Greenway & H2O Centre

Jonathan woke me up this morning because I gave him permission to.  I knew I'd never wake up much before noon on my own and I detest waking up to a blaring alarm clock, especially on days when I don't absolutely HAVE to be up at a certain time for classes or work.  Around lunchtime we went for a walk, which turned into a hike.  I suggested we walk along the Mission Creek Greenway and Jonathan agreed.  For a few minutes we toyed with the idea of biking on the Greenway, but I was in the mood to walk, and I was really glad for that later on.

We walked right by my old elementary and high school (all one big long building), crossed a main road, and walked another minute or two before reaching the Mission Creek and the Greenway.  Then we set out east for a short time and then mostly south, along the creek.  We stopped for a few minutes at the pool of water I used to always walk to with Pepper so she could swim.  Then we took a seldom-used trail that kept going beside the creek until we crossed back to the Greenway.  After walking about two or three miles, we got to a bridge, which is the farthest up the creek I have ever gone on the Greenway.  There was a trail with a sign saying the trail was dangerous and not to proceed.  I kind of wanted to anyway, to see where it led, but then we saw a different trail going up the side of the cliff beside us.  So we took that trail, which made our walk turn into a hike.

After finally getting to the top of the rock trail/wooden stairs, we rested for a bit and then hiked up another short trail to the top of a rise where we took pictures.  Then we went to the edge of the cliff and sat on the boulders to take pictures of us above the creek.  We opted to go back then so we could spend the rest of our afternoon doing something else, but I wanted to try going back a different way, on the second trail leading to the rise.  That went well for a few minutes, but soon that trail got overrun with weeds.  Jonathan suggested we just feet-slide our way down a sandy-rocky section of the mountain.  I didn't feel quite alright with that, but wanted to get down and head back home quickly, so finally agreed to it.  It was a mistake.

We clung to the roots of a huge tree as we tried to stay upright while scooting down the shifting  terrain.  Mid-sized rocks came dislodged and bounced down the slope beneath us and a dog in the trailer park below started barking.  I got really nervous about the whole venture and voted to climb back up to the trail and go back the way we came up.  Jonathan still wanted to try the sliding sand and, since I didn't want to go back up alone, I followed him farther down the embankment.  Finally, after sand poured into my shoes and more rocks tumbled down the hill and it looked like the whole thing would come down around us if we attempted to go further down, we both decided to climb back up to the regular trail.  Jonathan went first and I tried to mimic where he placed his hands and feet.  Unfortunately, I'm a lot shorter than he is and my arms and legs are too, so I had to make my own way back, all the while hanging on to the tree roots.

Eventually, we made it back to the top of the embankment and back on the trail, where we made our way back to the bridge.  Once there, still filled with an adventurous spirit from our recent escapade, we decided to venture down the closed, potentially dangerous trail.  It was just as nice as the rest of the Greenway until it petered out into a bunch of creekside rocks.  We looked up and identified the cliff we had taken pictures at earlier.  I was boiling by this time and decided to risk drinking the cool creek water.  Jonathan followed suit and then poured water down my back when I wasn't watching.  Although startled, I didn't really mind.  It felt great.  After our thirst was quenched and I was considerably cooler, we headed back along the trail and eventually made it back to my house.

We rallied the rest of the household currently at home and then all of us stopped first at Taco Time (like Taco Bell, but cooler and only on the West Coast) for a late lunch/early supper.  Then we drove down to the relatively new H2O Centre, an indoor water park type of place.  We tried out most of the pools, including the wave pool and the current pool that pulled you around a circuit as you floated on top of the water.  Then we raced on the three waterslides and I lost every race.  Bryn, Tyler, Jonathan and I made our way to the surfing/body boarding area and watched some people try out the man-made wave.  Since there wasn't really a line-up, just a man and a boy taking turns on the wave, Jonathan wanted to try it out.  He body boarded with gusto and then told the rest of us we should try it out.  So Ty and I did.  The first time I tried, I went right off to the side, completely out of the wave.  But after a few turns, I kind of had the wave figured out.  Unfortunately, my eyes were getting pretty water-filled by then and so we returned to the wave pool.  After another few laps around the current pool and a few more waterslide races, we left the H2O Centre.  But we got Jugo Juice smoothies before we left and they were great.

Later this evening, our friend Nik came over to visit.  He just graduated with a biology degree from CUC (the Canadian one) and we hadn't seen him since Christmas.  He brought Bryn and I grad presents, CUC SA T-shirts, which are pretty neat since they have the CUC mascot, Broose the Moose, on them.  We talked to him for a bit, sharing our plans for the upcoming year and listening to his.  Ahhh, I love being home.  I just want to ignore the suitcases and plastic bins that are piling up in my room and the entryway.

SJ&C church

I went to the Comm. church today at Elsie Holmes Park.  Every year the SJ&C puts on a church service to recognize the graduating seniors.  This was the first year I went and it was so nice that I wished I'd gone other years.  Ms. Chamberlain spoke and just told a whole bunch of memories she had from her time here and tried to include a lot of the current students and faculty and especially all the graduates.  After church, and some awards and cards for the seniors, we had haystacks and cake.  Halfway through eating, all the lights went out from a lightning strike nearby.  The thunderstorm was really neat to watch from the inside of the pavilion.

