John's Letter

Hello everyone! Welcome to this weeks letter!

Picture Inclusion
I decided to incorporate some of the pictures into the weekly report so that you don't have to click around so much to see them. However, I may or may not use all of the pictures that are posted. So, just so you know, you can always view my full Picture Blog (now defunct) at anytime to see these and other pictures (there is even a simple guide).

Oak Harbor Visit
After school was out on Friday, Janel and I headed up to Oak Harbor to visit the family. At first Janel was a little congested head cold sick-ish, but improved as the weekend progressed. On Saturday, we played a round of Phase-10 (card game) and then Adam and Summer arrived and we went into town to pick up a free movie.

Early on Momma had been just talking about seeing a whale jump out of the water and chomp on a Seagull...while we were out and about we stopped by to see the Anglums working at Dairy Valley to see how the place turned out, and painted on the back wall was this image seen above. Too funny.
From there we stopped by to view West Beach on the way home.

Summer & Adam at West Beach

West Beach
The movie "Radio" tuned out to be a very good flick to watch, I recommend it even though it has Gooding Jr. It's based on a true story, and honestly does not have nearly as much emphasis on football as it could have, but the story doesn't need to, and overall was told pretty well.
On Sunday Adam and Summer went to visit the Grandparents, and the rest of us went on a Deception Pass Hike.

John & Janel

Dad & Mom

Deception Pass Bridge

From Bridge 2

Goose Rock

Parents resting on Goose Rock

On the way back down we were all fortunate enough to have found the path that led us through a tunnel resting underneath the highway. That was cool in part because neither of the parents had been to it before, marking this hike with a special unknown bonus.
That afternoon we played all 12 rounds of Scattegories (a first), and a few rounds of Tri-Ominos. Later that evening we watched Tom Selleck in the movie "Stone Cold." Which was an ok story...it will be interesting to see if the show has enough standing power to be a TV series or not.
Monday we toured Anacortes, and the open shops, as well as the park up above. Then as we left on Tuesday, we stopped by to see momma's new office, meet her boss, and talked a bit with Ken Bender. We had a good pleasant relaxing good time!

Jason's Birthday
Janel's brother aged another year on Wednesday and got a back massager too!

Ice Cream
Janel arrived back around 3pm on Thursday from collecting practically all of the student evaluations from employers. For the last two (both at Albertsens) we both went together, making a detour at Baskin Robins...and had it outside in the sun...it was warm out! A woman and her husband talked with us for a bit (they had two kids), she worked for corporate Starbucks. They attend some church nearby where there are over 2,000 people that attend! Their kids go to a private school there and are covering Algerbra in the fifth grade! My ice cream still tasted good though.

Visiting Uncle Jerry
Later on that night we met up with Jerry. He said that work has been crazy the last few weeks and that the company has set a February record of work. We ate at a Mexican restaurant and talked for a couple of hours...we think we may have managed to possibly convince him to go camping, but we are not too sure yet.

Dinner Thank You
On Saturday, Pat and Darci wanted to thank us for helping the two of them meet one another by inviting us over for dinner. We had meatloaf and potato wedges covered in Parmesan cheese, and a salad. For desert there was a chocolate cake. We played Scattegories, and then a round of Sorry. All in all, we had a good time.

Well, I'm smiling for the picture, I have no idea what Pat is doing...

John with Darci & Pat

Neti Pot
Thanks mom and dad for the Neti Pot, from us both. I think my nose is permanently congested, but it really clears the far back blockage in the morning and when I go to bed...and thats is excellent. I almost think I need to add it in mid-day. But get this, yesterday I was using the Neti Pot when I felt a sneeze coming on. I had just enough time to remove the pot before I blew. My arm was leaning against the counter at the sinks edge, and was immedately covered in water, from there it moved onto open counter space in the HUGE puddle of saltwater. Easy to clean since it was all on the counter and my arm, but there was just a lot of it! The other funny thing (to us at least) is that we both seem to want to use it in complete privacy. We relate it to vomiting in the bathroom, you don't really want someone standing next to you as you do that sort of thing.

Here are a few jokes I have heard recently: Speeding, Talking Clock, Shark Challenge, and 3 One Liners.
Tuna tidbits I didn’t know…its mainly about Mercury content.