Day 1-Edinburgh

Our first day in Europe we flew into London, took a bus to Luton airport and then flew to Edinburgh--all on one hour of sleep in the last 24 hours. We arrived in Edinburgh around 2pm. When we got to our B&B (Belford Guest House) we went against the advice we heard to not take a nap, we were just so tired we couldn't stay awake. After we woke up and got ready we went to a pub for our first pub dinner. Micah had a Guiness, and it was better than one at home. And the dinner was pretty good.

After dinner we decided to walk the mile and a half into downtown. Edinburgh is an old city from the middle ages. The buildings are made of stone and all look old and quaint. When we arrived downtown we walked to the Royal Mile where there was a lot going on since their big Fringe Festival would be starting in just a few days. We watched a few magicians, dodged crowds and enjoyed the energy of the city. Then we turned a corner close to the castle and found some military men getting on horses. We stopped and watched for a while. The Tattoo Military show was set to happen the next day, and tonight was the dress rehearsal. So we got to see the horses and the men on top (who also had musical instruments). We would have enjoyed seeing the Tattoo; we tried to get tickets in February. We later heard they sold out in December. Later we walked back to our B&B. It is a nice walk since the closer we got to our place the quieter the streets became.

We're home from Europe

We made it back home after three weeks of adventures in Europe! We will be adding to the blog to give more details about our trip, so stay posted.

Christmas 2006 Vacation

Kim's family has been planning a vacation together for many years and they finally decided to go on a cruise. I am glad that they waited until I was a part of the family to go because it was a lot of fun. The short version is Seattle, Orlando, Disneyworld, Miami, Costa Maya-Mexico, Grand Cayman, Jamacia, Miami, Orlando, Seattle. But the details are much more interesting. Most of the family met in Orlando at a house near Disneyworld. It was a big house but pack 19 relatives in and it gets quite cozy.
It was there that we received a call from my brother-in-law, Justin (the only person who couldn't go on the vacation due to a scheduling conflict with his first Christmas Concert as an elementary music teacher.) He said that the worst wind storm on record blew through the Seattle area (60-80mph gusts.) There were people who didn't have power for a week or more. We were so sad to have to endure 70-90 degree sunny weather.

Well, back to the phone call from Justin, He said he had some good news and bad news. "Remember the tree in your backyard?" (This is the same tree from the blog post from last year when I was trying to destroy the ivy.) Justin continued, "The good news is that you can finally remove all of the ivy. All the way to the top of your 150ft tree." "However, the bad news is that the wind storm blew it over." I am glad he didn't stop there, he also said that it didn't fall on our house.

A side note: the wind storm postponed his concert until January 22nd which we did get to attend afterall. The bummer is that he didn't get to come on the vacation.

We went to Disneyworld's Magic Kingdom the day after we got there. It was fun, including getting shipwrecked. Which I will have to continue the next opportunity I have to blog.

Alaska Airlines here I come!

I have accepted an offer to work for Alaska Airlines. It has been wonderful working at the Simulator shop so far. One other piece of news. Kim and I turned off our internet at home to save money. So updates to my blog will be more difficult. I apologize in advance for not keeping it up to date.

Time Capsule October 2001 - Young Adult Retreat

 Here is one of the first pictures that Kim and I have together. Scott Ficker was the Youth Director at CBSR. He organized a retreat for the young adults to Deception Pass. Later on, Kim used this picture to make a present for me. She sent it to Jones Soda and had it put onto a case of Soda with a personalized note on each of the bottles. It was a really cool present. 

The Windy City (and no, its not Chicago)

We had a wind storm blow through the Puget Sound yesterday. It proved to be quite an experience. Saturday morning about 4am Kim and I woke up with a start. There was a huge crashing sound like thunder, but the loudest thunder I had ever heard. It had been blowing all night long and we figured that a thunderstorm had rolled in. The previous evening Kim and I said that if we didn't have electricity in the morning we would treat each other to breakfast at IHOP. About 8 we got up and showered without power. Then drove down to the SuperMall for breakfast. However, as we were leaving the house I noticed that there was a tree missing from our front yard. We drove over and checked it out. One of our smaller trees beside the road had blown over, crushing the fence. The root system had pulled totally out of the ground. Wow! We than proceded down for a wonderful breakfast of Pancakes, and a crab and shrimp omlette. Yum!

