181

Oliver

Visited Jamie and Alicia's to drop off her birthday cupcakes. Yum! Met the two new kittens they took in. One of them is fluffy and makes almost no sound when he runs around...I like him!

180

Salmon cooked mix of light brown sugar, butter and whiskey. OMG.

179

Had a wonderfully laid back day today.

Made Brown-sugar Pound Cupcakes + Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting.

Delicious!

After Morgan got home from work we strolled downtown for dinner and drinks. I love these afternoons.

178

I got her those awesome sunglasses!

Today was my little sister's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. I am protesting another birthday party at this place, only because of how expensive it is! She was uncomfortable around the big Cheese, and quickly made the decision to stand behind my mom when her cake was brought out.

I spent the morning last-minute shopping for her gifts and some goody-bag stuffs for her friends. I got her Cooking Mama for the Wii! My mom and dad got her a pink Nintendo DS. Way to outshine big-sister, mom and dad. Back in Bellingham, got a few errands done and discovered a park on a new route home. Neat!

Today's activities left me tired. I hope the next birthday party is at the Zoo!

177

Watched the new Transformer's movie tonight...not bad.

I actually had so much fun watching it, it flew right by. A thing or two bugged me about it. Two things, to be exact - two huge shiny red things that flapped around the screen. Too bad there was no clause prohibiting lip injections in Megan Fox's contract. It was bad when I had trouble understanding her lines. Unless rockin a trout pout is what's hip right now...I can never keep up.
To superhotties everywhere, let it be!

Today's photo is of the lucky dragonfly that made it away with his or her life. There were a couple elementary school kids hovering over as the dragonfly tried ot be still. I asked them if I could get a picture of it (before it escaped) and then it took flight. Beautiful!

176

Not a lot happening here. I finished watching Heroes in it's entirety. I'd say I only completed it because I started it and really enjoyed the first season. Did I waste all those hours of life watching the second and third? Maybe. But there sure is plenty of eye-candy on the show to keep a person interested...

Finishing up My Wicked, Wicked Ways, the autobiography of Errol Flynn. I'd buy a copy of this book for every bookworm I know if I could afford to. What a great read!

175

Happy 5th Birthday, Jayda!

My little sister is my favorite girl on the planet. She is animated, interested in everything, and very creative. Some of the funniest lines have come from this girl. Happy Birthday sweetpea!

174

Nice doggie!

173

I left my camera in Sara's car last night and made her dinner when she returned it to me safe and sound. Dinner was Chicken Parmesan, angelhair pasta with a bit of EVOO and fresh Parmesan and Caesar salad. I hope to find out one day that I am half-Italian.

172

Happy Father's Day!
&
Happy Summer Solstice!

The longest day of the year and I could never dream of a more beautiful way to see it go.


^{Click to enlarge!}

Took plenty of photos at Larrabee State Park on Chuckanut Drive on the way home from my folks. Spent the last day and a half there in celebration of Father's Day. Got my dad new grilling tools and the recent Die Hard flick. He was happy. :)

I took photos with a panoramic in mind, but after processing they turned out not so nice - there they are anyway. :)
Those colors are unreal!

171

Things I could do with my summer...

Build a fort for my little siblings
Float the Stilly river
Write one song a week
Visit Canada
Move to a new apartment
Go swimming
Bike part of the Centennial Trail
Take my little siblings to the beach
Watch [REC]
Have a horror movie night
Go cliff diving at Whatcom Falls
Go camping
Play in the fountain at Seattle Center
Spend a week at Birch Bay
Sell my jewelry creations
Watch movie at drive-in in truck-bed
Create my solar system
Ride a roller coaster
Hike to/camp at Monte Cristo ghost town
Read five new books
Go to Pyuallup Fair
Spend a day at the zoo with my family
Go to Bite of Seattle
Go to Bite of Bellingham
Get a lovely tan
Save 75% of each paycheck

Let the games begin!

170

The product of today's photo assignment gets an I for Incomplete.
And also for, "I've no excuse today."

169

After dinner went for a walk with Morgan up to the WWU campus to search for high spots and photograph the sunset. Everything turned extremely pink near the end.

168

Fluffy orange bird!

167

Morgan got the Stanley Kubrick box set in the mail. Awesome!! Each DVD comes with plenty of extras. I can't wait to watch 2001 and find out all of his secrets...muwahaha! I'm ready for a full-day Kubrick marathon.

