Popcorn Ceiling

I spent my day off today removing the popcorn ceiling from our bedroom.  Jacquelyn really wanted it done and I didn't have much else to do I guess.

 This is a before picture.  As you can see we had that old popcorn type ceiling.

 Here's a close-up of the offending popcorn.  It doesn't look to bad here but we had several spots where it got ruined when our roof was leaking.

 First step was to take everything out of the room.  Everything.  This was no easy task.  It took forever.  Besides taking out the bed and furniture it involved a lot of cleaning and sorting and putting things away.

 Next step was to cover the walls with plastic.

 Then I had to cover the ceiling fan and carpet with plastic too.  Our room is large and has approximately 267 square foot.

 Ready to go, I have my eye goggles, respirator, spray bottle, and scrapper.  Since our house was built prior to 1980 we might have asbestos in the ceiling, which is very bad to breathe or get in your eyes.

 Here's one corner of the room done.  It was slow going and very messy.

The finished product.  All done.  Painting the new ceiling will have to wait until Jacquelyn gets home and picks out what she wants.

Andrew and Mallory

Andrew and Mallory stayed the night for a sleep over.

 First we had pizza and watched a movie we got from Redbox.

 Then we went on a flashlight walk around the block.

 Scary shadow monsters.

 The next morning we had chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate syrup and whipped cream.

 Then we walked to Wal-Mart to take the Redbox movie back.  This is the trail that goes behind Pierce.

We stopped at Bradley Lake along the way and the kids climbed on a tree.  I think they had a good time.

Vancouver

Jacquelyn and I took a trip to celebrate our anniversary and drove up to Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.

 At the border at Freedom Park they have the Canadian flag in a massive flower display.

 We got stopped and had to go into the office at the border crossing because we had pepper spay in the car. It's illegal to take pepper spray across the border into Canada and they confiscated our little container.

 The main object of our visit was Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.  Here's Jacquelyn with a totem pole.

 More totem poles and me.

 Here's the famous suspension bridge over the gorge.  It's really long and high and is very wobbly but safe.

 We went on the tree tops trail.

This is part of the cliff walk.  It was a lot of fun to see.

 The next morning we went to the Vancouver Temple.  It was a great way to start the day.

 First stop in the city of Vancouver was Chinatown.   We also walked through downtown on a different day to see the tall buildings.

 Then we went to Stanley Park where there were lots of trails along the water front and through the trees.

 More totem poles.

 The next day we went to Richmond, a suburb, and took a tour of this Buddhist temple.  A strange thing happened there; they invited us to a free lunch (called Second Serving).  It's all vegetarian.  We bought a container (with metal spoon and fork) for $3 since we didn't bring our own.  Then we set in a big hall with all the Buddhist people and monks and trainees that came to eat. They served us a variety of vegetarian dishes that they scoped into the bowl one right after the other.  What luck to be there at just the right time.  We had an unusual experience.

 Then we went to the town Steveston when they film the TV show Storybrooke.  They happen to be having  races called the Dragon Races.  There were hundreds of people racing in dozens of boats (4 or 5 per race).

 They have a fish market dock where the boats pull up and the fishermen sell their catches directly from the sea to the customer.

 Octopus for sale anyone?

 Sea urchins too.  We saw a Chinese lady buy one, break it apart and remove the spines, and eat the middle raw.

We checked out another Buddhist Temple for our last stop.  This is the Happy Buddha.  He was a monk that became one of the original Arhats of Buddhism.  They say this lovable icon is the embodiment of happiness and prosperity.  We learned a little about their religious customs which seemed very strange to me.

Cool Pictures from Stanley Park

I just love these two pictures we took Friday at Stanley Park on our trip to Vancouver, Canada. The first one is at Beaver Lake and the second one is "Girl in a Wet Suit".

Visit from Penelope

We had Penelope over for a visit.  Her parents were up over the weekend and they left her behind to spend the night.  She got to spend the following day with Jacquelyn and they had a lot of fun.

Jarom's back

We went to Spokane to see Jarom, just back from a mission for the church.

 Jarom was at the Chile Osorno Mission.  He was there for two years preaching the gospel.

 It was good to have him back.  They had an open house with some refreshments for friends and neighbors to stop by and say hello.

He did a great job.  Welcome home Jarom.

  He's only got two weeks to rest and then back to college at Notre Dame.

Mt. Rainier

Joshua and his family have gone back to Alaska.  They were in Washington for about 2 months.  We had one full day before they left when we made a trip up to Mt. Rainier.

 Julia in front of Mt. Rainier.  The weather was perfect, lots of sunshine and great visibility.

First stop was Cougar Rock campground for an opportunity to climb on the big trees and have a picnic lunch.  Ethan and Christian on a fallen tree trunk.

 All these trees had fallen in a big jumble making all kinds of log bridges and fallen tree trunks to climb on.

 Christian on one tree trunk climbing up to another.

 Julia and Jacquelyn on a fallen tree.

 Joshua and Elliott following Ethan from one fallen tree to a smaller one.

 Christian walking a fallen tree trunk.

 After our picnic lunch we took a 1.1 mile hike on a trail into the mountain woods.

 We saw some beautiful scenery.

 Christian taking a break under a tree.

 Ethan and Elliott on a boulder.

 It was not an easy hike for little children and got steep after a while, but was only 1.1 miles and we made it.  The reward was the overlook of a beautiful mountain waterfall.  Julia and Ethan.

 Then we went and saw Narada Falls and then went to the visitor's center at Paradise.  We took a short walk around the area.

 We saw beautiful alpine meadows.

We even found a little snow still on the ground in some isolated places.  It was a fun day.