Jonas and Harvey

I took this picture in May 2007, a few weeks after Erika brought Harvey home. She really wanted a cat to take to college because she wanted some company and mom said she couldn't take Jonas with her. Some of her friends she went to high school with, had some kittens they were trying to get rid of and Erika had first pick. For Some reason she liked the medium hair black cats because Jonas also met this criteria. She took it everywhere with her. It went in the car for rides and it even slept with her. She even taught Harvey to go for walks with a harness and a leash. He learned that when she got the harness and the leash he knew he was going for a walk. While at college, she was the only one to actually ask the landlord if she could have a pet, which he permitted her to. Her roommates decided since Erika could have one, that meant they could have one too. Two cats and a dog later, they had a mini-zoo at their house. The worse part was, Erika took care of her cat while the others expected Erika to take care of theirs too. Their pets ate Harvey's food, Erika had to clean out their cat boxes...it just wasn't fair to her. When it came time to move out, the landlord was insanely unfair with the damage deposit. He claimed that Harvey got cat hair everywhere and destroyed walls and wires, which in fact it was Jen's black cat, Bri's orange cat and Kari's lab who shed the hair and did some minor damage because he had no idea other animals were living in the house. It was rediculous. Erika eventually got a little dog, Roscoe and another kitten and Harvey came home to live with mom and dad.

Winter Wonderland December 2008

I have been waiting for over a decade for this much snow to hit western Washington. The last time it snowed this much I believe I was a freshman in high school ('98-'99). That's when the last time school was closed for that amount of snow on the roads. Every winter since then, I've been waiting for the snow to hit again. I went to school in Pullman for five years and it never snowed the amount I wanted it to until I graduated and left. The winter after graduation, it snowed a couple feet and campus was closed. That was the first time it has closed in twenty years. No one could get in or out of Pullman due to road closures. I was so mad when I heard that. That was the snow I was waiting for.

Sunday night (December 14) is when the snow started falling. We didn't get much but it was a start. Monday and Tuesday it got really cold, miserably cold and it started snowing again on Wednesday, that's when it started accumulating. That day we got like five inches or more. Thursday it snowed a little more and Friday was actually nice enough to finish Christmas shopping with mom (she had the day off), so we ventured to the Walmart in Yelm before the weather got any worse. Saturday it snowed all day long, we got about five more inches of snow. I went up on our hill and tried to go sledding. I shouldn't have let Erika have my sled...I will never see it again. Today it started out as a wintry mix and soon got cold enough to turn to snow. We watched the Seahawks beat the Jets while the snow came down on them in Seattle. Quite a few people made the trek to Seattle to watch them win their second straight game. Dad got the generator going finally just in case the power decided it wanted to go off. You never know what will happen.

Mom doesn't have to go to work tomorrow so I have no idea what we're going to do...probably clean the house because Christmas is only four days away. We have no idea if Erika will make it over becasue of the snow. I guess we will see. She is bringing Roscoe over because her and Brendan can no longer take care of it so she is giving it to grandma Karen. I kinda figured that would happen eventually. Dogs are hard to have when you are a college kid and have no time to take it out.


I wouldn't mind having more snow. I am just upset that it's going to get warmer and all of the snow is going to melt and make a huge mess. There probably will be floods, lots of slush on the roads, puddles everywhere. All of the pretty white trees will be gone and the crunching of the snow under your boots will be missed.

Eugene, Oregon

While I was working at Linfield, I really really really wanted to go down to Eugene to visit. One mild October day I drove down. Luckily, Molly was going to school there or I wouldn't have had a place to stay the night. Once there, I parked the car and went into Molly's dorm room. I met most of her friends, who seemed pretty cool, we headed to the Duck store to pick up some necessary items, ate lunch and walked around. They had some booths set up and we saw the Duck's mascot, Puddles. We wanted a picture with him, so we struck a pose. The sad thing is, I was at WSU for five years and never got a chance to take a picture with our mascot Butch. I didn't realize it was Oregon's homecoming week and they were playing the Cougars. A couple saw me getting out of my car, which had Cougar license plates, and said hi to me. They continued talking about the football game and if I was going. I said, I wish I could, but I didn't have a ticket. They told me that he had gone to Oregon and his wife was a Cougar, so we had a few things to chat about. They seemed like really nice people. We drove around Eugene, went to a few stores and came back. Molly and some of her friends went to a concert and I walked around. I took myself on a tour of campus, Autzen and finally my grandparent's house. Later on that night we went to a party, walked around 19th street and ate some food. The next day we got up and I left town before all of the football traffic got into town, plus I had to be at Linfield to set up for the frickin' volleyball game. I fell in love with Eugene and it was hard for me to leave. I hope someday to find myself living there.