Home Sick

here I lay so forlorn
sick to my head and not wanting corn
lying in bed trying to rest
laptop blogging to recoup is best

Here is your answer to why I have had a chance to update my blog. I guess it just takes a good bug in my system to knock me out of commission.

Christmas with the Storers

Kim and I had the chance to visit my family in ND for Christmas. We flew out on Christmas day and spent 4 days at my brother, Troy's place just outside of Grand Forks. It was wonderful to see my new niece, Eden. Troy and LaRae were so nice to open their house for everyone to stay. We relaxed, played games, read books, ate great food and just hung out. We had a few extra special meals, like cha sha, Sushi, knephla soup, and strudla. It was so great. John Symonds came too and brought his poker table and chips. We had a few tournaments which was fun but it seemed like the girls were always winning; Kayla, Mom, and Kim each won at least once. Another game that we really enjoyed was Settlers of Catan.

Time Capsule July 2002 - Our ND road trip

This is the first in a series of "Historical Pieces" They will always be labeled "Time Capsule" It gives me a chance to share some of my life pre-blog. I hope you enjoy it.
 

This is a picture of Kim and I a few years ago when we drove to ND. It was the summer before we got married. It was a whirlwind trip of driving. Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Then back to Washington. This picture was near the end of the trip. In the background is my grandparent's home. Some days I miss the wide openness of ND. 

Snow and Heating the Crawl Space

Snow in Seatlle! It is fun when we get snow here. The whole city shuts down. Earlier this month we got 4 inches. Cooler weather prompted an investigation of the efficiency in which our house was being heated. I noticed a lack of airflow in the bathroom and master bedroom. Upon bundling up, brandishing Maglite and "Spider Defense Tool" (a long stick) I ventured into the unknown (the crawl space underneath our house). While I was down there I noticed how hot it was; it was warmer than it was in the house. I crawled around looking at the duct work to see if I could find a hole. During my trek I collected a plethora of cobwebs on my "Spider Defense Tool." I then found the problem--there was a four foot section of the duct work that had fallen down. I proceeded to re-attach and patch up the ducts. Afterwards, our radiant floor heating wasn't as nice but the house heated up more efficiently. Note: This document was written and edited by Kim, because I have been remiss in my blogging duties.

Kim's Birthday

Kim's Birthday was on December 5th and we had a wonderful weekend together hanging out and catching a movie. We went to eat at Salty's at Redondo (a nice seafood restuarant). We also went to see the latest Jane Austen book made into a movie, Pride and Predjudice and did some Christmas shopping. It was a lot of fun. On Sunday, we went downtown with Kim's family to celebrate with them too. We ate at another seafood restaurant on Lake Union called Rock Salt. Then we all walked around downtown looking at the Christmas decorations and doing some window shopping. All in all it was a wonderful weekend.

Thanksgiving and other fun stuff

Thanksgiving was really nice. Kim and I spent it with her Dad's side of the family. Grandma made too much wonderful food as is always the case. Yesterday, we did the crazy "Day After Thanksgiving Shopping Thing." It was insane. We got up at 4:30am and got to the Fred Meyer by the 5am opening. There were hundreds of people there already. I was driving the cart and Kim was leading. Unfortunately, we got separated because it was so hard to navigate the shopping cart with all of the people. I thought she went through the "Sock" isle when she actually was going to the Christmas decoration area. They had 1/2 price socks and needless to say I didn't make it out of that area in a short amount of time, nor unscathed. Finally, we made it back together and checked out. By that time it was almost 6am, the time when Target opens. So that is where we headed next and got our tree and some decorations. Following that I dropped Kim off at Jo-Ann Craft Store, while I went to Best Buy. She met me afterwards and we waited in the checkout line at Best Buy for 45 minutes as it wove through the store. Woo Hoo! Although, how often do you get to REALLY check out the vaccuum cleaners, refrigerators, washers, dryers and other large appliances there.

The remainder of the morning and afternoon was spent at home decorating for Christmas listening to Christmas music. It was really quite a lot of fun. This was the first year we have had a tree so it was kind of exciting putting it up and decorating. When we got it we didn't realize that it was pre-lit. That was a nice surprise. We also did some finishing touches on the house as well. The front closet didn't have flooring yet so I cut some linoleum to fit and installed some molding in there and in the bathroom that had gotten "put off."

