the grand adventures of katie gates

Katie the MARATHONER

2010-05-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

Whew! What an experience!!
Let me start my post-marathon blog from the beginning. I started training early in the winter upon Heather introducing me to a book called "The Non-Marathoners Marathon Trainer" and I said, "sure, lets run a marathon." Now here I am!!

My marathon training didn't even begin for a few months after that point, because in order to start the real training you had to be able to run for half an hour. Nope. So the pre-training took me a while, starting from walking for 90% of the time and walking 10% of the time with very gradual increases. I slowly built up my endurance and strength until I could run for 30 minutes, which I remember at the time to be a big achievement for someone who had never really run more than 20 feet in her life.

Then the real training began. It just tickles me to look back on these pictures, at how excited I was that I could run 3 miles! And then 5 miles! And my 8 miler was SUCH a big deal! I couldn't walk the next day! Then 10!! And 12!!!

As I worked out the bugs with my outfit, shoes, blisters, chafing, etc, I became more confident that this whole marathon thing could actually happen. After first 18 miler (which is the longest distance I was planning to do in my training), I remember being very excited and proud that I'd done it, but also the thought of doing 8 more miles after that seemed like death. I began to learn about the mental aspect of marathoning. I learned that a marathon is at least half mental. Physical strength and endurance can only get you so far, that's why they say if you can run 18 you can run 26.2. Because after 18 miles, it's a mental game. It's about overcoming negative thoughts like "I'm sooo tired" or "I have so far to go" or "I don't know if I can do this" or "Oh great my blisters are starting to hurt and it's only mile 12." You have to set short term goals, like getting to the next telephone pole or aid station, it's all about tricking your mind into letting your body do something completely crazy and pushing through the pain.

Then for the last two weeks before the marathon, I did what is called tapering, meaning I pretty much cut way back on the amount of running to let my body heal the damage I've inflicted on it so far with my long runs and to essentially get a tune-up. I gotta say that this rest period (which also included eating lots of carbs to teach my muscles to store maximum glycogen) was the ticket. I've never started off a run feeling so at ease - all my usual aches and initial pains were gone! All my normal long-run issues like gnarly blisters and knee stiffness didn't ever show up, it was like magic!

30 seconds to the start:

And GO!

Started out nice and easy, feelin' great

Still feelin groovy

I apparently wasn't paying attention and thought I was at mile 9

and then suddenly I was at mile 11! Oh SNAP! That was a good feeling.

This is Mel, age 74, who I ran with for a lot of the first half.

Halfway! And still going strong, no pain yet, which is encouraging.

I feel surprisingly good, it is a pleasant temperature and the route is lovely and scenic.

Mom and Jessie drive up to take some pictures and deliver fresh socks and vaseline.

Chatting up old men and listening to Harry Potter on audiobook isn't quite cutting it anymore. Commence running music playlist.

This is the farthest I've ever run in training. Losing the spring in my step but feeling like 8 more miles is conceivable. (A feeling I definitely did not have after my last 18 mile run)

Walk breaks becoming more and more frequent... Kendal calls and I talk to her for a bit. Why not?

Still waiting to "hit the wall" but I don't. Walking often, chatting with Bob. It's 70 degrees and brutally sunny at this point. If I'm defeated by anything at this point, it's the heat. I'm not used to running in it. But my legs haven't given out yet! Mika induced energy boosts keep me going. Constantly consuming energy gels and electrolyte replacement drinks. The aid tents are starting to pack up and the spectators have abandoned us stragglers. Getting a little emotional too.

Longest mile ever. ONE to go. Mel the 74 year old man is way ahead of me. Bob is a mile or so behind me. Headphones all the way up, full throttle mental mantras. One telephone pole at a time.

Cresting the LAST hill, looking out over the Capitol Way bridge, SO close

Finish line in sight (white inflatable arch in the distance), mental override of exhausted body,

I have to finish strong.

Jessie and mom await at the finish

GO GO GO!!!!

8 minutes before the time limit

Oh Bob. 80 years old and his third marathon in the last 4 weeks? Marathon maniac is right.

Time for red robin and a serious nap. And the sorest week of my life.

All part of the experience I guess.

Well, I can cross that of my list of things to do in my life.

Garden Tour

2010-05-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

Why hello! I spent all afternoon gardening today on this GORGEOUS 74 degree sunny day and I wanted to share the lovely things that are happening in that department. This is a photo tour of our garden(s) as of today, May 13.

Let's start with the front of the house:

This is the rockery I built because this area used to be extremely ugly. It is now our herb and flower garden ish.

Can you name the plants? Rosemary, lavender, oregano, cilantro, thyme, marjoram, chives, and a bunch of mysterious wildflowers from one of those kids wildflower seed packets. I LOVE being able to go out and pick some fresh delicious herbs to cook with, especially to put in bread!

Around the corner is our newly built vegetable garden bed, and today I planted 4 different tomatoes there (3 of which we grew from seed) and an artichoke (top right). This is the sunniest and hottest side of the house. I hope the tomatoes will enjoy it.

Also in this bed are newly transplanted cucumbers, zucchini, delicata squash, and yellow crooked squash. We grew almost all of these from seed too.

Moving along to the back "porch" I put two cherry tomatoes in a big pot and around 15 basil plants in that other pot. They will be crowded but they'll get over it.

Also newly potted (if you consider that a pot...) is an upside down cherry tomato. I think it's a fun way to grow tomatoes. (P.S. Hey mom is it ok if I have this upside down tomato planter?..... oops.)

Across from this sad excuse for a porch is our other perennial bed, mostly full of plants from foxglove last summer. Everything came back, although the mums barely survived.

Also in this bed are strawberries and sunflowers that mom grew for the garden sale last week. Not pictured is also rhubarb and lots of tulips, daffodils, irises, and lilies.

Next are the sugar snap and snow peas climbing the fence!

Then we have our other vegetable bed, mostly shade veggies like beets, carrots, lettuce, and onions.

Also potatoes :)

We have some fun houseplant action going on too, check it out (how adorable is that watering can full of succulents?:

Isn't that nice. In other news, our bird feeders have finally started getting some attention, I saw three birds visit just sitting here writing this blog!

Also we sprouted an avocado pit and it is growing an awesome tree.

Also the apple tree is looking happier since we gave it a much needed pruning!

You just learned way more than you cared to know about the things growing in and around our house! Congratulations.

Enjoy the sunshine!!

A Poem: Calculus Adventures

2010-04-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a lot of research and thinking about the use of literature/language in math classrooms. Math classrooms tend to be extremely language poor and taught in an isolated math bubble. I'm trying to discover ways to bridge the gap between math and other areas, especially the humanities. I'm also taking a calculus class right now. So for my writing group piece for class this week I used myself as a guinea pig for an activity I'd like to integrate into my math classroom: trying to convey the math I'm learning through a creative form of expression. Most people would not use the words calculus and fun in the same sentence. Hopefully, after reading this poem, you just might. Let the nerdiness commence:

Calculus Adventures

Katie Gates

4/7/10

On one nice, bright, warm summers day,

Little Johnny goes out to play.

He walks out the door, his adventures begin

As Johnny stands there at the origin.

He starts from zero, with nothing to lose,

He skips right ahead, a spring in his shoes.

To the top of the hill, oh what fun!

Up a constant incline, rise over run.

But oh clumsy Johnny! When he comes to the top,

He doesn’t bother to come to a stop,

He trips, and he falls, down through the ground

Into a mysterious hole, scary and round.

In darkness he falls, for what seems like hours

Then his feet land softly, on grass and flowers.

“Where am I?” he asks, to a creature nearby

“You’re in calculus country!” is it’s cheery reply.

And as Johnny looks up, at the valleys and hills,

At the curves and the dips, the sight is a thrill!

“I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

Johnny cries, and the creature chuckles some more.

“It’s normal for you to not understand,”

“For that there is the tunnel to linear land!”

“Linear land?” says Johnny, confused

“But of course!” it replies, cleary amused.

“But this doesn’t make sense! How can it be?

That your mountains don’t disappear in the sea!

They go up and down, and back and around!

There are no rules by which your functions are bound!”

“Ah but you’re wrong,” it says, with a smile

“For you would notice, if you stayed for a while,

Our slopes are not constant, but don’t be concerned,

Our functions are many! More than you’ve learned!

Your lines are all straight, it’s so boring that way!

You talk about slopes and intercepts all day!

Our lines are fun! Sine curves and square roots!

Exponents! Reciprocals! Exciting pursuits!

“Now look here,” says Johnny, a little prudential

“Your lines may be lovely, but slope is essential!”

“How can you possibly find what it is?

Or are you also a better math whiz?

I don’t mean to brag, but yes, there’s a way!

We can’t just approximate between B and A,

Because, like you said, it changes a lot

So we have to zoom way in on each little dot.

They may be different, but each slope is the same

As the slope of it’s tangent!” the creature proclaims.

“But the slope of it’s tangent…” says Johnny with pride,

“…is linear! You need us! That you can’t hide.”

“We aren’t so different after all.

So let us end this silly brawl.”

“It seems you’re right.” The creature said

“Maybe we should be friends instead.”

If you miss me...

2010-04-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to remind grand adventures readers that this blog is kind of being neglected for a while because of my other blog. It's a daily photo blog called The Daily Katie. (http://www.thedailykatiegates.blogspot.com) Check it out periodically (I really do update it every day!) or subscribe or follow or bookmark or do whatever you do. The grand adventures of me will probably be updated pretty infrequently (but still very occasionally!). So just don't get excited. That's all.

Happy spring!

Darwin Day 2010

2010-02-14T10:10:00.000-08:00

Valentines day shamlentines day... our favorite February holiday is Darwin's birthday! This year we took Darwin Day to a whole new level.

Our front door decoration:

I don't know whose idea it was to make 13 different kinds of empanadas and arrange them according to the ingredients' phylogeny (oh, was that my idea?) but that took a little while. I spent the entire afternoon the day before researching it. Who knew a dinner party could take so much research?

With the help of some friends we somehow pulled it off before 7:30.

The Empanada Tree of Life:

We also had some serious science cookie baking time this weekend:

Some people also dressed for the occasion.

We set out some appropriate reading materials,

But then we had to move them because people brought so many creative potluck items!

Tortoises (because Darwin had a pet tortoise)

Winter Update

2010-01-28T10:52:00.000-08:00

Oh snap what time is it? BLOG TIME!

Lets start with school! I'm taking 12 credits this quarter, 8 in a class called Language Literature and the Schools with the same teacher I had last quarter who is amazing, and 4 in a class called Class and Education. It is a peculiar thing learning about teaching, because everything that happens in our own learning is grounds for analysis as teachers. So the whole thing is very self reflective and connection making and mind blowing. I am/was leaning toward teaching high school in the math/science areas, but the classes I'm taking are very focused on english and writing and language and reading and development and so many other fascinating things! I love it!! So my direction as a teacher is somewhat uncertain, but my passion for it is only getting stronger! And I have plenty of time to figure it out. My work at Avanti High School is also going really well, it is such a great environment to work in and also to put into practice all the things I'm learning at school. Yay for life/school/future continuity!

So that's what I'm up to in a nutshell at school. I could go on and on about the things I am learning but I'll spare you for now.

What else? Oh yeah! I have got the knitting bug for sweaters. I've never really been into making sweaters because they are hard and expensive and never fit right. But someone in my class showed me this new way of sweater construction and inspired me to rip apart my old sweaters I've tried to make and fix and beautify them. Check it out!

I also am making progress on the marathon training, 6 miles this week!!
Go Katie, Go Katie

So that's what's up. Ta ta for now.