After lunch, we went back to campus, gathered a few more people, and took off for Fall Creek Falls.  I hadn't been there before and I'm really glad I got the chance to go before I left this area.  We walked around by the falls, getting soaking wet from the rain, but having a good time.

When I got home, I realized that this is my very last weekend here.  Well, the very last normal one because next weekend is going to be very different from all the other ones I've had here.  That's really sad, but I'm getting pretty excited to go home and be in the northwest again!

PS - In Ms. Chamberlain's talk, she mentioned the two times the SJ&C faculty have done farewell songs for professors who were leaving.  I was at the farewell for Ms. Chamberlain, but not the one two years ago for Ms. Caldwell, so tonight I went on YouTube and found that song.  It's pretty amazing, too.  If you want to see, click here and enjoy!

Falling Water Falls

We went hiking to Falling Water Falls this afternoon.  It was the first time I've been there all school year.  Actually, I haven't been there since January of last year.  And today will probably be the last time I go there since I won't be in the south for too much longer.

For certain reasons, I had more fun on the hike today than I did the couple times I went there last year.  When we got down to the swimming area, the water was freezing, but most people braved the cold and jumped in.  I really didn't want to but eventually, after lots of convincing from Jonathan and right before we headed back, I slipped in for a second and then scrambled back out.

Later, while sitting through a long evensong, Tyler tried to call me.  I obviously couldn't answer the phone, but then he texted me that I should come to the Klein/Dawson Film Festival as soon as I got out of evensong.  A flurry of texts later, evensong finally ended and we all rushed over to Ledford, only to find it locked.  I texted Ty again and we found out it was in Lynnwood this year so we raced there and slid into our seats only about 15 minutes late.  There were some great movies shown this year and it was extra cool because several of Tyler's movies, including one starring Jonathan and me, were shown!

Free ice cream

After playing for and sitting through two nearly identical sermons at church today, I was ready for something interesting. (Random comment about the church services: For special music, we played the anthem Dr. Ashton wrote for the upcoming GC. If you want to hear it, click here.) Several people came over to our apartment for lunch and then later in the afternoon some of us went on a hike at Signal Point. Jonathan and I braved putting our feet in the stream at the bridge but couldn't leave them in the freezing water more than a few seconds. We ventured off the trail downstream a little ways, hoping to find the waterfall, but decided to turn back so we wouldn't miss Josh, Bryn and Danielle, who were hiking behind us. We met up with them on our way back and hiked back to the parking lot together.

After a brief stop at the dorm and our apartment again, we went over to Jonathan's grandparents house for a haystack supper. Jonathan's mum, who was here for the weekend to hear our orchestra concert, greeted us in her pajamas. After we ate, the rest of us also changed into pajamas before heading down to Brusters Real Ice Cream on Jenkins Rd. A crowd of people and a traffic jam of cars met us as we pulled into the parking lot. Tonight was customer appreciation day at Brusters. They were serving free ice cream and the only stipulation was that you had to be wearing your pajamas to get a free waffle cone of ice cream. This proved to be a problem for Jonathan who had no pajamas. He ended up having to trade his shorts for his cousin's pajama pants, but eventually even he got a free ice cream cone. We left from Brusters and went straight to Asian Night where we ate more free food. All in all, it was a good day for doing out-of-the-ordinary events and eating a lot of good food for no money, a college student's dream.

Winter hike

I went to the Village Chapel church in McDonald this morning for the second time since I've been here. I went once last year. Tim's parents are visiting from their AFM posting in Palawan, Philippines and his dad did the sermon. The whole church was packed to overflowing, mostly with college kids, probably all of them friends of Tim or his sister Stephanie. It was a really great sermon, at least I thought so. I found it interesting that it went along so nicely with Paul Howe's testimony that I listened to last night. They were both about missions and very inspirational. (Stay tuned for more on that in another post.)

After church I changed and then Jonathan and I went over to some people's house that are related to people he knows in Maine. One of his Maine friends, a nephew of the people whose home we were at, was there visiting so it was nice meeting him. Quite a few other college kids were there, too, all of whom I knew, so we had a nice afternoon. I also tried to coax the cat, Maestro, to come sit on my lap and let me pet him, but he wouldn't agree, so I just had to try to pet him whenever he walked by. Later on we all met up with some other college students and went on a hike on the Biology Trail. It was cold, super cold, and it even was snowing nice fat flakes for part of the hike, but I had some layers and nice long sleeves to hide my hands in, so it survived. Actually once we started hiking only my hands were really all that cold. I never thought I'd say this, but it kind of felt nice to hike again. Except for the steep uphill, but I made it through that ordeal without too much terrible hardship and the rest of the hike was fun. We did manage to accidentally leave Jonathan and Daniel behind when they stopped to take pictures of the sunset, but they found their own way back and came to pick us up at the other end of the trail. All in all, my verdict of the day: great because it was very different than many Sabbath's I've spent here at school. I like it when my Sabbath's aren't all exactly the same.