can't live without em

I am just really glad that Emily is back. I was so sick of being alone with only the dog to talk to. I am so glad she is home.

The Fourth and Eighth and everything between

Today I thought I would update my blog for the last month. Yes I have done a few things since fishing. The greatest thing is that I started working. Unfortunately I am not working for the guy I thought I was. Instead I am working for a doctor who is studying SLOS disease. If you want gorey details of all I am doing let me know. The main thing is that I am doing exactly what I want to do with this internship. I've been running PCRs and doing mutational analysis on the sequences of the a certain gene. It's great.

Since my fishing trip, I have had the chance to go on a few adventures around this place. On the 4th of July, Emily and I spent the day with her Jessica and Jason down at Fort Vancouver where we were privileged to watch the fireworks from inside the fort because my dad volunteers there as a blacksmith. The fort is a good acre or more inside and there were only about 6 families allowed inside. It was great here are few pictures.



I especially like the one of my dad and Emerson. I think my dad is very ready to be a grandfather. The funny outfit he is wearing is his blacksmithing outfit. He worked at the forge that day.

My parents and Emily and I also went on a little adventure to see some of the nature in the Columbia Gorge. We climbed to the top of Beacon Rock and then went and saw Multinomah Falls. Here are a couple of pictures.



For my birthday this past Friday, We went to the zoo. It was really fun. There were a lot of animals roaming around in their cages rather than just sleeping in corners. Here are the pictures from my birthday. I also want to thank all who sent me gifts and money. I really liked all the games. Thank you all very much. Here's the pictures.


These are the two animals Emily and I like to look at the most. I like the polar bear because he's always playing. He was trying to break open the plastic box he's standing on. He would flip it and jump on it and naw on it over and over again. Emily likes the giraffe.

Fishing Adventure

I went with my family on a sturgeon fishing adventure in the Columbia river. It was a blast. On Thursday last, Emily, my mom, and sister Ruth went to the Tilamook cheese factory where we toured the plant, bought cheese and ate ice cream it was great.
From there we went to Moe's where we met up with my father and ate dinner of the regular clam chowder which is so delicious. After dinner, Emily headed back to Camas because she wasn't much interested in fishing and had work that she needed to get done. My parents, sister and I went to Long Beach where we stayed in a seedy motel and then woke the next morning at 3:45 or some other miserable hour. We had to be at our boat at 5:30.
We left the harbor on a boat called the Sea Quest with our Skipper Tim and two other fisherman, a man named Jon, and a man named Colton. We had a great time. The fishing was pretty consistent with someone reeling in one every hour or so. I think we ended up catching about a dozen or so. Unfortunately we only caught 4 legal ones. You can only keep ones between 45 and 60 inches. I caught the first one of the day. It was about 49 inches. I caught another one later in the day that was just legal at 45".
My Dad caught the other two legal ones, one 52", and one 47".
My sister has been suffering from an injured arm and had difficulty reeling the fish in. With my help on the pole, she was able to reel in two of them. Unfortunately they were both too small.
My mother caught a monster one that we estimated at about 66 inches. It took 5 of us to reel the beast in.
The biggest fish though was caught by Jon. It was probably 6 feet long and one of the meanest fish I've ever seen. It ripped through the net to start with, thrashed around on the boat and ended up smacking my mom and sister with its tail. My mom almost fell out of the boat trying to flee it. Unfortunately the thing had been captured in a gill net previously and was seriously beat up. I don't think he liked getting pulled out of the water by us. Jon was able to land the fish by himself. Our fellow fisherman also both caught a couple of small ones.
All in all, we had a great time. I even braved tasting the fish. As was expected, I didn't much care for it. Oh, well. Here's a few pictures.


This is me reeling in the first fish of the day.

This is my first fish of the day and my dad reeling in his first one.

This is my mom's monster and my sister's little one.

This is Jon with Tim the skipper holding his monster.


This is my family and our Skipper Tim with the legal fish we caught. My dad caught the two on the left and I caught the two on the right.

Eskimos and Money

I met with the Doctor who I am going to work with on my internship yesterday. We discussed what he wants me to do. I found out that I am going to be working on a project dealing with a disorder that is really rare, except in one population, Eskimos.


I also found out they figured out a way to pay me. Yeah!!

Beach

Yesterday we went to the beach. We took lots of pictures so here are a few that I chose to show. If you want to see some more, look at Em's blog.

This is Em an I in front of Haystack Rock and then Mom and I in front of Haystack Rock.


This is the two most important women in my life.


Here's Em with kissy lips and my feet in the cold water. It was crazy cold.


These are the other rocks that sit in the shadow of Haystack. I think they get left over-looked but are just as impressive.


This is the house that I've decided that I want to retire to.

My Family Reunion

My family decided that before we all shoot off in our different directions for the next few years that we as an immediate family would have a family reunion. We all met this weekend (except Wes) in Bend, OR. There we played games, went to a play, and basically just hung out. Here are a few photos from the trip.
On the way to Bend we stopped at a little shop with wood carvings. I thought this owl was awesome and I think Emily would have loved these giraffes, but she was asleep in the car having taken a Dramamine.



We stopped at this gorge because my mother likes canyons and my dad likes bridges. There were three bridges here, two for cars and one for the train. You can see the two car bridges together and the train one in the other picture.


We saw this sign when we got out to look at the gorge. I thought it was kind of funny. To no one's surprise we saw a couple walking around with their dog not even on a leash.



Here's a picture from the place we stayed. I thought it was really generous of my parents to let Emily and I stay in the master bedroom but it didn't turn out that great. Those two windows caused our room to brighten at about 5:30 in the morning. I suffered severely from sleep deprivation considering we didn't go to bed each night until after midnight.



This pink toilet was in the master bedroom. I thought the weirdest thing about it, was that it hung on the wall and didn't even touch the floor.



This is Em and I. All and all, it was rather fun.

Down and Dirty

Today I spent this afternoon working in my parents yard. My mother has a desire for flowers to bloom in her yard all year round. I attempted to help her in this wish today by planting all sorts of flowers. I think the total ended up being about 30 different flowers. Mom told me that I had earned something big for that. Here's a picture of my dirty hands after.

Lego Star Wars is Awesome

I have been playing Lego Star Wars which I got for my Easter gift, and I have to say it's awesome. I loved playing with Lego's as a kid and now playing Star Wars with them is even better. There's just something about using the force to cause things to come apart into their component pieces and then reform into something else that is just sweet. I've decided that I want the second one too. Here's some images.

This is what I mean.