The Daily Katie

2010-01-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Hi again,
I am starting a new blog project called the Daily Katie.
It is a photo blog with the goal of posting a photo every day for a year. Check it out!
http://thedailykatiegates.blogspot.com

Mini Poem

2010-01-15T08:37:00.000-08:00

As a "get to know each other" sort of activity we wrote these poems for class. They were modeled after a poem by Beverly Daniel Tatum, and our teacher later used the poem as an example for designing good assignments and curriculum - having enough parameters and structure while leaving plenty of room for creativity and diversity. We were supposed to use "I am from" at the beginning of each stanza. It reminded me a lot of our "I am" poems in second grade. :) Anyway it was fun and mom wanted me to post it... so here it is.

I am from baskets of colorful wool and soft alpaca blends;

so many projects to finish in time for Christmas,

knitting season is the coziest of all.

I am from the northwest in the summertime,

an overflowing vegetable garden, mom and I canning homemade blackberry jam,

striped aprons and fresh baked bread,

and farmers markets every Saturday by the ferry.

I am from inside jokes with my sister that nobody else understands,

cribbage games with grandpa, the sore loser and loud winner,

lazy afternoons wading in the inflatable pool

on dads obsessively manicured lawn.

I am from a happy balance of work and play.

wonderful roommates, moldy student housing, ant infestations,

Thursday potlucks and good friends, kitchen dance parties

working hard in school, evergreen programs shaping my future.

I am from wonderful caring teachers

who showed me what school and learning is supposed to be

inspiring me as I hope to inspire others someday.

I am from the promise of good education for everyone.

Whistler and Winter Break

2010-01-14T16:31:00.000-08:00

Happy new year! (A little late...)

I have lots of good updates to blog about but we are going to start by backing up to talk a little about christmas break adventures. Upon arriving home to k-town a gaggle of us friends and families took off to Whistler BC for several days of mountain adventures. I don't ski or snowboard, but I had a lovely time anyway. We had 2 houses at the edge of Whistler village. I did things like build snowmen/dinosaurs, watch crazy tricks, ride the gondola to the top of the mountain and admire at gorgeous snowyness, knit, cook, and have dance parties.

So that was a good time. Christmastime was nice, it was really good to be home and with the family. Louisa and George were in town and it was fun to see them. And of course I miss my mommy daddy and sissy tons, and I wish I could spend more time with them. This is our nice family picture during our Christmas eve brunch at the Nickums. (Notice that mom is IN the picture!!)

New years wasn't too eventful but the party I went to in Seattle at Dylan and Jessie's apartment was a dress to impress theme, so it was fun to get all dressed up. Ross and Daniel missed the memo, they thought it was a dress like Indiana Jones theme. HAR HAR HARRR

More to come soon on classes and school and life.

Knitting Frenzy

2009-12-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

So the quarter is over, everything wrapped up very nicely and it's time for some winter break.
I'm very very excited about vacationing to Whistler BC with a bunch friends next week! Also tomorrow is the second Evergreen contradance which I am looking forward to, and Sunday is the Black Nativity show in Seattle with the fam. Good times ahead.
Also,
Below freezing temperatures + More free time + Mad Skillz = KNITTING SEASON!
P.S. it got down to 6 degrees last week... wtf???
This also means that everyone in my life has been throwing yarn at me and wondering if I will knit them things. So my roommates have some nice new hats and gloves. Let me show you some pictures.

Oh by the way, all of these things are lined with a thin layer of fleece. So warm and so cute. So that's what I've been doing.

I'm pretty excited about the classes I'm registered for next quarter, they all have something to do with teaching, they are called Language Literature and the Schools, Class and Education, and Saving the World: Learning and Teaching. So you can see what direction I am heading in...

That's all for now folks.

Katie's Future

2009-11-23T23:16:00.000-08:00

Whew! Thanksgiving break is here at last! This morning I got up, sat around, knit, watched some youtube videos, knit some more, made a delicious lunch for myself, and knit some more. It's wonderful to just sit around and do nothing! A full day of that is enough though, tomorrow I'll do something productive.

So I've been pondering my future plans a lot lately, and it's probably time I told you about that.
This quarter I have been working 4 days/week at Avanti High School, which is a small alternative high school in Olympia. I work primarily in a math classroom as a tutor/support person. I'm also taking a 4 credit class called Toward Becoming a Teacher, which is blowing my mind. Both these experiences have helped me to start thinking about my goals for teaching and my philosophies about education.

Avanti is a really interesting place, and it reminds me of Options in a lot of ways. For example, the atmosphere is really unstructured and relaxed (in the math classroom at least, other classes are much more teacher led) and the kids go at their own pace based on learning plans that they create. I really like a lot of what I see happening there, and can see myself having a rewarding career teaching somewhere with that kind of progressive model.

On the other hand, the teacher for my 4 credit class, Lester, is really challenging my ideas about teaching. He is one of the most thoughtful, experienced, progressive, and successful teachers I have ever known. He also taught in a giant public high school for 30 something years. To me, these are kind of contradictory statements about a person, just because I was under the false impression that progressive ideas and teachers can't survive in traditional high schools. Lester believes that it is absolutely possible to teach progressively in even the most mainstream traditional schools, and this belief is rubbing off on me. His whole class is about giving us strategies as teachers for doing this, and it is all very inspiring and makes us want to go change the world one teacher at a time. Yay for passion.

I love learning all these strategies tricks and teaching philosophies at the same time that I am actually working and teaching kids in high school. It's a perfect opportunity to test out these ideas for myself and figure out how to apply them while they are fresh in my head. It's also forcing me to re-think my own teaching methods, which I am realizing need a lot of fine tuning.

My current plan is something like: one or two more years getting a BA and maybe a BS, and then probably doing the Masters in Teaching (M.I.T) program at Evergreen since Olympia is awesome and our house is awesome. Then I'd love to take a travel break and go have some amazing adventures, and then teach math or science in a mainstream high school. I see myself eventually ending up teaching in an environment that is closer to the kind of schools I love, alternative high schools, or maybe elementary school. But it's becoming clear to me that the schools that need good teachers the most are public high schools. Good education shouldn't only be accessible to kids whose parents can pay for private school or care enough about their education to send them to an alternative school, I think there needs to be more passionate and caring educators in the mainstream public system, because everyone has the same right to a good education. I also think that I need to become really familiar with the public school system, get to know it really well, before I can understand how to change it.

So that's the plan Stan. But I never like to have too concrete of a plan and I am open to whatever opportunities might come my way. It's still good to have a sense of direction though. (No jokes about my literal sense of direction please...)

I am salivating just thinking about Thanksgiving. We are having a friend thanksgiving this year instead of a family thanksgiving (but friends are family!) and I can't wait. I love to eat.

Oh! I also am making good progress on my marathon training! Last week I ran the furthest and longest I have so far, 4 miles!! For 1 hour! (yes, I know that is 15 min/mile, it's not about speed, it's about distance) I'm so impressed with my legs, I don't know how they do it. It's amazing how you if you can run 2 miles you can run 3, and if you can run 3 you can run 4... and you just keep on going! Whew! I love it. So that's awesome. And I feel great. Somebody should have told me about this whole exercise idea earlier.

Well it's time for bed. The animals in this family have no respect for my room. It smells like cat pee and dog. Is my cat mad at me for leaving her? Is that why she likes to pee in my room? Gross. Guess I'd better go brave it.

Goodnight!

Olive, Sage, Life, and Mika

2009-11-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

Hi!
First things first, lets see what pictures I can dig up since the last time we talked. The painting operations are finally done! Our kitchen and living area are officially green.

Heather finally painted her room too, and did some crazy paint mixing with the awesome result of a very latin-american-y teal and orange combination.

Hanna's room is lavender and turquoise. I didn't want to take a picture of her messy room (she's crazy busy with school, lets not judge...) so here is a picture of a nice colorful corner.

I also painted the bathroom blue. The only walls in our house that aren't painted now are in the hallway. Hopefully the landlord likes it...

So that concludes the colorful tour of our house that's been going on for the last couple blog posts, glad that's over.

We had our roommate bonding adventure last week to go see Mika in Seattle, a singer from the UK who captured our hearts last year and became the soundtrack to our olympia household. I've been to a lot of amazing concerts, but this one was way up there. So epic. Jessie took the first picture because for some reason she got tickets the night before and was in the front row. How obnoxious.

On a more scholarly note, school is wonderful. I'm taking three evening/weekend classes, for a total of 16 credits. Here's the breakdown:

Monday 6-10 pm: Toward Becoming a Teacher (4 credits)
Tuesday 5:30 - 9:30: Woodworking (4 credits)
Wednesday: 5:30 - 9:30 pm & all day every other Saturday: Religion and Society (8 credits)

Toward becoming a teacher is amazing and inspiring and I love it. The teacher was a public high school teacher for 30 years with a progressive Evergreen-style outlook on teaching, and he is such a wise guru of education. I don't need to take notes in his class because everything he says goes directly into my soul.

Woodworking is awesome, it's a lot of hands-on bench work with hand tools and power tools and we get to play all evening in the woodshop. We're working on morise and tenon joints right now for the tables we are building. No nails or screws involved. So legit.

Religion and Society is blowing my mind right now, we are studying the histories and doctrines of the three monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, and as a person who has never really studied religion at all, I am feeling very enlightened lately about the world.

I'm also working every day at Avanti high school tutoring math and science, and I love it. It's so nice to be paid (a pretty high wage) for doing something that's relevant to my career, fun, and extremely rewarding! Avanti is a super progressive alternative school that's really interesting to be a part of. More on that later.

My friends in the blogosphere Lila and Amelia have started taking pictures of their workspaces every day and posting them on their blogs, and I want to be just like them so I took one today too. I looked at my desk and realized that it was a pretty accurate representation of my life, so here you go.

Laterzzzzzz

Electric Lime

2009-10-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

People, (mom...) have been asking for pictures of my bright green room.
Yes, we finally live in a place we can paint!

Hooray!! It makes me so happy to be in a bright green room.
We painted the living room a much more sophisticated and grown-up shade of green. I promise it doesn't look as split-pea-soup-y in person as it does in these pictures. The accent walls are lighter so it's not incredibly intense. We love it. So does our landlord, so that's good.

So our living room and kitchen are pretty colors, but unfortunately due to busy-ness and lack of a truck we still are lame on the furniture situation but we are having a halloween party so we will have to figure that out soon.
Pictures and blogging to come when I feel inspired.
:)

New House, New Quarter, New Yard...

2009-09-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

The time has come to share some pictures of our new space. We haven't worked any magic on the living room yet because we are painting in the next couple weeks (!!!) and don't have our furniture here. But I know you are dying to have a little look-see so here's a couple of pictures of our house's innards. Remember how lame it looks now because soon it will be painted and beautiful and nested!

This is when you walk in the front door, living room/dining area

Our kitchen isn't as big as our last one, but we are making do just fine.

So... our yard used to look like this, but a stupid giant stump in our yard was taking over the property with it's obnoxious giant roots and baby trees everywhere, and the lawn was very uneven and awful. So we invited Kraig and my dad to visit with Kraig's Kubota.

There! Now we just need to plant some grass and we will be good to go. Thank you so much dad and Kraig!! Look at the roots we dug up. Tractor: 1, Stump: 0.

So we have a lot of work to do on the place, but once we work our magic on it it will be perfect. I just wonder when we will all find time with school starting on monday and all...

