day after Christmas. I'll be joining the Bullock's on their traditional snowboarding trip. The only thing missing is my ability to snowboard! Chris and our friend Eric took me to the mountain last week to try to teach me the basics. I think it went okay. Not too many falls! I think Park City is aiming a bit high, but here I come no matter what, right? Wish me luck and no broken bones!

We'll keep on top of posting and look forward to keeping in touch with you!