Off we go.....

Into the wild blue yonder. Actually, wild road yonder. Around noon tomorrow Chris and I will be departing for Boise, then Salt Lake, then....many more places.

3 weeks of driving, camping, and site seeing. Over 4, 600 miles. How many more? Who knows the list of things to see keeps growing as I write this.

Things we are most excited for (in no particular order)
1. Red Sox v. Royals Game
2. "Real" Kansas City BBQ
3. Spending time with Family and Friends
4. The Tetons
5. Horseback riding in Yellowstone Canyon
6. The Utah Olympic Park Zip Line (The World's Fastest) I hope I don't chicken out.
7. Spending 3 weeks together without work or school to worry about

We will be sure to post pictures when/if we can.

(PS. Thank you Zoe/David for house sitting and dealing with our house stuff)

DaVinci days

Yesterday, my parents met Chris and I in town to check out our annual DaVinci day festival. It's an ode to everything art. As you will see below. A famous piece of artwork: The Monica Lisa
In my opinion the parade is the best part of the festival. The kinetic parade is filled with electric, manual, and solar powered vehicles. It is pretty cool to see what people think up. Oh and all of the vehicles are required to travel on land and water (the water parade is today).
The crowd favorite. You can't go wrong with a fire breathing dragon.
This poor guy in the gorilla really got a work out.
Some sidewalk art
This was funny. Corvallis High School made this BUTTerfly. The body/"butt" was created entirely from cigarette butts.

Grace City Church Rendering

Last week, Monica posted some pictures of our church remodel. Here is a rendering I did so you guys could see the final product.

County Fair

Chris and I live right down the street from the Linn County fair grounds, so we decided Thursday night would be fair night. Chris found out the fair had free admission before five, so we got off work a little early and walked 3 blocks to the fair. Of course, we had to make an immediate stop for some fair food...we decided to split the chicken burrito. In hindsight I now realize we probably made the healthiest decision, only because I was to lazy to wait in line for the funnel cake. After a brief stop to check out the booths, we headed in to see the 5 o'clock show. It was surprisingly entertaining. The Rhinestone Ropers were a western fan's dream. Not only did they have a horse that did whatever they wanted (including laying on it's back, see above) but they bull whipped, shot guns, lassoed and threw knives.
Here is the dad bull whipping a stick out of a boys mouth, blindfolded.
This was the grand finale.....throwing knives at his wife while she spun on the all-American wheel. What a wife!
Aren't fairs suppose to have pigs, cattle, and other barnyard animals? Well this one had a tiger, alligator, kangaroo, this porcupine and so many more.
Luckily this booth didn't take visa otherwise we may have owned these glasses.

Fab Friday Feature!

Today's feature: Library Movie Rentals

I have decided the library has the best movie rental system. Not only do they have tons of documentaries (which Chris is beginning to like as well) and have a 2 week rental time, they are FREE. FREE FREE FREE!! Can't beat that price. The Box Sets are free too, actually we are watching CSI as I type this. Plus the 2 week rental means I don't have to rush to watch a movie or worry about late fees. We rent movies at both the Corvallis and Albany libraries and both are great. Check out your library, they probably have a similar policy.

Church Building Phase 1

Our church has decided that it is time to update the building. Chris helped creating the design plans, which will make a huge change. Here is phase 1: Creating a glass entry way. There will be many more building phases as the year progresses, so I will try and keep you updated.

The Season is Over!

I volunteered with Albany Little League to help coach the 10-11 year old all-star softball team. Although we didn't finish as well as we should have, 2nd place in districts isn't all bad. Here we are after receiving our second place medals

4th of July Camping

(Campers not pictured: Kia and Robbie)