I won't know what main program I'm taking until Tuesday, because I'm on a lot of waitlists and have to show up to the first day of a couple different classes to see what I get into. I do know for sure that I am taking a 4 credit class called Towards Becoming a Teacher and also woodworking. I'm working for the Center for Community Based Learning and Action (CCBLA) again this year 10 hours per week, which I am very excited about. Last year I worked at Tumwater High school which was a 45 minute bus ride to spend 3 hours with whiny angry high schoolers. This year I convinced them to let me work at Garfield Elementary, which is not only an age group that I love working with and see myself working with as a career, but it is also right next to my house! Yay for walking to work!!

In other news, Hanna bear has returned from her jungle adventures in Belize this summer, and our family is whole again. To celebrate the end of the summer we went camping this week about an hour south of Olympia at a state park on Mayfield lake. Our former neighbor and now good friend Tatsu also came with us, and it was a jolly time. A little too cold for swimming, or sleeping, but it was nice to relax a little bit and spend some time together.

Well summer, it's been real.
Let the quarter begin.

Life Update

2009-09-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hi!
Lots has been going on in my recent summertime! Lets start with moving!
We have officially moved into our new house, and it is practically perfect in every way. In fact, let me count the ways.

1) We all have our own bedrooms... finally
2) There is lots of outdoor space for gardening :)
3) There is an apple tree
4) There is a cute and magical draping tree for sitting under
5) There are wood floors
6) Rent is less than our maximum budget
7) Walking distance to the Olympia food Co-op
8) Right next to the bus stop for school, downtown, safeway, and the mall
9) Our friends are very close
10) There is a big nature trail and awesome elementary school playground within walking distance
11) We are close to the best soft serve ice cream and milkshakes in the universe
12) Everything ever is a short bus ride or bike ride away
13) Olympia is amazing

So life is good. The house is still a big mess from moving and chaos so I don't have pictures for you, but Hanna will be back in 4 days (!!!!) and we will start putting things together. The kitchen is ready to go but the living room is full of boxes and random annoying items. Of course, my room is happy and fully decorated. The yard is also a huge mess and needs a lot of work. So much work that my father and craig are planning on coming down with the tractor and tearing up the yard. Might as well start fresh. It's a nightmare.

I have made some progress though, yesterday I woke up early and felt inspired to work outside, so I tore apart the rockery outside our back patio and rebuilt it, filled it with delicious compost and planted my first flower garden! Oh sorry, our flower garden. I'm not taking over... I'm just motivated and antsy to get in the dirt.

Before:

After:

Yay pretty flowers. I also have a dream that by the end of the summer I will have a colorful medley of jars in my cupboard full of delicious homemade things. I'm well on my way to fulfilling this dream. Last night I made lots of tomato sauce with the huge amount of neglected and dying tomatoes I rescued from foxglove, to join my 5 different kinds of jams I've made, chutneys, and my soon to be pickles.

I love canning. I love knowing where my food comes from, knowing that I was involved in the making of it, and having delicious things to eat in the winter. I also made a ton of pesto with 2 flats of basil that foxglove threw out, and froze it in ice cube trays for easy pasta. My lovely new perennial garden came from their reject plants too. One person's trash is another person's treasure I guess!

School doesn't start until the 28th, so I'm loving being able to spend the end of my summer in Olympia getting settled and being our house's mama bear.
Stay tuned for pictures of our house once we get everything put together!

The Times They Are A-Changin

2009-08-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend our happy little family in olympia (see picture) is moving! We are leaving our previous home in Butler Cove Duplexes, because while we once loved it and called it home, we need more space, (having our own rooms would be nice...) and we could live without the ants and moldy problems.

So on Sunday we are relocating to a little 3 bedroom house just down division (B on the map). The location is PERFECT and we are so happy we found it. It on the same road as the coop (a very short walk) right next to the bus stop, and right in the heart of everything we ever wanted to be close to. And there is a good amount of outdoor space so I can FINALLY have the garden I've always wanted!!

I've been buying an unhealthy amount of plants to prepare for these exciting new garden possibilities, since I have an employee discount at foxglove and can't help myself.

These are just some of the perennials I have accumulated this week.
I can't wait to be back in the land of Oly. Although it will be sad to leave my family again. We have lots of couches though so mom, dad, friends... visit me!!

Coeur D'Alene

2009-08-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,
Summer is chugging right along, the last couple weeks I have been house sitting on Bainbridge with this. Cute, but I could live without the drool. So I don't have a lot to say about that.

At the end of last month we had our 4th Annual kids camping trip, which was awesome. We went this year to Coeur D'Alene Idaho. A bit of a drive, but we had a lot of fun. Swimming all day, floating down a river, sitting around a campfire, and relaxing in the sun for 3 days. Not too shabby.

BAMF Woof pack forever.

Creations, Cotton Candy, and Culinary Wonders

2009-07-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

What am I doing with myself this summer you wonder?
Well, sometimes I work here:

Same place I've worked for 3 summers, and hopefully this is my last summer here or I might punch someone in the face. But yes, I am happy that I have some work and some money coming in. But if I have to plant any more cyclamen I might die a little bit inside.

I only work weekends though, so this leaves five glorious days of the week for other adventures! I had a nice time visiting some friends on Vashon a couple weekends ago. Stephanie will point out where she lives on Vashon for you in this picture.

We went to point defiance park out of boredom and realized that there was an event going on, I think it was Tastes of Tacoma or something, but it wasn't very interesting so we played on the beach and wandered around in the forest. That was exciting.

Speaking of beaches, I have come to the same realization as Lila that there are beaches in this town, and that it's fun to go to them. So we've been spending some quality time hanging around on the beach, building fun beach sculptures.

With my other copious free time, I've been spending a lot of days in the kitchen, making tons of jam. Yes, I took nice pictures of my jam, so I might as well share them with you. But only because I'm embarking on a crafty project of trying to put together a nice recipe book for myself with pictures.

Raspberry, mmmmm:Strawberry Rhubarb! Sooo good:
Spiced Blueberry, deeeeeelicious:

I got bored of making the amazing rustic bread that mom and I have learned how to make, so I've been experimenting with trying to make a hearty whole grain/seed bread. This was my first attempt and it turned out so wonderful! So good. And healthy.

I've also been breakin out the knitting kneedles because it seemed like a fun idea to make things for my friends. These slippers are for my bestest friend at UW (can you tell?) and I got excited about some new hand-felting needles I got and so I also made a stuffed animal for my friend in Olympia.

In other news, when I left for school the once lovely and bountiful garden deteriorated into something like this:

And the only solution was this:

Time for a fresh start in the garden I guess. I've been thinking a lot about the beautiful garden I plan on initiating in Olympia when I get back. We (Katie Heather Hanna) are determined to find a nice little house to live in semi-permanently until we finish school ish, because nobody likes moving all the time.

Oh yes! The 4th of July! It was so fun to be back in Kingston for the 4th, last year I was in Vienna or Prague or something. Kingston is where it's at. The parade, the inner tubing, the fireworks, the friends, all the people in town, I love it so much.

Jessie and I also helped out a little at Tiny town selling cotton candy. We only sold 3 though, because nobody really wants cotton candy on July 3rd at 10 in the morning. But we were festive for the occasion anyway.

That's all for now folks!

Bring on the SUMMER!

2009-06-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Hi friends, it's been a little while!
Don't worry, I haven't abandoned you. Life where we left off was pretty busy, but then it was suddenly really not busy. So I don't really have any excuses for not blogging about my marvelous life.

Lets see, school ended, my evaluations were lovely, lots of nice words were exchanged. I really enjoyed my program. But summer is here and I'm back in good ol' Kingston town. I'm working at foxglove greenhouses again this summer, but only on the weekends. I'm very glad I'm only working weekends though, because due to my sister blowing up my car I don't have very reliable transportation to work and have been riding my bike to work, which is partly a great way to start the day and great exercise and partly makes me want to die at 6:30 in the morning. But it builds character.

One notable event before school ended was the departure of Khaled, an exchange student from Yemen who has spent the year here, who many of us have come to befriend and love. I came home from Olympia for his goodbye party, so that was nice. Around about 9 at night, Blythe and I decided that we would never see him again (unlike all the other people at the party who go to school with him and aren't away at college all the time) and that we should go on an all-night adventure celebration. So we kidnapped Khaled and went on "Adventure Day" which was just a drive to Seattle to Dylan's apartment and adventure around Seattle until 5 in the morning. It was a good time. Bye Khaled, you will be missed.

Our Olympia family has parted ways for the summer, Hanna is on a jungle adventure in Belize for 3 months, Heather is staying in Olympia at our house because she loves working at the financial aid office so much, and I'm back here planting cabbages. Here is a family portrait right before Hanna left us.

Right after leaving Olympia me and the peeps gathered to start summer off right by heading to Lake Cushman for boat times. Life is just so good.

In other news, the bread wars have begun. Not really, mine and mom's bread are living together peacefully in harmony. This came out of the oven yesterday, it has roasted garlic, carmelized onions, and fresh oregano and basil in it... best ever.

You can just call me the bread queen. (Admitedly, mom's bread is incredible too... but I was appalled and jealous to learn that she uses the mixer instead of kneading it like a real bread maker. Gonna have to get me one of those...)

Happy Summer!

Gourmet College Students, Mommy's Day, and the French Revolution.

2009-05-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

I've been in bed for 2 days with an awesome spring bug, so I guess I'll take a break from constant napping to blog for you. My new camera is finally in my life, so here comes the pictures, whether you like it or not.

Basically our dinner parties are reaching a whole new deliciousness level. We had crepe night a couple weeks ago which was a huge hit. College students aren't supposed to eat this well.

On mothers day, mommy came down to Olympia to visit, and we had a wonderful mother-daughter day. Unfortunately the pictures that exist of both of us are really hideous so just imagine us smiling happily together. We walked around downtown a little bit, hit up the farmers market and some fun shops, made some bread, played some cribbage, and had a fondue party at one of our friends houses. So delicious.

It was really fun, and it was nice to introduce mom to some of my friends. Also my bread skills are steadily improving.

Here are a couple other random dinner party pictures worth sharing:

These are some of the neighbor boys who we have become very fond of. We are proud that they come over to our dinner parties by themselves now, we don't have to go fetch them anymore.

We have shifted in our studies from the ancient world to the 18th century now, and have been studying the french revolution for the last few weeks. It's such an interesting time period and I'm drawing connections everywhere! Go Evergreen! I don't have class today and tomorrow to work on a take home essay exam, but I slept all day instead. Oh well, tomorrow hopefully I'll be able to move enough to hold a book or sit up.

Bye now

Fire, Illumination, and the Animal Kingdom in the Streets

2009-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

I love Olympia so much today! This weekend was an action packed one in Oly town. Friday night was the arts walk downtown, during which people sell art on the streets and in shops and there are awesome arts displays everywhere. We saw one of our friends with her capoeira group, which is a really cool artistic form of martial arts, (it was night time so that's why these pictures are crazy) and we saw another one of our friends who is in the evergreen juggling club doing a pretty amazing fire juggling/breathing display.

After the arts walk festivities is the annual Luminary parade, which is really hard to photograph but it was really awesome. It's a pre-procession of the species parade where people make really intricate awesome lanterns and parade around downtown. This picture sucks but it's the best one I have.

So that was all fine and good and wonderful, but Saturday is where the real fun starts. The procession of the species parade happens every year and all the streets are closed down, species gather, people line up, and the animal kingdom parades downtown for 13 blocks. AMAZING!! Last year I only heard about it the day before, but this year I was in it, (shhh... I didn't use this same costume for halloween, what are you talking about?) Heather took a lot of pictures of me while I was talking but oh well.

