ohhh doctor who, I missed you

Woke up to Dad making a fussy about Holly being allowed inside. Not a fun way to wake up.

Ma and pa canned. I worked on portraits. Watched stuff. Did the Internet thing. Nathan hung out with his friend Mike.

Doctor Who is back today! Eeeee! Was near the computer mostly to watch the episode as soon as possible.

The kitchen smelled of peaches. That was nice.

Dinner was very pale and yellow: au gratin potatoes, corn, and fish in a creme sauce. Mmm. After that we watched Doctor Who.

Nathan came back late in the day. We chatted about A Song of Ice and Fire and soaked in the hot tub.

Working on a portrait of Stephen King. He has a very defined face and I am close to getting it....so close. Thankfully I have a couple portraits buffer to accomplish it. And then Author August is over! It came and went so fast.

Todays Portrait Is: Frank Herbert.

westward, ho!

Ma, Pa, and myself loaded up the motorhome on Tuesday and went camping. I didn't take a lot of notes, so here are the details as best as I can remember them.

Tuesday:

Got up to the information that since the weather is nice, we shall be camping. I got my portraits done and posted. Quickly packed. Loaded up the Motorhome and off we went for Western Washington and the Olympic Peninsula. After the great big Utah trip, a three hour drive feels like nothing. We camped at...uhhh....this campground on the Straight of Juan de Fuca the first night. There was a really cute kid dressed like Captain America. I read Wild Cards: Aces High liberally throughout the camping trip. Reading is fun. Dad read Cryptonomicon. Mom read Game of Thrones. We had hot dogs and s'mores and walked on the beach a little bit. All was good.

Wednesday:

Ma and pa hiked on the beach and identified kelp while I slept in. Dad made fisherman's special for breakfast and it was good. We took a longer hike around the bunker and down to the beach. It was a good day for it, though we couldn't loop around due to the tide. After the hike we packed up and headed to Crescent Lake. We arrived nice and early and ma and pa kayaked. I read and made a fire. We hiked a little bit and had an early dinner. We read around the fire. Lots of reading. Not spending all day driving leaves a lot of free time to read. Ma and pa went to bed super early, and I had no choice but to follow suit.

Thursday:

My job was to paddle the kayak to the boat launch. So I did that and then waited on the lake for ma and pa to show up. Thankfully I had my book with me. I like the Wild Cards series. Superheroes. Many characters. Different writers. My kind of thing. We stopped at the Crescent Lake store for a bit before heading into the Olympic National Park. Sol Duc, here we come! And in what felt like seconds, there we were. In a lovely little camp site. We lounged around a bit. Then biked a bit. Then ate. Then read. Then walked down to Sol Duc Hot Springs and soaked and swam and soaked and swam. My earring is all tarnished now. I should really get the other ear pierced.

After that, we sat around and read some more (we did some serious reading). Then had dinner. Only I had the appetite for s'mores. Then mom and dad went to bed super early. And I had a dreadful night sleep, only aided by dad waking up at 4am and then telling mom about the dream he had and mom tittering "you have so much fun in your dreams". They let me sleep in while they did the waterfall hike.

Friday:

Breakfast was toast. We left at 11ish and returned to Crescent Lake for a little hike and a little swim. It takes 30 minutes to walk to Devil's Punchbowl. We spent another 30 minutes jumping off the bridge and off the cliff and all that fun stuff. There were lots of people about but we all had our own space to jump into the water. Dad really sunk deep. Mom only jumped twice. We changed in the motorhome and I accidentally flashed the rangers driving past (well, they may not have seen anything as they were far away and I ducked down real quick, still....). On the way back, we stopped at a fruit stand and bought peaches. We dropped some of said peaches off at the Spencer's on the way home. Ma managed to pick up Holly minutes from the kennel closing down. I helped bring some stuff from the motorhome down.

The weather is holding, which is great.

Nathan is in town, but won't be over till tomorrow.

Tuesday's Portrait: JRR Tolkien

Wednesday's: George RR Martin

Thursday's: Trevor Dodge

Friday's: Jerzy Kosinski

much love to Carmen and Josh

Buuhh. I so don't want to blog three whole days! Three big busy days. Sometimes I like just leaving stuff in the realm of the experience and not document it. I'll be brief. My blogs have been getting briefer these past few years. Probably because I've been blogging for YEARS.