166

Donated plasma again today. Went absolutely fine this time, no problem. Went home and watched another episode of Heroes. Zachary Quinto is a stone fox. That is all for tonight.

165

I woke up at 10am. I love it here! lol

No one was up before 9am. My mom must have been tired - she couldn't even remember the last time she slept in past 7am. Good for her!

When I got up I was duped into babysitting the six children for a few hours while my mom, aunts and grandma when to help a family member move out of her apartment. That was an interesting experience for me. It wasn't too bad for they were all preoccupied with the Wii and their various handheld video gaming systems. Spoiled rotten, they are. Found out that my six year-old brother is playing the Mario game that I played when I was in middle school, so I spent the last hour trying to trick him into putting the Nintendo DS down long enough for me to grab it and run. lol, rotten.

Left Portland around 5pm, stopped for dinner, and made it home at 9pm.
I still have another hour of driving before I am home in beautiful Bellingham.

164

Happy 69^th Birthday, Grandma!

Slow moving morning. Woke up to some yummy smells coming from downstairs. My mom, aunts and grandma stayed up until 3am cooking and catching up, and five hours later they were awake and cooking/catching up again.

Went to this huge park for my grandma's birthday party/a distant cousin's graduation party. I have never seen so many Palauan families all gathered in one place. There must have been two hundred people there! Played and ran around with the children and got lots of great photos. Ate some amazing Palauan cuisine.

I crashed hard around 11pm. What an awesome day!

163

We didn't get on the road for Portland until 3:30pm - a huge mistake. We ended up battling rush-hour traffic all the way down to Olympia. We arrived at my aunt's in Portland just after 8pm. My three little siblings and three young cousins had a blast seeing one another. I'm going to have a busy weekend here...

162

Spent the evening with Sara just goofing off. Leaving for Portland tomorrow to spend the weekend with my mom's side of the family.

161

Neat!

160

PETA: Throwing fish is like throwing dead kittens.

Come again?

Today PETA made an online statement against the American Veterinarian Medical Association having a Pike Place Fish Market "Flying Fish Presentation" at their upcoming convention next month.

Click here for the story. For a good laugh, click here to read the blog post at PETA's website.


---

No on to something lighter...

For dinner, Morgan found a salmon recipe that included bourbon. I did the cooking and it turned out amazing. Morgan is not much for expressing himself and usually chooses the terms "fine" or "it's OK" to describe meals. This meal was "good." I'm happy with that.

Watched D.W. Griffith's movie Intolerance (1916). It is such a beautiful movie, but three hours was too long!

159

Went to donate plasma for the first time in three months. I was really loopy and ended up feeling nauseaus near the end of my donation. AWESOME. I got extremely hot very suddenly and I had a few moments to flag down a phlebotomist to get me unplugged so I can sprint to the bathroom. The girl who came to help was an angel and told me that I wasn't going to get sick on her watch. She fanned me with my file folder and I was all better. Amazing! She joked with me later that she didn't bring the garbage over because she wasn't going to give me the option to get sick. Now that is intention. What a great gal!

Saw these guys on the way home. Fun stuff!

158

Finally made some zombie charms for a bracelet I have in mind. So simple yet they look so great! I got the ideas for the images from the Zombie Survival Guide.

I don't have anything to show how small they are, but the heads are just a bit smaller than nickels.

157

Keeping an ear to the ground
(yes the bird is alive)

156

155

154

High of 83°F today with a "RealFeel of 89°".

Why even bother posting the difference?

153

Why does it feel like I am doing laundry once a week?

Met Morgan after work to help him with laundry. We were both ravenous by the time we got home so I got salmon and a caesar salad prepared in twenty minutes. Watched Oldboy (2003), which is one of the greatest F'd up movies of all time. If you crave a few good laughs followed by a sickening, hollow feeling in your chest, watch Oldboy - 15 years of imprisonment, five days of vengeance. I followed this up with some light humor - a few episodes of The Critic. :D I have a strong emotional resilience.

152

After work, Sara came up to "return the sunglasses I left in her car." She really just wanted to get away from the boys for awhile. I treated her to dinner and she joined me grocery shopping. Amazing, we made it in and out of Costco in ten minutes with $100 worth of groceries. Don't tell me that two women together are an inefficient shopping team. Okay, Morgan might have helped a little.