The pictures I took of the procession were of people getting ready in their element groups, so the pictures of the actual processsion were taken by Heather. I found other fellow jellyfish and we coordinated some pretty sweet jellyfish moves. It was a blast. It's really weird dancing around in the streets for an hour with everybody in olympia watching you and taking pictures of you, but I loved it. Here are some of my pictures of pre-procession festivities.

Here are some gems from Heather's camera:

For you science dorks out there that one is a bacteriophage :)

And now a grand adventures of katie gates exclusive video, because pictures sometimes can't capture everything. It's kind of a lame video but you can get see some of the group dancing they did. The zebras were part of a samba group.

It was a great weekend.

Bread, Bikes, and Adorable Professors

2009-04-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Hanna keeps waking me up at 7:00 in the morning, so I might as well blog really fast for you.

There are several exciting things happening right now, (well, not very exciting to blog about but exciting for me...)

a) I got a new bike, which I love dearly and have been riding to school and all over town on every day. She doesn't have a name yet, but she will. I can't tell you how nice it is to have a bike that actually works. Now she is all pimped out with a basket and lock and I am so happy. And so mobile.

b) My bread making adventures have soared to new heights after taking a wonderful rustic bread making class with my mommy at the farm kitchen last weekend. Here is a lovely photo of mother and her beautiful bread.

Mine hasn't been turning out quite that pretty, but it has been DELICIOUS. The problem with living in very close proximity to lots of friends and college students is that a loaf only lasts about a day. But sharing is caring. Or something. Anyway,

c) I love my program this quarter. I've decided that any class is 80% the teachers and 20% the material. I love all my faculty members so much, they are a) knowledgeable b) excited about what they teach c) good at teaching d) know everyone's name already and e) so adorable. So many people showed up for class on the first day that they had to hire a new faculty member on the spot to be a seminar leader. Laura is my seminar teacher, but we think she might actually be Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. Adorable. And then there is Ulrike, the tiny little historian and ancient history enthusiast and speaker of 8 languages, although she won't tell us what they are. Adorable. We biked passed each other yesterday and knew my name, even though I haven't really ever interacted with her, and I just thought... wow. My teachers in my last program didn't even know my name after being in their classes for 2 quarters, interacting with them a lot. And then there is Stacey, also tiny and a french historian with huge curly hair and big sweaters. Adorable.

I'm sorry... did I just go on a rant about how adorable my teachers are? If you were in this class you would too. But seriously... it's such a good class, and I have learned more about ancient greek and roman history in the last 5 weeks than I have learned about anything else ever... well that's not true. But it's good.

That's all for now, I should probably go get ready for work.
Enjoy the BEAUTIFUL SUNSHINE!

Springtime Update!

2009-04-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

Hi! It's been a little while!
Before I go into all the fresh and exciting things about my life this quarter, let me just back up and finish blogging about the end of winter quarter.

Where did I leave you in the story of my grand adventures? Spring break was good, it was good to be home, even though everyone was busy busy busy. I do have something to show for my break though, father helped me realize my dreams of building a foresty spice rack to hold all the jars and bottles I have been accumulating. I love it. Note the little labels crafted with Hanna's extremely old label maker.

So thanks dad!! Also Johnny is gone forever on his escapades in Alaska. It was wonderful to have him in our lives for however short a time. A few days before he left we had a little goodbye roommate camping trip in capitol forest, in a closed campground after trekking across raging rapids and thick forest lands to explore a scary gold mine. (I definitely epic-ed that story up but it was still fun)

We burned all of the remnants of Johnny's past, (including this lovely graduation cap) because he is cleansing his possessions to only include things he can carry with him to Alaska. This also meant that he bestowed upon us some nice things, mostly awesome kitchen gadgets.
So now that he is gone, HEATHER IS HOME!!! It is wonderful to have our family be whole again. Here is the link to Heather's blog if you are curious about her amazing adventures in Venezuela!

It's a fresh start to the quarter. The class I am taking is called Inventing the Citizen, which is about western European history, politics, and philosophy. And I love it. It's so nice to use my brains again. The reading load is so intense, last week I read (or at least was supposed to read... even though I spent every minute of my spare time reading I didn't quite finish) 4 entire texts from ancient greece, rome, and midieval france. Not exactly light reading. But I love it and am working very hard to try to make up for the last 2 quarters. Our faculty are great, the material is great, the students are great, pretty much a complete 180 from my last class.

I don't really have much else to say except I finally got over myself and bought a camera this afternoon, since I have not had my own camera for over a year and it brings me great sadness to not be able to photograph things. I'm sure this also directly contributes to sadness in your life not being able to experience my pictures through this blog. So look forward to more pictures in the coming quarter!

Peace out G's

Sunshine on my Shoulders... Makes me Happyyyy

2009-03-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

The sun has made a long awaited and very much appreciated appearance this week!! It's still cold though, in fact it's been snowing a little bit here and there, but it's gorgeous out! My program is the lamest of them all and actually got out a week before the week that we evergreeners get out for conferences anyway, so it seems that my spring break is actually 3 weeks long. Both of these factors have contributed to much adventure taking. Yesterday me and Laiza Beans went on an adventure to the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge to walk around and soak up some sun. It was so lovely.

Last week, me and Johnny were bored and journeyed to Tumwater falls which is equally gorgeous.

I've also been biking lots and in serious denial about the fact that sun doesn't necessarily equal warmth. Come on spring!! Our dinner parties have been on the lame side lately, mostly because we are lazy and kind of burned out on the quarter and not coming up with any creative ideas, and partly because people have stopped coming to them. But at least me and Hanna and Johnny have each other, and we can always recruit our neighbors if it turns out we don't have any friends. Last week we made some kinda weird pizzas, and Johnny made a lasagna type item, mostly just lots of random layers of really odd things. One thing we've noticed about him and his cooking is that he likes to layer, and he likes to blend.

Our dinner party last week turned into a trip to the evergreen art annex with our artsy neighbors which we have never been to (considering that we are evergreen science dorks). This is a picture of our neighbor Tatsu who is wonderful and artistic, blah blah blah, but there is one thing about him that seriously distresses us: he doesn't like fruit. Let me rephrase that, he is repulsed by the smell, sight, and taste of any fruit in the entire fruit world. Who doesn't like fruit?!! So one day we got in a discussion of pranks and got the idea to sneak lots of fruit into his house, bed, etc... with the help of his roommate. We also had a peanut butter stealing war with our other neighbors. There has been quite the neighbor war commencing in Butler Cove.

In other news, this is the most successful sourdough loaf I have made so far... note that the yeast I raised from little babies out of thin air has actually grown up and is capable of rising my bread! I'm so proud of my little microflora colony.

Johnny has also introduced us to $2 Wednesdays at skateland, which is pretty awesome. Hanna and I were completely incompetant on roller skates, and quickly switched to roller blades, and I am somewhat of a complete spaz on those too, but it was fun.

So now that my STUPID class is finally over, I can't even wait for next quarter. I'm enrolled in 16 credits for spring, 12 of those is in a class called Inventing the Citizen: The History of Political Action and it's Limits in Western Europe. I'm pretty excited about doing something in the humanities here, and this class and faculty has good reviews from students and the academic advisors. Honestly, after the class I was in the last 2 quarters, anything is an improvement. I'm also taking a little 2 credit class called Tutoring Math and Science Across Significant Differences, which will be relevant to my tutoring job at Tumwater High and Americorps, and also give me some nice handy teaching skills. I'm going to take Afro Brazilian Dance again too, because I kind of stopped going this quarter due to ankle issues and my work schedule.

I'm looking forward to next quarter and to being back in K-town for a couple weeks. Bring on the Spring.

Um... That Is Not An Evolutionary Stable Strategy.

2009-02-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

Oh goodness it has been a little while. Hello again beloved readers.

The quarter is almost over (thank you baby jesus) and I am almost done with my stupid program I've been stuck in since fall. My life is slowly transitioning and I am very excited for the direction I hope it is heading in.

I've finally started working two days a week at Tumwater High School, employed through the CCBLA (center for community based learning and action), paid through state work study, and somehow getting volunteer hours through americorps. I'm very excited about this Americorps thing, because I just recently enrolled in a 300 hour contract, so I have one year to complete 300 hours of volunteer work which my tutoring counts toward, and then I get a $1000 tuition waver! Not bad right? It is very unlikely it will take me a year though, hopefully I can complete that in a quarter if I do it right. I will have a lot of time during the week in the spring since my classes will be in the evening, and I hope to start volunteering for Olympia Community School again. I miss those little tykes.

So yay, things are looking up for me financially, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for our fine schools. Christine Gregoire is proposing budget cuts for many things including our education... which means that many washington colleges and universities are cutting up to 20% of their budgets, which for evergreen is $5 million. It hits us harder than big schools because we are so small and 20% for us means cutting lots of visiting and part time faculty, our entire tacoma campus, many of our evening and weekend programs, and sooo much more. It sucks. So last monday me and some other students and friends went to the capitol to rally and lobby. Lots of newspaper people took pictures of us (probably because my sign was so awesome...) and yet the picture they chose to print and put up on their website was this one... we look so unenthused. I promise, we were enthused.

In social news, the thursday before this one (so feb 12th) was a very momentous day in history and for our thursday dinner parties. It was Darwin's 200th birthday, (and Lincoln's 200th and our friend's 20th) and so we had an evolution themed birthday bash for our old friend (I am talking about darwin of course). There were balloons, party hats, the whole shabang, including evolution themed cookies. (Note darwin in the upper right, and the finches and darwin fishes and dinosaurs...) We also had primoridal soup, flying spaghetti, and other clever things.

Johnny made some cookies but their shapes were open for interpertation. This one we decided was Darwin when he figured out his theory of evolution.

Hanna's mom was also visiting for our festivities, and her and Hanna made the most BOMBALICIOUS vegan cupcakes, they were seriously the best cupcakes I've ever had in my life. There was even some genetic variation in the population of cupcakes due to some frosting and sprinkle mutations. Anyway...

I've been saving the best bit of news for last. We couldn't have an evolution themed darwin party without a special guest of honor- drum roll please... Bret Weinstien attended our party, who is basically the biggest evergreen celebrity ever, and an amazing evolutionary biologist. You don't understand, almost all of my friends have taken classes from Bret at some point in their evergreen careers, and rave and rave about how he changed their lives. Every single conversation in our household somehow ends up being about Bret, evolution, or Bret's research. He is currently Hanna's professor, and he showed up with his 2 adorable kids, pasta, wine, and his infinite knowledge about everything wonderful. Here is hard proof that Bret was actually at our house...

So that's everything interesting in my life I can think of,
Peace out.

Snow DAY!

2009-02-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

6 inches of snow this morning? What gives? These are our snowman friends Jezebel Celeste and her husband Ricky Ross. They had a son too named Ricky Jr. but he didn't come out in the picture very well.

Moose and Marshmellows

2009-02-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

Lets see, this week.
Lets go backwards in time, starting with this morning. This morning we got up really early (me and Hanna and Dylan) to take Dylan back to Seattle after a lovely visit with him this weekend. He was very overworked and stressed and sick but he found the energy to bring the party to Olympia, and we spent some time with lots of fun people at lots of fun places (pizza, parties, Daniel's house, red robin, the dollar store... the usual)

So anyway after we dropped of Dylan in seattle at 7:30 this morning, me and Hanna went on an adventure to NW Trek, a wildlife park about 45 minutes away from Olympia. It is a very cool place and the animals seem to be very happy and free to roam about their artificial but still very large and accommodating habitats. We saw lots of fun animals, on the walking tour we saw owls, eagles, bears, otters, wolverines, bobcats, badgers, porcupines, the usual northwest forest animals. Then we took a little tram all over the 435 acres of wetlands, forests, and meadows and saw some moose, bison, mountain goats, big horned rams... your typical big awesome animals.

