Aha!

Thanks to our fun new friends Kent, Kirsten, and Little Greta, we have been introduced to Winnie the Pooh. Yesterday was a beautiful day and we found a park with the most coushy, soft, green grass and had a snack while Wes read aloud from a copy of their very old Christopher Robin Story Book by A.A. Milne.
Here is a small section. Wes and I thought it was pretty funny and clever. Thanks Walter family.
Imagine it read with silly voices like Wes so wonderfully does :) Enjoy!

IN WHICH KANGA AND BABY ROO COME TO THE FOREST, AND PIGLET HAS A BATH

Nobody seemed to know where they came from, but there they were in the Forest: Kanga and Baby Roo.
When Pooh asked Christopher Robin, "How did they come here?"
Christopher Robin said, "In the Usual Way, if you know what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh, who didn't, said "Oh!" Then he nooded his head twice and said, "In the Usual Way. Ah!"
Then he went to call upon his friend Piglet to see what he thought about it. And at Piglet's house he found Rabbit. So they all talked about it together.

"What I don't like about it is this," said Rabbit.

"Here are we -- you, Pooh, and you, Piglet, and Me - and suddenly -"

"And Eeyore, " said Pooh.

"And Eeyore -- and then suddenly --"

"And Owl," said Pooh.

"And Owl -- and then all of a sudden ---"

"Oh, and Eeyore," said Pooh. "I was forgetting him."

"Here - we- are," said Rabbit very slowly and carefully, "all-of-us, and then, suddenly, we wake up one morning and, what do we find? We find a Strange Animal among us. An animal of whom we have never even heard before! An animal who carries her family about with her in her pocket! Suppose I carried my family about with me in my pocket, how many pockets should I want?"

"Sixteen," said Piglet.

"Seventeen, isn't it?" said Rabbit. " and one more for a handkerchief - that's eighteen. Eighteen pockets in one suit! I haven't time."
There was a long and thoughtful silence... and then Pooh, who had been frowning very hard for some minues, said: "I make it fifteen."

"What?" said Rabbit.

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen what?"

"Your family."

"What about them?"
Pooh rubbed his nose and said that he thought Rabbit had been talking about his family.

"Did I?" said Rabbit carelessly.

"Yes, you said -"

"Never mind, Pooh," said Piglet impatiently. "The question is, What are we to do about Kanga?"

"Oh, I see," said Pooh.

"The best way," said Rabbit, "would be this. The best way would be to steal Baby Roo and hide him, and then when Kanga says, 'Where's Baby Roo?' we say, 'Aha!' "

"Aha!" said Pooh, practising "Aha! Aha! ... Of course," he went on, "we could say 'Aha!' even if we hadn't stolen Baby Roo."

...Pooh went in to a corner and tried saying 'Aha!' in that sort of voice. Sometimes it seemed to him that it did mean what Rabbit said, and sometimes it seemed to him that it didn't.


Hope you enjoyed it! I can't believe that I typed it! Wes'll upload pictures from his phone to go with the story :)

Ooey Gooey

Can you find seven? -




61 slugs just in the short grass shown here -
The bike bath right outside our place -
Wes in his new rain jacket (the hood is extra large to fit over a bike helmet) -

The only velodrome in Washington just a 2 mile walk down the bike path -

Bikes with no breaks or other heavy stuff -

We've discovered a reason to stay away from this area of the country! .... ooey gooey slugs! We counted 61 in a very small area of land (see picture). At least they don't have big, sharp teeth or poisen like the the snakes and alligators in Florida :) They sure would make an awesome collection for a 7 year old.

Working for the man

You'll notice the author of this post is Wes, and not Leslie, so that means the pics are a bit of a letdown. Actually, I just remembered I took a nice picture on my phone the other day that I can attach, so maybe not too bad.

I've been at work for a little over a month and I really enjoy it. I'm working on the Home and Small Business Server team. Basically someone writes the code for a certain feature, and then I write a bunch of code that uses that feature and tests if everything is working the way it should.

The MS campus is very nice (and big, thus calling it a campus). I usually ride the bus to work in the morning, taking my bike with me (bike racks on the front of the bus), and then I ride my bike home after work. On the way home I go downhill the whole way and it's awesome - I end up going faster than the cars stuck in traffic on the freeway.

And as for this past weekend, I not only survived camping and the hike up the volcano, but I definitely enjoyed it and I imagine we will do it again... someday. Thanks for asking, Bruce. It was easy... I mean in hindsight it was easy :)

Today is actually the first day since the hike that I woke up and got out of bed without noticing any pain in my legs so I think it's safe to say that I'm feeling fully recovered.

Lava Dogs

The youngest person on the volcano. Notice the lava dog being served on the left -

It's not every day that dad stands above the clouds -

Rim of the volcano -

The moon? No, just Mt. St. Helens -

Wes' first camping experience! -

We did it! We climbed up Mt. St. Helens! It was wonderful and scary and I felt very brave! If we didn't have an awesome group of people (some friends and microsoft people that we met up here) guiding us, I probably wouldn't have made it!

Some of the people in our group did it as a night hike and left at midnight. They got to the top at 5am. They carried 2 tents, 84 hotdogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, icecream bars, white aprons and hats, and cooking gloves up with them! It was top secret and when all the hikers of the day got to the top there was a delicious gourmet hotdog or 2 waiting for them!

As we slide back down, it was fun to encourage the people still hiking up by telling them that there were hotdogs up top...I may have also told them that there was a Starbucks :)

I'm not much for writing a whole lot on a blog...but I have so many stories I could share about the hike! One point in particular was really difficult. We were about halfway up, climbing on boulders and inside of a cloud so we could only see about 2 yards in front of us. I was really bummed because I knew we were so high up and the view would be beautiful, but all we could see was the person in front and huge gray/black boulders. Cold rain was blowing us over...I was definitely thinking that this would be the one and only time that you find me on this mountain...but we kept climbing and made our way above the cloud to the blue sky. The clouds cleared away a bit as we hiked down so our view was so much prettier.

The volcano seemed so dead...piles of big rocks and little rocks and little little little rocks, not really my favorite. But the neat thing was that pretty much as soon as I started to feel really scared climbing up, I saw little tiny signs that there is life on it! I saw 3 bird poops on rocks, a little chipmunk, and a bee on the very top! There were 3 different types of small beautiful flowers peeking out of boulders. There weren't many, just a few scattered here and there. I think that it is so amazing that a simple little flower can squeeze through such a powerful and gigantic mountain of rock. It made me realize that if we are made in God's image and he created such beauty on this earth, we must be even more strong and beautiful in him than we can ever imagine. If he values the birds in the sky, how much more does he value us?

Job updates: Leslie still pending...Wes must be busy since he has blogged for a very long time!

What's up Doc?

Bainbridge Island Farmers market on Saturday -

Happy Birthday Jill! We celebrated with mini desserts at Golden Gardens on Friday -

Pikes marketplace -

Sunset over Lake Washington -

Starbucks on a very hot day

It's hard to believe that we've been here long enough to have visitors, but we have! We've been enjoying being tourists with mom & dad Peter and momma Muhr. Papa Muhr comes on Wednesday for more touristing.
We've had lots of fun adventures which you can see in the photos.

If you'd like to adventure with us too, you can reach us through our blog: http://www.wesandleslie.com/ :) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Job updates to come...