This morning we met Kim's family at Yuen Lui (pronounced Yen Loo E) for a family portriate. While the pictures were getting ready to view on the computers, we went to Starbucks for a snack, Yum! When Kim and I were comming home she said that I should update my blog. So I am.

Oh, and one more thing, Sons of Dust is playing for church this Sunday and for special music we are playing "In the Light" by DC Talk. It is a great song and I really enjoy playing it.

One Down - 1 year 11 months to go

I did it! I finished my first class, and if I am not mistaken, I think I did quite well. I will find out my grade is this comming Tuesday. Class is really quite fun. It is much more time consuming than I though it was going to be. I have a hard time doing anything in my free time that isn't homework or else I end up feeling guilty. (including blogging) I have a break here between Thanksgiving and Newyears in which I only have 1 evening class. I am switching from Tuesdays to Thursday nights so I am actually getting off with a nice break that I won't get in the future.

Fireplace Insert, Furnace, Cabinet Doors, Back to School - Who could ask for better excuses to forget to blog

Okay, okay, so I shouldn't have to make up excuses as to why I haven't updated my blog in a long time but I feel so bad about not keeping people up-to-date. October has flown by extremely fast. Kim and I made the decision to have a gas fireplace insert installed when we had the new furnace installed. I know I don't have a picture of the furnace but look how much warmer the house appears. The old one had cracks in the heat exchanger and was about to start leaking carbon monoxide which I have heard is not good for your health. The insert is amazing! It is so nice to be able to turn a switch and have a warm inviting fire to relax around. Plus it really finishes out the living room. We also finally have cupboard doors. Which looks really fancy but it is harder for me to find things now. I really liked being able to see where everything was located. Oh, and an update on the ivy growing on our trees. Good news for the tree bad news for the ivy. After cutting out the "trunks" of ivy the leaves stayed green for a long time but finally they are starting to fall off and look very frail. I am really amazed by how long they have survived without a trunk.

Finally, school. School? Yes, School. I decided that for my future plans it would be a good idea for me to get my "Bachelor's of Science in Management" (you must say that with a big booming voice with lots of echo like in an empty gymnasium or the Grand Canyon, which ever is closer). I want to be able to provide for my family and going this direction will provide me with a larger set of tools and options to go within Boeing as time goes on. I really don't see myself working shift work as a technician for the rest of my life. So my first class was this last Tuesday and will continue weekly from 6pm-10pm for 5 weeks. Then it will switch to Thursday nights for the remainder of the two years.

Also, great news! I got a promotion. I am now a "Senior Simulator Technician" So now when ever you talk to me you must speak with a Spanish accent, "Yes, Senior." If you are wondering, I am still doing the same work. As a technician it is just a constant learning experience so as you get more experience you get promoted. I don't have any more responsibilities as such.

Airport Towing!

My Aunt and Uncle own a tow truck company here in the Seattle area and they just got their internet site up and running. It is really nice. My favorite pictures are the ones of the antique tow trucks. They have put so much time and effort into them.

http://www.airporttow.com/

On another note Sons of Dust played last Saturday at Jammin at the Seattle Center. It was so much fun. There were a couple hundred people at the 3 on 3 basketball tournament so we had a pretty large listening audience. On this coming Saturday the 24th we are going over to Yakima WA to play two concerts for a prison. A ministry that puts on small Bible studies has invited us to play. I am really looking forward to being able to minister in music to this group of people.

Also my Father has joined the ranks of Bloggers with his own blog. Be sure to check out all of the pictures he has posted of his Mount Rainier climb that I spoke briefly of back in July. He is really cool. I respect him so much and I am proud to be his son.

http://www.robindawn.blogspot.com/

Original vs New Fireplace

In response to Luke's comment on the previous post: I realized that I didn't explain about the two fireplace pictures. Back in May, I took pictures of the entire house before I started working on it. The picture of the wood burning stove with the magenta bookshelves on the side is what the fireplace looked like before we started remodeling. If you look at {The Livingroom "Before"} post near the beginning of my blog you can see another vantage point of the living room with the wood burning stove. So below, from top to botom you can see:
1. Before remodel
2. After removing shelves and painting
3. After removing stove
4. After installing tile

The Holly and the Ivy (minus the Holly)

Here it is, after much anticipation the completed fireplace. Actually it is almost completed. But you hardly notice the couple of trim pieces that still need to be installed.
I also include a picture of Kim Painting that could be duplicated and posted on each of the days I have talked about working on the house. Kim has helped so much by painting molding and touching it up once installed. She is a great worker and for that I am very grateful.

