Clarion Inn Totem Lake Kirkland

... leaves a lot to be desired (it would have cost an extra $350 to get a sleeper car) in the coach section, with the seat backs reclining to just enough shy of horizontal to be uncomfortable. They do provide an airplane-sized pillow, but I recommend bringing your own plus a blanket. Overall it was an experience I highly recommend, and one I hope to try in other parts of the country. A couple of days after the train ride, a group of 6 of us who had just finished our LVC ...

... campus thing was interesting. Worship was good but only 15 minutes, Gini lead communion, and when they take up their offering they just play a worship CD while everyone is seated. Judah preached...no sign of Wendell. I think we all enjoyed the service. Braedan was pretty pumped about getting to hear Judah preach. They didn't do formal announcements at all
...or maybe I just wasn't paying attention! :-)

... If you go back to last night's creepy dude on the bus, remember him?, well turns out he was a volunteer museum attendant. So..with more time on our hands than we expected, being the ...

... very interesting indeed. An active volcano, they are expecting it will blow again. They are not talking in terms of IF but rather WHEN. It stopped smoking a few months ago but it still causes seismic activity practically every day. Now we did notice on the way up from San Fran there was a strange noise coming from the rear of the car. We thought it came from the dif area and as well, the brakes didn't ...

OK, hello everyone, this first entry is really only a test to get this line of communication up and running. As a reader, you have the opportunity to write back to us either publicly, so that others can see, or privately, just for us. We will be visiting Internet cafes as we travel to update you on our travels and post pictures. It would be great to have folks checking in on us and please ...

After months and months of planning, our trip is finally here! For the first time ever, Todd took the previous day off from work and spent an ever-so-taxing day making a last-minute trip to REI, getting a haircut, and receiving last-minute GPS hardware and instructions from his good buddy Jon; Tim, alas, had to work a full day. We readied the house and packed through the night (gee, that's a ...

... F/A-18 Hornet jets (http://www.blueangels.com/), ran a 5K race in Redmond, munched on excellent Italian food at Il Fornaio in Seattle as well as Thai in Kirkland. But all good things must come to an end. I'm back in front of the computer looking for a job and my dad is hard at work back in Norway .... wait... he is retired and already planning his next vacation to Scotland...lucky man!

... clever kids and we regress about 30 years playing all sorts of games with them including hide and seek, and trains (Jackson's current favourite). We think that they've inherited Nathan and Heather's musical talent since they have a such a great time singing along when I make up some songs on the guitar. Anna also gets to see downtown Seattle for the first time, and Pike Place markets reminds us ...

... oatmeal made on a little camping burner. Quite the contrast to the nearly-70-degree weather and French food I left in Cannes! The power finally came back on Thursday. My final week in Cannes was spent doing things for the last time. A trip to Monoprix and Champion, local grocery stores, to get goodies to bring home. A stop at Paul's, my favorite boulangerie, for a raisin and hazelnut mini-baguette. A dinner out with the group on the winding little old town street at a restaurant ...

... Wheeeee! And so, we by-passed the octopus tank, where it was feeding time. The crowd was so eager to watch an octopus eat, so glommed to the glass, that all little Kayla could see was people be-hinds. I thought we'd be safe on a week-day, but I sadly underestimated the seriousity of the last week before school. Every parent that had put off "Taking The Kids Somewhere" all summer, thinking, THERE'S STILL TIME, was here today. We were on ...