In other news, last week we didn't know what to do for thursday dinner party night and it was thursday afternoon, and Johnny came home and we asked him if he had any ideas, and he said "Yes, marshmellow men." So we made marshmellow creatures. We also made grilled paninis that were out of this world. Here are some of the creations from that night: (By the way, that's Johnny in the picture below)

In case it isn't obvious, this is a whale with some people riding it on a sea of sprinkles.

Yeah I don't know about some of our friends... this one was a little creepy...

As far as class goes, no new developments except that my IHP (independent health project) is going fabulously, I've been exercising lots and feeling great. Also my sourdough starter is beginning to show happy bubbly signs of readiness. So life is pretty good.

Tacos and Treehouses

2009-01-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

This quarter has been very frustrating so far considering that the only reason I am staying in my stupid program is the independent health projects. Unfortunately, my project is exercise-based but due to sprained ankleage and the stupid flu, my body has not been up for it. So I haven't been going to class really and the classes I have gone to have been stupid. Today we spent the whole day at a lecture about how to buy a house. In a health/biology/psychology/anthropology program. WHAT?? GRRR
But it's okay. Hopefully very soon things will be better and I will be more productive and motivated.

Other things are good. This week we had taco/burrito night and it was delicious. Homemade salsa and fish/beefy/beany burrito wonder. Not as many people were here this week as last week, which was a good thing since last week was madness. It was a good group and a wonderful time.

At some point we started throwing a ball of string around the room and attaching it to ourselves, making a weird web thing. Then we started switching places with the people we threw it to, still attached to the string, and it was very random and very silly. Then we stuck our web to the ceiling with thumbtacks and it is now a very nice addition to our decor. By the way, our new(ish) housemate Johnny is the one in the middle of this picture with the plaid shirt. He doesn't look very happy but he is a very jolly fellow. We are especially surprised at how much he likes to cook and clean. He's better than we are. I guess all boys aren't useless and messy.

The sun made an appearance this weekend, and so Hanna and I went on an adventure in the woods to play in the many treehouses the evergreen woods has to offer. It was wonderful except that my ankle wasn't too happy with me afterwards and I was late to samba class.
This is the famous 3 story treehouse that apparently everyone knew about way before I did.

This is another less impressive treehouse but I like it better because of the colorful graffiti and the dwarves and gnomes all around it.

So that's life.

I Am Just a Speck of Dust Inside a Giant's Eye

2009-01-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

Hi friends and loved ones and random readers...
Winter quarter is rolling along, there hasn't been a lot to blog about since I've been sitting on the couch for a week elevating my purple and swollen extremity. I sprained my ankle at the contradance last Sunday, which was a big bummer cause I'm supposed to be doing my exercise project... hmm. But I'm up and walking now (kind of gimpy but walking nonetheless!) And it's all good.

Last Saturday though was my first Afro-Brazilian dance class (which is pretty much samba) and it was SOOO fun! I have my second class today but sadly I will not be joining in the dancing festivities, but I can still watch and play the drums (they encouraged us to always come to class no matter what is wrong with you) It is a 2 credit saturday class and integrates music, culture, movement, and dance in a really awesome way and I have decided that I should always be in a dance class. Or dancing in general.
So my other class is not really doing it for me, but it's ok and I am learning a little. Reading a lot. Improving my health. So that's good. Luckily there are interesting things going on in other aspects of my life, social... etc.
Our dinner party last thursday was the most successful it's ever been, and by successful I mean turnout, not necessarily ability to feed everyone or financially justify it... but it was very fun. We had 20 something people crammed into our tiny kitchen area, and the theme was appetizers.

The problem was that every time we walked from the oven to the table with a plate of something they would be gone before reaching the table. But it mellowed out and became the nice usual number and crowd and was a fine evening.

Kendal came to visit me early in the week and brought me goodies from mommy and crutches, which was wonderful. We had a lovely visit.

Heather has officially gone to Venezuela and all of us are very sad that she is gone but also very excited for her to have amazing adventures abroad. Johnny is officially settled in and a fun addition to our household. He likes dancing, roller skating, and he came with a food processor. So we like him.

Last night there was a grand re-opening of the Olympia library, complete with refreshments and lively entertainment. First there were some goofy numbers including a Shel Silverstien punk rock cover band, which kind of drove the kids and elders away but started a mini dance pit in the library.
Then Kimya Dawson played some precious childrens songs and some other songs too and it was good fun. She is adorable. And I also learned that she has started a fun "no-pressure" choir that everyone is welcome to join and sing silly songs, and it's on my street. So I'm looking forward to going to sing with Kimya and her jolly singers on tuesdays. (She lives in Olympia you know.)

So that's what's going on in my life, hopefully next week I will be more mobile and have some more interesting adventures to talk about. And maybe even learn something at school.
Ta ta.

Merry White Christmas!

2008-12-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!
Time for a jolly winter update.

Many people are complaining about all the trouble the recent freak snowstorm has been causing, but Jessie and I have been loving it. Not being able to leave the house is a perfect excuse to relax, which is especially convenient the week before Christmas when there is a lot of crafting and elfing to be done. I have been knitting so much that the nerves in my hands have started spazzing out.

Dad and I also collaborated on a big birdfeeder for Mom, which he built and I decorated with all of the broken dishes we have collected over the years. It was quite a project.

This has been a very low-key break and Christmas partly because of the economy and partly because we have been pretty snowed in, but this has driven our holidays away from all the stuff and back to what Christmastime is supposed to be about - family, friends, being thankful, all that jazz. Last night (Christmas eve) we had a yummy family dinner with the grandparents and stopped by 2 different Christmas parties and it was very apparent to me how blessed I am to have so many wonderful friends and family and so much love in my life. It just doesn't get any better.

The snow was a lovely treat this year, I can't remember ever having a white Christmas here. Here are some pictures of our snowy escapades.

I love how when it snows life and routines just stop, chaos ensues, and mother nature reminds us that she's the really the boss. Not to mention how gorgeous and magical it all is.

As far as school goes, I wasn't able to get into that weekend class I wanted, but oh well. I intend to put everything into my independent health project and I am also enrolled in Afro-Brazilian dance and might also participate in the Evergreen Singers. Just thought I'd throw some silly fun classes in there to mix things up. Hopefully that plus my new job will keep me busier than last quarter.

I hope that all of you out there had a wonderful Christmas!
See you next year!

Christmas Cookies, Silliness and The FUTURE

2008-12-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

So to follow up on the post about how my class is dumb, here is my plan.
I have talked to my professors and my plan is to work it out so next quarter I will take less than 16 credits in Health and Human Development and drop the components of the class I think are stupid. This would mean I would continue to do my individual health project (because that's one of the reasons I wanted to take this class) and I would also participate in seminar and do the reading. I hope to drop the human biology and psychology portion of the class (not because I don't like the subjects but because our teachers in those subjects aren't teaching us anything). This would leave me some room and time to take a 4 credit Saturday class called Fates of Human Society. Here is the description: We will consider in depth the question "To what degree do environmental factors and human responses to them determine the fates of human societies?" We will work toward answering this question by drawing on archaeology, palaeoecology, palaeoethnobotany, palaeoclimatology, and zoology as we examine the past 100,000 years of the human story. Upper division science credit will be awarded.
I think it sounds fascinating. Lots of -ologies. And we will be reading Jared Diamond, who is a genius.

I will also be taking up yoga classes again, and Hanna and I want to take a fun elective for a couple credits, possibly ceramics, afro-brazilian dance, or swing dancing. I'm excited.
So hopefully I will be much more challenged academically and in general next quarter. I will also be working through evergreen with the Center for Community-Based Learning and Action (CCBLA) tutoring high school students in science and math 10 hours per week.

In other news, there was a major christmas cookie operation here last weekend. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We have been like little cookie fairies, delivering tins of cookies to friends and neighbors because we are a cute little family like that. Don't worry mom, I'm bringing a box home to you too.

I couldn't resist posting a few other photo gems from the weekend. Here are some random pictures of friends and cats.

Also, Hanna and I were waiting for the bus and Heather's computer and photobooth application called out to us. It started out as some nice roommate picture time, but very quickly went downhill.

Such silly times.

School, Soup and Disembodied Ponytails

2008-12-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

There have been some complaints among the grandparent crowd that I have not been informing my faithful blog readers about what's going on at school, and that I only blog about fun social things. Good point gramps. The thing is though, school is very boring right now and I don't want to put my readers to sleep. But I'll try.

So my class Health and Human Development is a little bit ridiculous right now. Our teachers are incompetent and they spend half of lecture trying to figure out how to work the projector or answering dumb irrelevant questions that people have. Right now we are studying adolescence and reading 400 page books about teenagers and their self-esteem and self-destruction problems. I'm sorry, I just really don't want to be learning about poor confused pubescent Susie in public school and how she hates herself because the media says she isn't beautiful and about all her eating disorders. I want to learn about anthropology and human anatomy/physiology, and instead we are doing lots of fluffy psychology that I'm just not interested in. So that's where I am with my class. Many of my classmates share the same frustrations, and would be transferring out of this program except that next quarter is the "Individual Health Project" which we all plan to put everything into to make up for this lame quarter. My IHP is about exercise. This quarter I have studied a lot about the physiology and research regarding exercise- got myself all up to date on the recommendations and literature. Next quarter we are applying our research to our lives, and I have a very vigorous exercise program planned out for myself, and I plan on sticking to it. This class is a good excuse to get healthy, so I'm staying for that reason. I also do sometimes enjoy the seminar books we are reading quite a bit. At least all this has helped me figure out what I don't want to do. I think I've gotten my fill of science for now, and next year/spring quarter I want to take something that is very discussion based and conceptual and something that will blow my mind and turn my life upside down. That's what good Evergreen programs have a reputation for doing.

So back to my social life...
Our thursday dinner parties are proving to be a pretty awesome idea. The first week was spaghetti night, the week before thanksgiving was pancake night, and last night was soup night. It is a wonderful excuse to get a bunch of people together and make delicious things. People are starting to get into it too, people brought delicious breads, soups, and wine. I made a pumpkin apple curry coconut milk soup that was outta this world. If I do say so myself.

Hanna made a wonderful hearty minestrone and Rainy brought over an amazing shrimp corn chowder. The neighbors brought over freshly made bread which was vegan and delicious. It is such a fun time. And the evening always ends in other fun activities, this time it was guitar sing-a-longs and cutting 12 inches of Hanna's hair off.

Deep Fried Giving of the Thanks

2008-11-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely thanksgiving this year, breaking away from the family tradition and having 24 friends and their dinners over for the evening. There were 2 turkeys, one that Jim and Amy barbequed and one that dad deep fried. Both were amaaaazing. It was wonderful to be reunited with the gang.

(photos by mama the great)

Living Room Fort Fun!

2008-11-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

What are we... in fourth grade? It was a typical Sunday afternoon- the kind where people have homework to do but they are bored and want to do something amazing, so we built a fort. The obvious choice.

It started out with just me, Hanna, and Hanna's friend Spencer who was visiting from WSU. We watched the incredibles and ate crackers. We are such little kids.

We soon realized that we couldn't have a fort without inviting everyone we know to visit, so we called up everyone we could think of that hadn't left for thanksgiving (which most people had) and spent all day playing cards, guitar, and having a wonderful time in our cozy and rather unstable fort. It was a good day.

Not so Turkey Day!

2008-11-23T11:00:00.001-08:00

Here is a beautiful picture of our vegan, wheat-free, early thanksgiving in Olympia. It was a nice gathering of random fun people, and I was surprised to discover how yummy all those weird egg/bread/milk/whatever substitutes were!