I spent yesterday afternoon trying to catch up with Kimberlee. You see, she went to a 4 year University and at the end they had this very special time called the “Ivy Cutting.” Every student was invited to hold up one section of this huge ring of ivy and then the President of the school came around with a scissors and snipped off a piece for each student graduating. This was to symbolize exiting from school and the entry into the real world.

Well, I obviously didn’t want to be left out. So I had my own “Ivy Cutting.” This ivy was growing up three of the very large trees in our yard. It was getting to the point where I was concerned that it may kill the trees. I didn’t want to lose the shade from the trees or have the trees fall on our house. So I cut the ivy at the base of the tree. The item in my right hand is one of the larger sections of the vine. WOW! It was huge. There were more than ten of these large vines growing up the side of the tree. Above the cleared section around the tree you can see how huge the ivy was. It extends 40 feet into the air. Behind the house you can see the tree in the front yard with the ivy on it as well. That turned out to be quite the project. But now I feel that I am even with Kim. I have had my “Ivy Cutting” as well.

WWW.TROYSTORER.BLOGSPOT.COM

My brother Troy just started a blog too. Be sure to check it out. It has some great pictures of him, his wife and my new niece.

http://www.troystorer.blogspot.com

Joy Electric Pics

I know these pictures are really sad quality but they are taken with my pocket pc and it doesn't fair well in poorly lit locations. However, I did want to share the picture of the people setting up because I thought it turned out really cool with the circular light in the ceiling. The other shot is of Ronnie Martin on left playing the keyboard slung over his shoulder and his live drummer on the right.

Labor Day Weekend Synopsis

We Are Finally Moved In!

I apologize for not updating my blog in a while. I do have a good excuse though. Kim and I are moved in to our new house and we have been really busy unpacking and doing all of the small projects that are still left. The tile looks great and we are just waiting on the mantle and legs to be made by our cabinet maker. I will be putting in the grout this weekend. Speaking of cabinets, we now have drawers and shelves so the whole kitchen is almost unpacked. The cabinet doors are still to come but I look at that as a good thing because it make things easier to find in the kitchen while I am learning a new layout. Our bedroom is all put together and everything is in its place there too.

We moved in last Saturday the 27th. Moving our new furniture from the garage into the house proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. I think next time we will move it out of the kitchen sliding door. The corner at the entry gave us much trouble with the couch. The first picture of Al and I with the couch on end doesn’t show Caroline who was trapped in the entry closet because of how we had to maneuver the couch. It was quite comical at the time. After getting them in the room we were happy to sit and relax. Kim was extra tired from supervising the project. The new furniture is extremely exciting to have. It is a special treat we got as a result of living with Al and Caroline the whole summer. You see, we didn’t have a house payment the whole summer so we could save that money and get something special. And that is what we chose.

God is Faithful in Fireplaces and Finances

Yesterday was a great day! I am just overwhelmed with how faithful God is with me. He has helped me through some challenging things as of lately. First of all, tiling the fireplace, I was really worried about how I was going to do it. So Kim and I have been praying, asking God to give me wisdom and the ability to do the job. Well, I am done setting the tile and it is looking really good. It was quite a process though.

It all started when I lined up the tile and a whole tile (13 inches square) wouldn’t fit up and around the fireplace. (See fig. 1) So I thought, “No big deal, I will just build up the side of the fireplace to be bigger.” That ended up being quite a feat. I had to cut the 2x4’s to the right size and then add a shim to square them up with the front of the fireplace. Then I had to figure out how to attach them to the fireplace with masonry screws. Add mortar, add backer board, add more mortar, add another layer of backer board and finally finish with a final coat of mortar to make the front surface flush. And PRESTO! I have a 13 inch wide fireplace.

Compared to that mess, cutting and laying the tile on the wall was easy. Kim helped too! I used tape to hold the tile from shifting once I had them in position. I put a wood brace up under the middle tile too. Now I just pray that as they were curing none of them slipped.

