Roo’s Room

I am not yet done with the room, but thought I would show you what I do have so far. I still need to put pictures & other stuff on the walls, find curtains, and buy a chair.

1) I chose the crib sheet set because it was colorful and somewhat gender neutral. It came with another sheet with the animal print (same as comforter) and a bed skirt with stripes.

2) The dresser is my old childhood dresser which I painted white, it used to be black and in our bedroom. We got new stuff from IKEA. Another post perhaps 🙂

3) The adorable & silly sock monster was made by my dear sister-in-law Cherise. He makes me smile every time I walk into the room.

4) The kangaroo photo is a tribute to our little Roo, taken at the Australia Zoo not too long ago.

5) The rippled knit throw is something I made a couple years ago, who knew it would blend with the current color theme.

6) The Space Needle print is what Cherise and I both bought for our baby rooms, they were fun and colorful and only $2.

7-9) The last pictures are of the beautiful quilt my Mom hand made. She even put a little kangaroo on the back.

Vancouver

The five of us returned Sunday evening then spent all day Monday relaxing and catching up on laundry. Tuesday the four of us, sans Todd (work), drove to Vancouver, B.C. for the day. We had a great time in the rain. Got lost a couple times but finally found our way. Had lunch at a good Thai place then grabbed coffee to go.

We spent a couple hours walking and driving around Stanley Park. Visited the Beluga whales at the back entrance of the aquarium. The whales were being played with/fed by their handlers so we got a great view of them from behind the glass. I think Holden enjoyed watching them too.

We then parked downtown and walked towards Canada Place to get some city shots before dark. Holden also needed his picture next to a Canadian flag for his first time there.

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Wedding Bells

This past weekend we were in the Olympia area celebrating the wedding of Todd’s sister Kali and her husband Seth. The ceremony was small yet beautiful. We wish them the very best!

They had a photographer but I thought I would take a few with my lenses. I used all three and discovered I don’t really like my stock lens much anymore, especially for indoors (800 ISO is terrible) but needed it for wide angle. The other two did well without a flash.

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Nooksack Cirque

I borrowed Melissa’s camera and went for a hike to the Nooksack Cirque. Three guys from work and two from church joined me on the adventure. After hiking through the woods and through the glacier stream we reached the cirque with a glacier nested 2000-3000 feet above us on the cliffs which surrounded us on all sides.

Here is a map of the destination. We hiked to the bottom of the bowl in the center.

As I said we hiked through the woods…

and through the river.

You could follow the leader…
or decide to go your own way.

Sometimes going your own way meant crossing a log…

or pondering how deep, cold, and fast a crossing is…

and then going for it.

Often we stuck together and helped each other out.

Though sometimes it was nice to go off on our own and enjoy God’s creation.

I also decided to try and do an HDR image by using exposure bracketing on Melissa’s camera.

This picture is the normal exposure picture. Notice how we are a little dark and the glacier is a bit washed out. I also look like one big black blob.

This is the underexposed picture. The clouds, sky, and glacier have great detail but we are too dark.

This is the overexposed picture. You can now see our faces and can see that I’m wearing blue shorts and a black shirt, but the sky and clouds are washed out.

This is the HDR photo made using a free program I found called Picturenaut. The idea is that it uses all three to build one that has details in the bright and dark areas. For a first try I was happy with the results.

Ball Game

Saturday we spent the day with a few Logos employees watching the Mariners vs. Twins. Mariners lost 1-0. Not a very exciting game. Todd’s work paid for a suite and it was pretty sweet! We had a buffet of food, which is great for a pregnant lady and comfortable padded chairs. I am not normally a baseball fan, but I could get used to it if every game were this way 🙂

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It’s a….

Surprise! We had the opportunity to find out what we are having but chose to wait until January to be surprised. The baby is doing well and is a healthy 9oz.

Coolest Picture Ever!

So we have some happy news, we are pregnant! We discovered our little blessing a week after we got home from Australia. Our little “Roo” is a world traveler. We are thankful everything has been normal and good so far in the pregnancy. I am hoping the nausea will go away soon, not enjoying throwing up or feeling like I have to every night 🙂

Our due date is Jan 17th.

Flying Home

It took approximately 32.5hrs to travel home. Although the flight was long it was well worth the 15 days we had in Australia. It was such a great trip! Other than running out of gas in the middle of nowhere and being helped by a stranger, we had no problems or delays. We met some wonderful people and experienced some amazing adventures. The Lord kept us safe as he gave Todd & I this opportunity to get away and just enjoy each others company. Thanks for sharing in our adventures by reading this blog!

In case you missed any posts or want to look again, here are the links for each one.

Granite Gorge

Our last day of touring we woke up early and watched the sunrise from our balcony. It was gorgeous! We then decided to head west about an hour into the Atherton Tablelands. Our first of many stops was Granite Gorge, an area that almost began to look like the outback. It was very dry with giant termite hills scattering the countryside.

We made it to Granite Gorge Nature Park and were pleasantly surprised to find friendly little rock wallabies. I have to say of the all the animals we had seen, I wanted to take of these little guys home. They were adorable, especially the mama with the baby!

Daintree

We only have 2 days left of touring, Sunday and Monday. Sunday we decided to meet the Smythe family again for their church service. It was wonderful to fellowship with other believers a third around the world. We all praise the same awesome God!

After the service we said our goodbyes and headed north along the coast to the Daintree region. I believe that area has the highest population of crocodiles, we didn’t see any though. Along the way we stopped at Mossman Gorge which reminded us a lot of Washington.

The picture that shows the sand design is actually tiny little sand balls created by tiny little crabs. They must roll the sand up as they dig out their burrows. It was pretty cool.