But tomorrow it's time to return home for the epic deep fried turkey, and I can't even wait. All this vegetarian veganism is starting to make everything look like walking bacon and steaks, like in cartoons. Not really, that was a lie. Hanna's cooking is beyond wonderful. I love you Hanna.

Teenage vampires, aaand Swing Your Partner Do-Si-Do!

2008-11-22T11:13:00.000-08:00

Hi readers, guess what? It's thanksgiving break! That means all sorts of fun activities are about to go down, or have already gone down. Lets start with thursday night, which was the premier of the Twilight movie, which every tween and high schooler alike has been anticipating ever since they became obsessed with the book about teenage vegetarian vampire romance... ?
Anyway, me and a bunch of friends decided it was a good excuse to go out, so we stood in line with gaggles of squealing teenage girls and watched the midnight show... ohhh dear. It was very entertaining, because it was pretty much the cheesiest thing I have ever seen, and didn't really make any sense. But don't tell the kids taking it seriously and drooling over the hunky vampire actors that I said that.

I enjoy what this new york times movie reviewer had to say about the movie:
"...this carefully faithful adaptation traces the sighs and whispers, the shy glances and furious glares of two unlikely teenage lovers who fall into each other’s pale, pale arms amid swirling hormones, raging instincts, high school dramas and oh-so-confusing feelings, like, OMG he’s SO HOT!! Does he like ME?? Will he KILL me??? I don’t CARE!!! :) " (full review)

Also on thursday, we have started our weekly dinner parties, which was a great success. Our household intends to have a themed dinner party/potluck every thursday for a fun chance to make yummy food, meet new people, and have a great time. This week was breakfast night, and we had pancakes, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage... the whole works. Good fun.

Every third friday there is a contradance at evergreen, which I have decided I will definitely attend every time because it is SO much FUN!! Dancing with clumsy sweaty strangers for three hours- what else would you rather be doing?

So now it is the weekend, time for lazing around and NOT doing homework. Hanna's mom and friend are here for thanksgiving, and there is going to be a nice thanksgiving dinner at our house this afternoon for anyone who is around and wants to have a vegan, gluten-free early thanksgiving. Should be interesting.

Rainbows and Fall Bounty

2008-11-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a nationwide Prop 8 protest and march promoting LGBTQ equality and protesting against the recent legislation passed denying them marriage and other rights. At the rally there were some speakers and I was excited and inspired by the amount and variety of people who showed up, old, young, gay, straight, and even dogs.

After the rally the march started, which not everyone at the rally participated in but it was still a great turnout and really fun. We marched in the streets to the capitol building, weren't satisfied, and marched all the way back downtown. We sang and cheered and chanted. It was all very exciting and empowering and it made me realize that this is an important issue for everyone, not just the LGBTQ community, and that we all need to stand alongside them because there is absolutely no justification for the discrimination they experience and they deserve the exact same rights and benefits as everyone else.

When the crowd ended up downtown, me Hanna and Anna broke away and headed to the farmers market. I don't know why I haven't discovered the olympia farmers market earlier... it is wonderful. It is like a mini pike place market, on the waterfront with a nice big permanent building and so much DELICIOUS bountiful food. It was a great day.

Christmas Music Turkeys and Squash

2008-11-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

Jessie noticed that I had been using her camera for the last few weeks and took it away. But I have a few pictures and lots of words, so lets do this.

Lets see, where did I leave you in the adventures of Katie Gates?
Oh yes, a couple weekends ago I went home for a wonderful family outing to see the Transiberian Orchestra, which was incredible. If you aren't familiar with them here is a youtube video:

The light show and special effects were amazing. So anyway that was great, tomorrow I am planning to go to Seattle again to visit the Lucy exhibit at pacific science center, which I am looking forward to since we have been studying early human evolution and anthropology the last couple weeks, and I am fascinated by it.

So while I was at home, I abandoned my car in an act of green olympia pride and because I don't really use it and the family could. This means however that getting myself places has a lot more adventure involved. Tuesdays and fridays in particular instead of driving 5 minutes to Olympia Community School, I take the bus to campus (15 min) and then hike a mile through the forest for half an hour, and then biked home. I've decided that it's a very good thing to slow down and take one's time getting places, it's good to have time to think/be alone/whatever in our fast paced world.

I've started teaching workshops at OCS every friday, this week we made paper turkeys. I've started a nice collection of artwork the kids make me on the fridge.

School is really good right now, I'm enjoying my class very much and can't wait to start my health project next quarter. I'm also thinking of taking another class in addition to my current program next quarter if I can't find a job or something (arrgg...)

We have been having some lovely dinner parties also, I have a lot of fondness for the people in my life here. Olympia is just so full of wonderful people. We've been also making a lot of delicious fall things like squash and pumpkin things and pasta-y things. Life is good.

In other news, the flea-ridden cat nextdoor is back, and getting a little too comfortable here.

Peace out

Tree Houses Barackolate Chip Cookies and Fetal Skeletons

2008-11-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a pretty great day, for the country and for me.
I woke up early and was pleasantly surprised that the sun was out. Had a good bike ride to OCS, and it was very pretty and fall-y. Had a great morning playing sound bingo with the kids, and was then informed by another student who works at OCS that there is a nice trail back to campus which features a 3 story treehouse. It was his lunchbreak so we climbed the treehouse and had lunch among the squirrels in the trees. Apparently I am the only one on campus who didn't know about the treehouse, because everyone I told about it said "You didn't know about that?" Oh well. Now I do. And it's awesome.
Rode home on the foresty trail and made my favorite salad again for a snack. I decided that someone else needed to appreciate how amazing my salad was so I made another one and brought it to Rainy nextdoor, remembering that she had been talking about pear/nut/cheese salads the other night. The whole gang was upstairs so I hung out with them for a while, and avoided my homework. Went back home to do my homework and turned on the election coverage, got too excited to do my homework and went to the post office instead to mail the socks I had made for my mommy and to do some grocery shopping.

I finally settled down to do my homework but then Laiza and the crew showed up ready to go to campus to watch the election. Oh well, this is more important than homework.
It was so much fun to watch it on campus, energy levels and excitement were high as people piled into the HCC (housing community center). One guy was constantly posting up to date information on paper on the windows.

When it happened, several of us ran outside (among many naked people running by) and frolicked in the field and threw leaves in the air to celebrate. It was all very exciting and joyous. I have hope for the future and love for this country. What a concept!

In other news, we had a bone lab (oh excuse me, osteology workshop) today and got to play with all 206 human bones. I have also decided that fetal skeletons are among the creepier looking things in the world.

The End.

All Hallows Eve

2008-11-01T12:12:00.000-07:00

This year for Halloween, Heather and I crafted some pretty amazing jellyfish hats as a last minute costume inspiration.

I started out the day volunteering at OCS, where lots of halloween festivities were taking place and the kids were rockin their costumes. They enjoyed my jellyfish hat and took turns wearing it and chasing eachother in it. They did halloween crafts like making paper lanterns for their halloween party this weekend.

I didn't do much during the day, wanting to rest up for the nights festivities. Hanna and I went to the gym and played a good game of racquetball before getting ready for the night. Hanna dressed up as a very cute bumble bee, and Heather and I adorned our giant jellyfish and headed over to Anna and Rainy's. It took some persuading to get Laiza to put on a dress (which was a big deal for her) and we went out to thai food before hitting the party scene. We met up with Rainy's friends Jake and Angel who were sharing parts of a bird costume with other strange accessories, (ukelele, lab coat, santa hat... yeah). It was amazing. Jaycie was Rosie the Riveter, Rainy was a hunter. Anyway, we were unsuccessful at finding a party until around 11:30 just because nobody could make a collective decision. Finally we ended up somewhere loud and crowded, saw Heler and some other friends, decided to go home around 1, and had a wonderful evening (morning?) sitting at home chilling with good company. That's my kind of scene.

This was my first halloween not eating any candy! Weird.
Anyway, it was a great night. Happy halloween!

Why does every post have to have a title?

2008-10-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

Reasons why yesterday was a lovely day:
We (Katie Heather Hanna) woke up early to do some yoga
(6:30) which was a lovely way to start the day. Ohhmmm....
We biked to school, and it was a beautiful crisp sunny fall morning. (I know I sound like a complete hippie. Maybe I am.)

photo credit to Hanna :)

Class was fine, had lunch with friends. Biked home with Hanna. Again... such a beautiful sunny day, especially on campus where the trees are so pretty and there are leaves everywhere!
Had a pear/chevre/balsamic vinagrette/spiced nut salad which is basically my favorite thing in the world.

Had a very nice relaxing afternoon reading, knitting, not doing much but feeling good about it.
Heather and I made stir fry and Hanna came home and Anna came over and we watched planet earth, which is the most amazing thing that has ever happened. Officially.

So in conclusion, yesterday was a great day.
In other news, I made some slippers that I am very excited about but they still smell like wet sheep.

Also I talked to Lila on skype and it was jolly good.

That's all folks!

Pumpkin Party!

2008-10-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

I can't remember a year in my life when I haven't carved pumpkins for Halloween, and this year was no exception. We (The Davis Earp Gates household) threw a pumpkin carving bash, complete with pumpkin bread, pumpkin pasta, and worm pie. Goood times.

Mine is the tree on the top right

Ballet and Balls

2008-10-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share some pictures from the last few days.

Last night we made some delicious mexican wedding cookies. They were even vegan!

'Hanna was practicing ballet in the kitchen.

Last weekend I was home and had a nice time with the grandparents and the fam. These are some delicious tomato things that mommy made and I assembled. Thought they were pretty.

Tough choice. Not.

Seattle Weekend Adventures

2008-10-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

I've gotten into the habit of taking pictures and blogging at night thanks to that whole week in the life business. So what the heck, lets blog.

Yesterday I drove a lot, took some ferries and buses, and ended up in Seattle for a day with Dylan. We had a lovely visit, went to a movie, ate some gross food, the usual. Today was a husky game, so there was major school spirit in the air, despite the fact that the huskies suck this year. We were walking around campus at around 10:30 at night and came upon a giant marching band in red square, being loud and exciting. I guess it was a pre-game rally.

So that was kinda cool. This morning we got up and walked all over campus following Blythe's wrong and vague directions to her rugby game. She goes to Western and her rugby game at UW was kind of the occasion for being in Seattle this weekend (along with getting to visit my best buddy and the fam). I'm not gonna lie, rugby is pretty intense.

Western did pretty well, I think... I don't really understand the rules but they seemed to have won. So that was a fun time visiting with them. On our walk back to Dylan's apartment we saw the husky game tailgaters getting their parties started. There is so much fun school energy there. So many purple shirts and flags and giant inflatable dogs...

So we walked around campus for a while. Although I am a proud geoduck and love my school in the forest, UW is a pretty awesome place.

Um... UW quiddich team? No joke.

So I caught the bus back to the ferry and Dylan got all dressed up and stoked for the husky festivities. It was a beautiful crisp leaf-crunchy autumn day, and I had a nice time walking around pike place market and riding the ferry. I forget to appreciate the beautiful place we live in sometimes.

Got back to Poulsbo, met mommy and sister and went with mommy to Silverdale for a nice dinner visit while Jessie got ready for her show tonight. She is Mrs. Gloop in a local production of Willy Wonka. We came back to Poulsbo by 6:30 to see the performance. It was wonderful.

A Week in the Life: The End

2008-10-16T23:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a lovely photo montage, my favorites, or the ones I feel represent my life this week well. It's a best of for the week and something to end this project with.

So here ends my "Week in the Life" journey, I hope you enjoyed it.
The End!