To top it all off, my day at work yesterday was great as well. I can’t go into the details as of yet but I had some tough decisions to make. Kim and I prayed about the situation and God came through again. Everything worked out better than I could have imagined. I not only have saved money doing the tile myself, I am still employed and everything is going smoothly. Could I be more thankful right now? I don’t think so.

Fig. 1

Laying Tile or SOD?

After experiencing laying tile I would have to say that I prefer SOD (of course the Sons of Dust type of SOD, not the grass covered dirt.) Yesterday I laid down the mortar for the tile in the entryway. It was kind of stressful. You are always under the pressure of time which I don’t like. I would rather take my time and do a meticulous job. With laying mortar you are under constant pressure not to lay too much of it down at a time or it will dry on the floor. But if you don’t get enough of it down you won’t finish the job before it dries in the bucket. Enough to make a man go crazy. But I did get through it.
The entry is curing as I speak and the next step is the grout. I mixed up a little too much mortar so I used it to start to fill the cracks between the bricks on the fireplace. Unfortunately, it started to ooze out of the spaces between the fake bricks. I guess I mixed it a little too thin.

After tiling I had practice with Sons of Dust. We had to take a new group photo because our last one didn’t have Wayne. It turned out looking like us so that was good. Then we played through some songs preparing for our next concert in Yakima, WA. All in all I came to the conclusion that I prefer SOD over Tile.

Tile

Well, I am about to learn how to install tile. Due to circumstances beyond my control I will no longer be paying someone to lay tile in our entry way and around our fireplace. Today we started preparing these areas for the tile. We started by spreading the concrete to fix the fireplace. Now it is level and ready for the tile to be put there but we still have to put backer board onto the brick for laying the tile there. We also cut the backer board for the entry, put mortar down and screwed the backer board to the sub-floor with the mortar under it. Now all of that needs to set. So we wait. The "We" I speak of is my Father-in-Law and my neighbor Doug. They were a tremendous help today. Kim spent part of the day at the house with us painting more molding. All in all it was a very long day of work and after finished it really seems like we didn't get that much done. Oh well.

Also I got a new toy today from Home Depot. Al and Caroline gave me a gift certificate for my birthday and I chose to get a Dremel Tool. I have wanted one for a very long time and today we needed a tool to cut the backer board because it is like concrete. So I used my new Dremel Tool with a diamond blade to cut the board to fit into the entry way. It cut the board like a knife through warm butter. Or is it a warm knife through butter. Or maybe the butter or knife don't need to be warm. You get the idea. It cut it beautifully. Well, more of the saga later. I must go eat dinner.

27 isn't old when comparing yourself to a rock

Today is my birthday. Well, actually it isn't (it is actually Aug. 8th) but thanks to the wonderful technology of the blog I can just set my date and time back to the 3rd and "Ta Da" it appears as if I wasn't really busy and remiss in my blogging duties. My birthday wasn't really that exciting this year. I got to work on my house a little bit, but as you may be able to tell by my previous entries that wasn't something out of the ordinary.

I am now 27 years old. Writing it down makes it even scarier than telling people. Do you realize that 27 is only 3 years from being 30 and that 30 is only 30 years from being 60. And I am just not ready to be 60. Okay so I may be blowing this a little out of proportion. But just last year at 26 I could still tell myself that I was in my mid 20's. But now...

On to a brighter note. I just found this neat link on the internet. It goes to Ancestry.com and they want you to buy something or other. I don't advise buying anything from them. Not because I have anything against them but I just think it is better to save your money for important things like pocket pc phones or chocolate. But for free you put your name in and you can find out it's origin. It is a neat tool. The first link is the blank form, the second is my name.

The Origin of Your Name

The origin of the name Micah Storer

I visited the Historychannel.com and checked out some of my birthday happenings on August 3rd and this is what I found out.

1492 Columbus sets sail from the Spanish port of Palos to begin his journey

1861 Last installment of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is published

1926 Tony Bennett is born (His real name is Antonio Dominick Benedetto)

1940 Martin Sheen is born

1941 Martha Stewart is born

1941 Gasoline Rationing Begins in the Eastern US soon spreading to the rest of the country prior to the US entering World War II