John's Letter

Hello Everybody!

Surprise Visitors
Jim & Cindy were in town for the weekend and gave us a call on Saturday morning. Cindy was out getting a haircut at Gene Juarez (her brother is a partner). Jim wanted to hang out with us (including Jason and Caroline) while staying up in Bellevue. So, we carpooled with Jason & Caroline ad sat at some benches at the mall, catching up and chatting. While we were there two kids came walking by at first, but then skated. Their shoes has wheels in the heels, and that seemed pretty cool, and we were all memorized for a little while as they subconsciously switched between walking and skating in smooth transitions. When Cindy’s appointment finished we ate at PF Chang's for lunch. The lettuce wraps were delicious. Their daughter Joy and her husband Carl are now back in DC, and not only do they both work in the same building, but the same floor as well!

Insane Email News
Saturday was also a crazy batch of emails from all kinds of friends.

High School: Amber Schmid and David Kerr got married last month. They have been a couple for something over 8 years or so, and Amber had that scare last year about undetermined internal bleeding…anyway, we all had lost contact throughout this year (and all of us tried to reach one another several times), and then by fluke, got the right email addresses, and received the news of their wedding! I also heard from Alex Zaveruha who is now doing some recruiting job at a health care place, and he lives in a tiny apartment at Lake Union.

Skagit Valley College: Jon Moore has informed me that he has a bar exam the first weekend in October, and he has been preparing for that for the last two months…

CWU: Andy Martin has informed me that he has been in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, because the company he works for has a contract from FEMA so he has been sent down to assist in the relief efforts. His daughter Sydney will be turning 3 this December.

WSU: Dave Montgomery wrote that his dad has been in the hospital for Cellulitis, and would not be able to return to work, possibly 2 to 3 weeks. His message went on about how a load of wood came to heat their house with the woodstove, but one of our farm trucks would not start and was in the way of the pile that had been started. So Dave and one of the gentlemen that brought the wood over in a dump truck decided to push the truck. To no avail they were about to call it quits, when Dave’s mom came to join in…here is his exact quote, “As she pushed she fell flat on her face, leaving her arms up against the grill and bumper. Between her weight and the angle at which her arms were at, something had to give. She ended up breaking both of her arms clean right under the ball in the shoulder joint. That's right, broke both her arms!”

Tickets
This upcoming Thursday Entertainment Weekly magazine gave us two tickets to the EMP to see some upcoming bands, have free cocktails and food. I have no idea what kind of music we shall be seeing, but it should be fun.

Distractive Projects
The road paving project at night outside our apartment is finally over and now we can sleep without everything shaking and rumbling about. They added a good inch to two inches. Sadly, for Janel, other projects are going on. The school has been tarring the roof and the smell has been coming through the vents. A quick poll in one of the classrooms showed that two-thirds of the students had headaches too.

Becky Wilson
CWU: Becky Wilson and her boyfriend Andrew Fickles joined us on Sunday to set them up with a Costco membership (and our own shopping). Becky's birthday was last week so we celebrated with a meal out at Claim Jumpers (Go figure, and seriously, it was their choice!) They live pretty close by in an apartment just behind Fred Meyers.

That about wraps it up for this posting! Take it easy!