A Week in the Life: Thursday

2008-10-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

click the picture to see it better

JOURNAL: The tables seem to have turned, Heather gets up earlier than me. Woke up as she left, went into the living room to find some strange guy on the couch. I dunno. Shower, waffle, stand in cold, ride very full bus, same as usual. Seminar was good, talked about birth practices in other cultures, led to a good argument about health care, why the government sucks, typical evergreen stuff. Lunch with the girls, seriously dull lecture about how to cite references in APA format. zzzzzz. Played games on my phone for most of it and played hangman with Rainy. Interesting biology lecture about development and birth. Got to play with a pelvis. Retrieved sleeping bag from apartment for the weekend (going to UW to visit dylan). Read CPJ (cooper point journal - evergreen newspaper) and noticed there was a geoduck (no surprise there) on the cover, but then I noticed the geoduck had a horn. What?? Unicorn geoduck?
Anyway, bus home, attempted to do a little homework since I would be gone this weekend, got a little done and had a snack, decided to do homework later and went over to Rainy and Anna's with half an eggplant, an onion, and my laptop. Made eggplant parmesan and spaghetti with the usual crowd (Laiza, Sarah, Jaycie) and a family friend of Anna's. Did a little homework over there, chilled for a lot of the evening, came home, thought about reading my school book but decided it's bedtime instead. Again, the picture situation was lame today. I apologize, but it's hard to remember to take pictures of things. Overall, today was a lovely day.

A Week in the Life: Wednesday

2008-10-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

click the picture to see it better

JOURNAL: There are things that take up a lot of my life/day that are not interesting or appropriate to photograph, like class and the gym. Do you really want to see a picture of class? People sitting around taking notes? Or a picture of sweaty people exercising? No, you don't. So that's why the picture situation is lame. But there are a few gems for today.

Okay so morning time- still freezing. Took me longer than usual to emerge from my pile of blankies. Apple pie for breakfast (don't judge me, it was sooo delicious!) then standing in the freezing cold for ten minutes because the bus was too full to pick me up. But it was ok because the bus I finally did get on was full of friends, and much warmer than outside the bus. Seminar about pharmacist responsibility, plan B birth control, ethics and morals... blahdey blah blah. Ate some lasagna and chilled with Phoebe. Lecture... um if you consider lecture to be old(er) people trying to explain to young people how to use a search engine. Yeah teachers... sorry but I'm pretty sure we know more about the cyber world than you do, no matter how much you know about anthropology and psychology. It was ridiculous, didn't learn a thing. Then we went on "library scavenger hunts!" to practice finding information. Pretty much a big waste of my life but oh well. Rode the bus home, got ready for the gym. Laiza picked me up to go to the gym and we did some pretty serious stairmaster and extreme badminton. Home for some food and a shower, then walked over to Rainy and Anna's so we could all head to school for the debates but Laiza and Jaycie were busy... so me, Rainy and Sarah went to school, visited some of Rainy's friends briefly, and setup the big screen for the debates in the HCC (screw the lecture halls, we wanted to sit on the comfy couches.) Laiza, Jaycie and Anna showed up and we watched (but unfortunately couldn't hear) the debates, due to the obnoxious pool and airhockey players who couldn't seem to take a hint from our evil stares and glances that we couldn't hear anything!!! Arrgh. But we caught a lot of it, and had some nice political discussion. Found a nice helmet and some crocs (wouldn't buy them, but I figure I should probably have some) at the campus free store. Score! Back to Jaycie's so she could grab stuff for the night, and then a decision to go to Indian food. Grabbed Heather and went downtown, very cozy with six people in Jaycie's little car, and ate some amazing things with names I can't remember or pronounce. Back home to do a little homework before sleepy time. Instead, guitar sesh with Heather. Guess it's time for bed now.

A Week in the Life: Tuesday

2008-10-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

click the picture to see it better

JOURNAL: Woke up too early as usual, took Heather to school, went to OCS. Morning circle, then activity time. Played some dollhouse and made things out of magnets. Snack and recess, then back to circle for some reading and then some craft time illustrating little books about the life cycle of a pumpkin plant. Went home, turned around and did some errands (bike shop, ace hardware) went to JoAnns for some fake flowers and plastic tablecloth (I can’t seem to stop organizing and decorating. I think it might be an addiction) Made multigrain bread take 2 while cleaning the kitchen. Heather came home still sick from school a little early. She made some happy hashbrowns and sausage for lunch/3:00 snack. Made dinner of yummy grilled vegetables while bread was rising. Put away flour in the cupboard and spotted the vineagar. Decided to make dressing with the vinegar. It’s like “If you give a mouse a cookie” except it’s “if you let Katie into the kitchen…” I need an intervention! I can’t stop cooking! What about my homework!!? Oh yes, I don’t have any.
Anyway… went back and forth between the kitchen and my computer, doing a little homework and a little cleaning/cooking/nibbling on things being made. Heather took some pictures of our faces. Thought about doing some work for Thursday, went over to Anna and Rainy’s instead. Visited for a little bit with them, Laiza and Jaycie. Came home to do some homework and to help Hanna make apple pie from the amazing apples I stole from Pat’s trees. Drove to the gas station right down the street to get ice cream for the pie, even though it’s totally within walking distance. Curled up in lots of blankies for a little homework and then bedtime. It is below freezing outside! Brrrrr!

A Week in the Life: Monday

2008-10-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

click the picture to see it better

JOURNAL: So, not very many pictures came out of today. Or I felt weird about photographing things today. But I can write about my day! Heather’s alarm went off about 95 times so I woke up several times sometime between 6 and 7:30. Made a beautiful sandwich with all the delicious things I bought yesterday. Was too lazy to catch the 8:07 bus so I waited until 8:37, but the bus was full and didn’t stop, so I caught the 8:40 backup bus and still made it to class by 9. Guess I’ll be sleeping in later from now on then. Psychology lecture, ate my sandwich at 10 because I forgot to eat breakfast. Lunch break from 11-1. Went with Laiza to library and had a good conversation about sciency things and then read our books for an hour. Got some pizza. Felt gross. Some elaborately dressed people were dancing around something in red square. Never really found out what that was all about. Went to afternoon anatomy/physiology lecture about the respiratory system. Got home by 3:15, cleaned up last night’s panini mess, got an organizing bug and reorganized the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. Got a call from a lady whose ad I responded to about tutoring her daughter in math. Arranged to meet in the evening for a little interview. Started making lasagna. Updated my resume and sent it around. Finished making lasagna. Met with tutor people and talked for a while, they decided they liked me and I got the job. Ate my lasagna, wished it was as good as my mommy’s lasagna. Heather was sick and sad. Realized that I should really do some homework. Posted this blog and resigned myself to an evening of reading about childbirth and bulging vaginas for class, and writing about it.

A Week in the Life: Sunday

2008-10-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

click the picture to see it better

JOURNAL: Woke up not freezing for a change, showered and had a waffle before going to work at Pat’s. Started stacking wood but it was all rotten so I abandoned that and spent three hours raking leaves in her backyard. Listened to a month’s worth of npr podcasts I have been accumulating. Stole (well she said I could...) a bunch of apples from Pat’s trees. Drove home in the lovely afternoon sun and listed to Michael Franti. Came home to a sickly Heather and some leftover rice chicken concoction that I ate with a salad for lunch. Decided to bike to safeway to do some grocery shopping. Got halfway down Harrison when my gears locked up for some reason and I couldn’t pedal anymore. Walked/coasted back down the hill to the bike shop, and remembered it was Sunday and the bike shop is closed. Locked bike to telephone pole, decided to ride the bus to Safeway. Waited 15 minutes for the bus. Realized I was on the bus going downtown instead of to the west side (how embarrassing) and got off the bus at the other side of the road from where I started. Feeling frustrated, just went to grocery outlet. Nothing good at grocery outlet. Rode the bus home, feeling frustrated that I had wasted my afternoon doing absolutely nothing. Planned the weeks menu with Heather, drove into town with her to shop, came home with bountiful shopping bags and put away food/cleaned the kitchen to some jammin music. Hanna came home from her camping trip. Got a call from heather’s parents saying they were coming down from Seattle to drop off a table for us! Visited with her parents and nephew for a while and made delicious paninis. Decided to leave the trashed kitchen until the next day, settled down to do some homework before bed.

A Week in the Life: Saturday

2008-10-11T23:29:00.001-07:00

click the picture to see it better

JOURNAL: Slept in (?) until 8, ate some of last nights pumpkin bread, played a little guitar, and wondered what I should do today. Decided to get some homework out of the way and did some reading. BRRRR IT’S COLD but at least it’s sunny. Puttered around getting little things done (dishes, laundry) before starting work on my individual health project for class. My topic is nutrition and diet and I am studying my own eating habits for the remainder of fall quarter, so I made a food log. Then I was looking out the window and noticed a neighbor having a garage sale. I found a really nice digital camera for cheap, so I caved and bought it. Battery was dead. Biked downtown to target, then to batteries plus and got a battery. Bike home. Decided I didn’t really like the camera after all. Put camera on craigslist for $100 more than I paid for it. But still a good deal). Might as well do something productive with it! Checked email and noticed that there was a “Harvest Festival” today. Called Anna, she said she was going too so we met at the bus stop and went down to the organic farm. Met Anna’s friend Rainboe. Ate some newly harvested garlic. Ate some freshly made ricotta cheese. Painted each others’ faces. Ran into Rainy and some of her friends (Jake, Angel, Jaycie, Grace, Bob the pug). Walked around the farm and admired vegetables. Went back to campus, chilled, waited for the bus, ran into Liam and had a little chatty chat. Jake and Angel decided to give us a ride back, went to Rainy and Anna’s, Laiza came over, put some fishsticks in the oven abandoning our plan for an elaborate meal. Ate some tortellinis and salad. Ate some cookies. Decided to go to the Handy Pantry for some candy and ice cream. Made some art with watercolors and straws because we were feeling crafty. Watched a silly movie, wandered home in the freezing cold. Turned on the heat again. It’s frrrrreeeeeezing! Got tons of blankets and went to sleep.

A Week in the Life: Friday

2008-10-10T20:15:00.001-07:00

click the picture to see it better

JOURNAL: Woke up early (6:30) because Heather turned the light on. Couldn’t go back to sleep because our room was freezing due to the fact that we are poor and don’t like paying for heat or electricity. Tidied up (because my family is visiting today…) and had a little guitar jam sesh while leisurely getting ready for the day. Had the usual peanut butter and jelly waffle for breakfast, and faced the freezing morning air and car. Drove Heather to school (because it seemed convenient) and arrived at OCS (Olympia community school) fifteen minutes early to set up the workshop I am teaching. Received hugs from several kids and proceeded to search for all the paints, glitter, sequins, and beads I could find while the kids had their morning circle upstairs. Got 4 kids in my workshop and we painted and decorated terra cotta pots. Tried to keep them from being too rowdy while waiting for the pots to dry, and then hastily cleaned up and planted daffodils in them as the rest of the kids barged into the room for snacktime. After snacktime and a chilly recess more workshops, this time taught by the kids. I supervised/participated in Galen’s “How to draw planets” workshop, but couldn’t seem to convince them that Pluto was no longer a planet. Freetime, during which I took some pictures, played pretend, and helped build a zoo. Then back home for a yummy salad from the evergreen organic farm and a little cleanup time in the kitchen. Mom and dad came for a quick visit on their way to quinault lake, went to Traditions Café downtown, mom loved it, dad complained about it being too healthy. Came home, rode my bike to the bike shop and the nice old man there installed my bike rack for free. Rode home in the nice autumn afternoon sun. Thought about doing work, wasted time on the computer instead. Listened to some hip-hop, made rice and chicken for dinner, made some pumpkin bread with the ingredients mom brought me. Anna called, cold and sick downtown pleading for a ride, so Heather and I picked her up, got some gas, visited for a little while, and settled down in all the blankets we can find to do some homework for the rest of the evening.