Saturday (the wedding)

It was a spectacular beautiful day. We took separate cars to Pulali. I packed mine with my stuff and ma accompanied me. Nate and Dad went in the Prius. We had about an hour to relax in Pulali and then it was time to go. I put my hair in rollers and did my makeup and I probably have never looked better. I got a nice amount of compliments.

We arrived early because the wedding participants were told to be there early, but there didn't seem to be an extra practice. So I hung around and met people. Melissa and Jeremy. Phil. Ben and Averie's Josh. Scores of people. There was shrimp starters. Yum. The wedding was on Janet and Steve's property. To the far side of their lawn there was a platform and the chairs. In the middle was a tent and two long tables with assigned seating. And on the farthest side was the booze tent. And since the wedding was on no rented space's schedule, it went when it went. And it was beautiful. I was in the front row, as I had to get up to read a poem. It was so very hot. Everyone was sweating. But Carmen was beautiful in a perfect lovely gorgeous dress. And Josh looked so right for my wonderful second cousin. The ceremony was wonderful. Personal. Excellent. And a bit funny when both the best man and maid of honor forgot the rings. But they went on without them.

The chairs were moved over to the tables, the cocktail hour started, and I tried the beer that Brian made. Chatted up all sorts of people. Everyone was super nice and very easy to talk to. The first course was soup. Then came vegetables and asparagus and vegetarian options and salmon and ahh so much food! And so delicious. I was seated with Phil, Eric, Ian, Hannes, Ben, Courtney. It was a good section. I gorged and drank and people clinked glasses and Carmen and Josh kissed and people gave toasts. It was lovely.

Their first dance was choreographed to It's Oh So Quiet by Bjork. The sun set midway their number. Then we all lit sparklers. The band came on. I danced with Brynne and Phil on the lawn but no one joined. It got darker. The bouquet was tossed and I didn't catch it. There was more dancing on the patio. With Ben, Brynne, Phil, Josh (Averie's, not Carmen's). It was awesome. I'm not the best dancer but I still had fun. It was over all too early and I regretted not driving my own car to the shindig. Just being able to stay a few more hours would have been great.

Back to Pulali we went.

Todays Portrait Is: Bret Easton Ellis.

Sunday (Pulali):

Breakfast was pancakes. It was a lovely day. We went and collected the kayak and ma, pa, Nate, and myself rowed down the way. Dad harassed the star fish. Nathan took pictures with his fancy phone. It was wonderful. Back on the beach some ugliness happened, but we won't get into that here.

While we were out at sea, Dan, Brynne, Ben, and Josh arrived at Pulali. We snacked and chatted and showed Josh old photos. They left and we had hot dogs and corn. Then Hannes (who stayed the night after the wedding) left for home. We left, Nathan in my car, Ma and Dad in the Prius.

Nathan and I were about a minute too late. A tree came down, and took a powerline down across the road (live wire and whatnot). The way people were gathering, it was obvious that it had just happened as we were approaching in the car. We pulled over and stopped. And then waited for about an hour and a half. Ma and pa were in the queue of cars. And some bikers. Lots of people. So close to highway 101, no other way to get on it...or so we thought! Based on someones advice, we took a really overgrown dirt road right past the fire station. The Prius went ahead and the Contour followed. It was probably the roughest terrain my baby has been on (unless Nathan hasn't told me about something). It was banjo country for a bit. Annnnd it came to a dead end. So Dad turned around and Nate and I switched, and Nate reversed till he could find a place to turn around. And THEN we found this Y that the guy mentioned (going in the other direction, and easy miss) and VIOLA we were on 101. The Prius was dragging ferns and who knows what was sticking out of the Contour.

Got home at 8ish. Computered it up. Then everyone went to bed early because Nathan had to go back to San Jose. But he will be back in a week, so whatevs.

Today's Portrait Is: JK Rowling.

Monday:

Ma and Pa did their Ma and Pa stuff. I wasted the day on the Internet. Did the missing portraits. Ma paid for my supplemental courses (hurrah, back to school for me) and said that I should go to Barbie's and remind them about my job application. They went to bed at 8. I didn't.

Today's Portrait Is: HP Lovecraft.