I got to go home for Thanksgiving this year... first time in the last 4 years! My aunt Cindy helped me get back without any one else knowing, so I showed up at midnight and woke my parents up to the obnoxious ring of the cell phone so they could let me in the door. Shelli had bet me that my mother would cry, a bet i took... Bad move,,, she won. I got to spend a day with my uncle Will fishing for crappie at High Rock lake. It was friggin freezing, but we still caught some fish. We kept the big ones and fed the little ones to Skeeter,,, this is Skeeter. Once my brothers got to hang out. Hanging out with my brothers was great, cause it was the first time we have hung out since they decided to become cut-off-jean-wearin hippies. Before our big family meal on Thursday, we decided to do something hippie and go climb on some rocks. So we did a little bouldering down near Lake Lure, or rather, they did some bouldering, i did some falling. It seems that gravity has a slightly stronger hold on me than on them. Anyway, then we headed back for our GIANT meal with the fam. After the meal (and adding a bit more to gravities hold on me) we decided head out for a nice late afternoon nature waddle. So my brothers, erika, john, kim, christian, and myself headed out for Bradley Falls. We had a good time, Kim did her first bit of climbing, we took some pics, and headed home. Saturday night, as I was packing to leave, we decided to attempt to take a family photo for a christmas card. It took a lot of shots before we got a good one, but we did eventually get a winner. It was a great holiday, and i can't wait for the next one.

Galinda and Elpheba

This halloween Shelli and Tara decided to dress up as Galinda and Elpheba from the musical Wicked. They looked gooooood, here they are.

Mt. Whitney

Have you had to carry your own doodie around in a bag??? Me neither, but shelli and tara have :) On whitney, you have to "pack out your poop"A group of us decided to hike up to Mt whitney, the highest peak in the continental US (14,497 ft). Shelli's cousin, Curtis organized the trip for us. Dick, Staci and staci's friend Andy flew out all the way from NC. We left on Friday and packed up 6 miles from 8000 ft to 12000 ft. and spent the night there. The next morning we woke up and hiked the 5 miles up to the summit at 14,497 ft. and then back down to our camp for the night. The next morning we headed back down the mt and back to loma linda.

Sunny in Seattle

Saterday and Sunday were two of the best days we had on the entire trip. After we picked up a canoe (just one canoe, for 4 people... sketchy) we headed out to Hope Island, a little island in the Puget Sound that was out away from the city. Once we got to the put-in, we all (Heidi, her boyfriend Berry, Shell and me) packed in the canoe and headed across the bay to the island. I'd say we were about 300 lbs over the limit for our little canoe but we managed to make it. I would have taken a picture of it because it was oober comical, but i think the excess movement would definatley have caused some flippage. The island was rad and there were only a few other people picknicking on it (no one lives there). We hiked all around the island, saw some neat-oh wildlife, got a freakin awesome view of Mt. Reiner, and then just chilled on the beach for a while. When we left we stopped off at a blackberry patch and picked enough berries to make a cobbler,,, and it was a steller cobbler. We woke up sunday, packed up, and headed out to Seattle. Berry is a life long Seattlite so he gave us a fast and furious tour of the city. We went to a bunch of places (i don't remember all the names), including the original REI and the original Starbuks, but the coolest places were Center for Wooden Boats, and Pike Place Market. The entire time we spent in Seattle was so fun, the weather was perfect, the company was awesome, we had a blast. Alaska, Seattle, everywhere we went we had great hosts and fantastical vacationings. Just wish the next one was a bit closer.

Ok, so I have a bit of catching up to do. Well, we headed out to Homer on Tuesday morning. Some of my patients from the school, Allen and Judy, were going to let us stay in there cabin which was just a few miles outside of Homer. Once we got there we hit a little snag in the plan, the key we had did not open the door. Luckily, I had their number and gave em a call. Apparently a guy who takes care of the cabin during the winter had already shut the water off and changed the locks. So, no worries, Judy told us that we were going to stay in one of her brothers cabins. His cabin was right in Homer on a hill overlooking the bay and the mountains. It was amazing!Bryan (Judy’s brother) had taken an old railway car and turned it into a little cabin, called the Moose Caboose. After we got settled in we just hung out in Homer the rest of the day. The following day I spent the better part of the day giving my best attempt at convincing fish to bite my lure and allow me to pull its flopping body from its watery home and up into my net. I was quite optimistic at first, after all, this was alaska, home of the worlds best fishing (or some such crap) The fish did not seem to like that plan (I don’t really understand why, I was just was going to throw him back anyway). Shelli was going to go for a run but decided that the thought of a bear joining her for a run/chase was not a risk she wanted to take, so she just hung out and watched me aimlessly throw my rig out, and reel it back in, over, and over, and over again. Complete waste of time. Anyway, the next day we packed up and headed out. On the way back to Anchorage we stopped in Soldotna and met up with Gerald Paul, one of my friends who lives up here now and works as a bush pilot. Shelli dropped the two of us off and we tried some more fishing in a new river, but to the same outcome as the day before, no dice. That officially ended my first Alaskan fishing adventure. Booooooo. Anyway, we headed back to Anchorage and picked up Jared and headed out to get some food. We got back, packed up and headed to the airport to leave at 1 am. It wouldn’t have been that bad a trip, but the stupid airplane was had some lame warning light pop up about one of the engines. My car engine warning light is pretty much constantly on and I never really seem to have any real problems, but they decided that we had to take care of it before we left. So, three hrs later we left anchorage. We got to our friend Heidi’s here in the Seattle area this morning and then we slept… for a while. Once we got up, the clouds had all cleared and we realized just how beautiful this place really was. The view from her little house was awesome. We hiked down by the Puget Sound for a bit, and then hiked over to a little park, saw some seals playing in the ocean, played in the grass a bit, and then of course, shelli went for a run. That was pretty much it, Heidi got off work and we hung out with her for the rest of the evening.