Last Saturday we spent the day bumming around Seattle. We went downtown for an IMAX movie about Egyptian pyramids. And we went on a cool roller-coaster ride. Then there was a neighborhood event that was pretty fun with sno-cones and kids’ games. We were kind of bored so we kept looking for things to do.

Last Monday was Labor Day. Elisa and I went down to Tacoma to see the Point Defiance zoo. Tara went with us and Elisa’s grandma Sophie too. The snow fox was one of the really cool looking animals but we only got a picture of its behind. Elisa also got a picture of me next to a retreating whale. National Geographic we are not. Elisa and I have a dahlia garden in the back, and there is a really big rose and dahlia garden down there. Dahlias are big flowers and kind of otherworldly looking. I think they look like fireworks. We got some good pictures from that. (The dahlias don’t move as fast as the whales).

Elisa spent most of Thursday at the temple. It was the stake fill-the-temple day. I don’t have that kind of stamina, by the way.

On Thursday evening we went to a park in Bellevue and ended up people-watching for awhile. Bellevue is entertaining. There was a club of tons of little ugly dogs that all get together every night at the same time. It’s like a support group for yappy dog owners. We also watched a group of kids lose a balloon in a tree, and then lots of people walking over to help them get it down with shoes, coats, Frisbees, etc. Sometimes we are really easy to entertain.

Last night when I was going to bed, Elisa turned to me in her sleep and said, “That’s a really good idea.” I said, “You have really good ideas too, honey…. What idea?” She said, “Sleeeeeep!”

This week Elisa and I went to the Evergreen State Fair. It’s a lot like the Idaho State Fair. Except they call them elephant ears up here, not tiger ears. Elisa’s family thought I was pretty funny for asking for a tiger ear. We rode the swing ride. Yeah, right after we had all that heavy greasy fair food. The food was excellent. I had been craving real strawberry shortcake since our wedding. Theirs passed the test and I can finally rest easy knowing that everything is right in the world.

I ripped up the corner of our bathroom floor yesterday. There’s some water damage that was showing through the linoleum. It turns out that all the wafer board subflooring is spoiled—it has rotted into dirt. Some of the 2x4s are bad too. We’ll have to rebuild part of both of the floors of our two adjoining bathrooms. Luckily, we also get to get rid of the ugly blue stuff on the walls in the shower. I went under the house while Elisa had the shower water running, and a stream of water was just running down through the cracks in the caulking and it collected on the wood underneath the tub. And it landed on me while I was there. So it’s pretty clear where the water is coming from. (That’s the good news since locating a leak can be difficult.) We don’t yet have a plan for fixing it. Oh, yeah, in the process of looking under the tub through a panel in our bed room, Chad stood up right under and into some shelves in the wall. It ripped them clear out and everything came tumbling down. He fixes the house well. I didn’t like the shelves anyway. 🙂 That’s a little home maintenance technique I like to call, “One step forward, two steps back.”

Our tomato plant has kept burgeoning out into the entire plot while the rest of the vegetables die. This week it finally broke through the bamboo supports around it. It toppled over and now is sort of a tomato puddle. We’re going to have a billion ripe tomatoes anyday.

I had four deacons show up for class today! They are all active. One is new because he just had a birthday. I had him in primary with me. One is probably going to be moving into the ward with his mom. We also rescheduled scouts for Tuesday. I can keep playing soccer with my old team on Wednesday! I really didn’t want to have to quit.

Here’s your interesting factoid of the week. Elisa was wondering what the singular form of the word “cattle” was. Also, in our reading of the Old Testament it said that the Hebrews had “beeves” but we didn’t know what that meant. Well, I know you can’t stand the suspense, but we found out the answers to both questions! An article on Wikipedia all about cattle explained it. The word “cow” only refers to females, and “bull” only refers to males. So lots of cows and bulls together are “cattle.” But there is not really any word at all for a singular “cattle.” It said that technically the word is “ox.” Nobody uses that word anymore because ox makes people think of a different animal (“musk ox”). Some people want to use the word “catron.” Then when we are teaching kids about what noise each animal makes we can just shorten that and tell them that a cat goes “moo.” Not confusing at all. But the better part is that there is a singular for beef cows or “beeves” (which answered our bible question). The singular is beef. What sound does a beef make?

My mom, Chad and I are in the car heading down to Portland to meet up with my grandmother and her side of the family. The last time we saw them was when we went down for my grandfather’s memorial service and Chad was really sick and had to go to emergency. I spent the night at their house with a 103° fever. In the morning I threw up in their garden on the way to the hospital. I got to have Elisa stay up with me, caring for me in bed. That was the first night we “slept” together. It will be fun for them to meet him when he’s well.

This week has been insanely busy. We are so beat. Luckily the first half of the week we were able to take it easy. Tuesday morning Chad came with me to the temple and sat around waiting to go on the 7:00 am session. I also sent a box of delicious cookies Chad and I made, to Jason. But they were scheduled to arrive Thursday. They will probably be stale if they ever get to him.

Wednesday we mowed the lawn and weeded to get ready for Cheryl and Sean’s rehearsal dinner.

I made my first wedding cake. Tada! It was chocolate with a whipped Bavarian crème filling and Chocolate ganache poured over the top. Ganache is a kind of chocolate frosting. My mom helped me out with putting it together and decorating it. But I got to do most of it on my own. It turned out very nice. I am pretty pleased. Too bad I had nightmares that I dropped it and that I was late delivering it for a few nights. Elisa woke up every hour.

While I was making the cake, Chad was off single handedly getting six round tables and 36 chairs from the church to our house for the rehearsal dinner. We had people at the house practically all day Friday setting up and cooking and running things over. It was a little chaotic. It all ended up well, though we never want to haul tables and chairs like that again.

Saturday was the wedding. We started the day out by returning the tables and chairs to the church at 6:30 am. It was early. My reflexes weren’t very good so I started off the day by smashing my wrist under four tables. We were driving to the chapel on this smooth, straight road (at about 25 mph) and suddenly two tables jumped and bounced out of the truck. I still don’t know how it happened. We just ran out and rolled them to the side of the road. A half hour later, after we had cleared room in the truck, we finally went back and picked them up. I’m done moving tables.

When we got home we finished up decorating the cake, got ready and ran out to Seattle to greet Cheryl and Sean’s guests. The ceremony was very nice. We got to dance at their reception which they held at an old ballroom across town. Chad and I were in charge of cutting the cake and then we left to get a quick nap before we ran off to the reception of one of the guys I grew up with. They held it at a home just down the road from my parents. I was asked to sing a couple of sets of cheesy love songs. I got to hear Elisa sing two sets of songs and hear her practice. I was happy to have the opportunity and especially pleased to see how well my friend is doing now.