A Week in the Life

2008-10-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

I am embarking on a week-long project inspired by my roommate Hanna and this lady's blog. it's called A Week in the Life, and involves documenting everything (well, everything I can) about my day for a week. Pictures, words, whatever. So stay tuned for some fatty posts about my days this week. This is a fun way to capture my life as it is now, maybe to look back on someday.

Food and Friends

2008-10-06T22:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I decided that my heart really lives off campus in Butler cove apartments, so Heather and Hanna generously invited and accommodated me in their little duplex. And it is so wonderful. Yay roomies!

Reasons why this situation rocks my socks:
a) More friendy time, with my housemates as well as our other many nearby neighbor friends.
b) We can ride the bus and save the earth
c) DISHWASHER AND WASHING MACHINE oh snap.
d) My bed is made of a mattress instead of a chunk of foam
e) We have deLICIOUS collaborative meals. Let me just provide some pictures of our recent concoctions:

Heather's enchilada night (note the amaaaazzing homemade salsa)

Katie's homemade pizza night

Heather's spectacular smoothies (photo by Hanna)

Also, when we get bored sometimes we like to cuddle. And hold hands. Kinda weird, but it's just what we do.

Awww.

So basically life is amazing. Also, I am loving my class - we are learning fascinating things and doing very exciting projects. My kids are great too (the little ones I play with on tuesdays and fridays).

THE END (for now)

Evergreenin' it up

2008-10-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

Okay blog, lets do some blogging.
Here's whats up.
I have class 3 days a week which is pretty sweet from 9-3 two days and 9-1 the other day. I'm not complaining. Our class is pretty reading intensive which is what we are supposed to do with our days off, but instead I am doing an internship at Olympia community school, which is great. It's great to be getting some experience in the classroom, and help shape the minds of adorable little children. I basically assist in the classroom with whatever needs doing, sometimes it's just pushing them on the swings and helping open their lunch containers at lunch and recess, and other times I get to actually facilitate a lesson or help them with their assignments. The school only has about 20 students, k-5. And it's in the forest. Like literally in the middle of the forest, on the beach, and has been around since the 70's I think.

It's pretty much exactly like Options but smaller. They even have mini classes, and soon I will facilitate a garden project and teach a mini-class about it. So anyway, the kids are wonderful, and I love it.

My class is going well too, it's only the first week so it's been a lot of logistics and going over things, but I am very excited about the material and discussions and all the future happenings in it. In case you want it, you can find a description of my program here. It's also nice to know people and have friends in my class.

As for my living situation, this is currently my room.
It's small and perfect and the apartment is clean and new and remodeled, but I am having a change of heart and want very much to move off campus into an apartment with my friends. Unfortunately I can't break my housing contract or I have to pay 5 million dollars, so we'll see how that plays out. Hopefully I can find someone to rent the room from me.

Overall, I'm living and loving the life. Go Geoducks Go.

Katie in the Kitchen

2008-09-25T18:58:00.001-07:00

Now that I have a beautiful new (remodeled!!) apartment and kitchen at school, I am determined to eat things besides macaroni and cheese and top ramen this coming school year.
I've dug in our cookbooks and recipe boxes and compiled a pretty wonderful list of recipes and food ideas for the poor, food loving college student.
This week I've been trying to figure out how to make bread, and even though I'm pretty sure it won't help me save money or time, it is fun and delicious. It took me 3 failed recipes and dense crumbly bland loaves until I discovered this one, and I think I've figured this thing out. It's more complicated than I thought.

But check it out:

Mmmmmmmm...

I've also been making jams, jellies and syrups all summer, to jazz up the frozen waffles that I will probably be eating every morning, due to my tired lazy morning condition.

Oh boy.
Stay tuned for some nice pictures of my new living situation, which rocks my socks off.

Kittens are cute

2008-09-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

I was on Vashon island and the opportunity presented itself to go visit some kittens and OMGWEOIRJDSGJWIOEJR they were cute.
Just thought I would post some pictures because they are cute. They are a little blurry because my phone camera isn't the best.

DAWWWWwwwww

They seemed to like my feet.

Just to fulfill your cute animal needs for the day.

How does your garden grow?

2008-09-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

Here's what I do when I'm not camping, eating, or sleeping.
This is Foxglove greenhouses, and this is my second summer working here. They pay me well and sometimes I enjoy planting pretty flowers. Other times the greenhouses are very hot and planting 900 cabbages gets old. But I'm not complaining. Well, maybe I am a little bit. But just because I am tired and sore today.

mums the word.

yes, I did indeed plant each and every one of those. Plus lots more.

This is Remy. She has lots of baby squirrels and likes to make
nests out of our Remy shade cloth. (Thus the name...)

Here is me being excited about my macro camera setting.

So there is a nice little virtual tour of my work for you. Or something.
Good news is I get free plants, and am tan, and rich... oh wait just kidding I spend all my money on gas. I'm done blogging tonight because I don't seem to have anything positive to say. Debbie downer.

On the bright side (har) it is sunny and lovely!!!!
KTG OUT

Campy Camp Camp

2008-09-01T22:45:00.000-07:00

Alright readers,
It's not that I have forgotten about you, it's that nothing exciting enough is happening in my life to inform you about. But I'll try.

Summer is great, next year any traveling will be done in the not summer, because summer is my favorite time here (isn't it everyones?)

So far my summer (besides my europe adventures) has included lots of camping, a little boating and swimming, and lots of working. In the beginning of August we had our third annual kids camping trip, our second year at sun lakes in eastern WA. It was good fun, as always. Here are some nice pictures:

This is the best camping trip of the year with many of my best friends in the world. Good times. Some of our traditions include cliff jumping, skinny dipping, the Grand Coulee Dam laser light show, and our talent(?) shows. And now for a special blog treat... video footage of one of the talent show skits.

A couple of weeks later is the same thing, but this time with the parents. This year however, some families couldn't go, including ours, so I joined another family and we had a good time anyway. We went to Spring canyon campground, which is near the Grand Coulee Dam, and close to sun lakes. We even stopped by sun lakes on the way home and the parents had fun jumping off our cliffs and seeing where their children go camping together every year.

This trip consisted of the usual... boating, swimming, eating, chillin.

So that is the most fun thing and most well photographed thing I have to say to you.
School starts at the end of september and I'm just starting to begin to think about it. I'm kind of excited about my classes and my new apartment on campus.

Well, That's all folks!

Croatia and the end of our travels

2008-07-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

Home at last!!!!!
Ahhhh it feels so good to sleep in my own bed.
Time for an update, it's been a little while since there was no internet to speak of in Croatia.

So lets do this thing:

Our adventures began when we got on the train to Croatia and realized in a panic that we had forgotten to validate our Croatian rail passes. That's bad. So we pretty much had to get off the train before the border so we didn't get in trouble, but that caused us to have to find another train, which wasn't until 6 the next morning. So we got our night at the train station experience, like we always wanted.

Eventually, we arrived in Croatia to see the smiling and very tan faces of Jayne and John (Blythe and Dylan's parents) who had been biking in Croatia. It was wonderful to see some friendly faces.

They traveled to the place we were staying with us and got a little place nearby to visit with us for a couple of days. Instantly the stories started pouring out.

So in croatia we stayed on the southern coast on an island called Brac in a tiny harbor town called Milna.

We stayed in a tiny old cottage up in the hills right above town. It was very cute.

So basically we spent most of our time in Croatia swimming, sleeping, eating, sleeping, swimming some more, drinking cappuccinos, sleeping again, and sweating. It was very very hot, so that's pretty much all we wanted to do, and it was fantastic.

On our last day we rented mopeds and cruised out to the island/beach of Bol, which was pretty touristy and crowded, but at least it wasn't rocky. There were some great waves which automatically provide hours of entertainment, especially for Stephanie.

The restaurant situation on Milna was pretty limited, but it was fine because there happens to be the best pizza place in the history of the universe right downtown. We had dinner here 3 out of our 5 dinners, the same pizza every night too. Extra large wood fired and thin crusted oniony hammy peppery delicious wonder.

One of our best finds of the whole trip was this wonderful little wine cellar right on the street. One night Dylan decided that he wanted to buy some good wine, so we went in and did a little wine tasting, and we couldn't believe our ears when the guy told us that it was 16 kuna (less than 4 dollars) per liter. And it's goooood wine. Local croatian homemade port wine. I know right??? This guy makes wine, olive oil, vinegar and brandy and sells it in huge plastic waterbottles. We immediately stocked up and devised a plot to smuggle it back into the US and distribute it amongst our families. I don't know how we got 5 liters of wine through 3 different customs but somehow we did it.

Well there you go. This ends our travel blog and our wonderful travel adventures. For this summer at least. Dylan and Blythe are already making plans for next summer. It's been an amazing adventure but it is so great to be home, and once again I have remembered how much I love the northwest. When we flew in and saw the city, mountains, and water, we were all just ecstatic and smiling despite having not slept in 24 hours.

Yes, our journey home was quite the test of our endurance and travel skills, boat, 15 hours of trains, 24 hours of planes... Whew!!! But the point is, WE DID IT! All on our own for a whole month. And you thought we couldn't do it.

So that's it.

P.S. I was too lazy and poor to send postcards but I did get them and write them to all of you like I promised, so when you get them and wonder why there is a US stamp on it... um, just pretend I sent them from somewhere awesome.

Peace out

Budapest Shmudapest

2008-07-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

We are officially citied out. All we do these days is sleep and try to not be in the sun. But complaining and sweating aside, Budapest is lovely. We are staying in a hostel that we booked kind of last minute, way out in the green belt of Buda and a 45 minute journey from the city. But its all good.

Dylan wanted me to include this picture of us on the train because it is a nice snapshot of what our lives are like for a large percentage of this trip.

But anyway, Budapest is very cool, Buda and Pest are separated by the Dannube river, and there are lots of pretty bridges and lovely parks and huge buildings and cathedrals line the water and light up at night. It is quite nice.

This is also a very common element of our trip and very typical Blythe and Dylan sibling behavior.

Dylan wanted a haircut and was too cheap to get one, so he decided to let me cut it, but we didnt have a comb or very good scissors, and he freaked out and didnt let me cut very much of it. He also insisted on going into the woods, because he was afraid someone would be mad about the mess. What a dork.

Our first night here we discovered Hungarian pancakes which are really just crepes. We have revisited this place many times since they are delicious, really cheap (200 Ft or less than 2 dollars) and open 24 hours. Nice.

This is what most hungarian food consists of, meat and potatoes. A nice specialty here is meat stuffed meat, which is, like it sounds, meat stuffed with other kinds of meat, and then probably served with a side of meat.

For the vegetarians there is always fried cheese. Here is one of Stephanies healthy meals of fried cheese with fries and some kind of sugary creamy coffee thing. Mmmm.

Snarling lions

Dylan is our official tour guide (with the help of his guide books) and has been this whole time. We have all pretty much given up trying to navigate or decide what to do and just blindly follow Dylan and let him make all the decisions. He is doing a wonderful job, and he loves to navigate, so it all works out. We are all so surprised how smooth our trip is going, and Dylan is probably completely responsible for that. So props for him.

This is an underground weird labyrinth that we think was used for soldiers during times of war, but we didnt really figure out exactly what they were. But they were very cool. And slightly dark and scary. And kind of weird.

But really, we are SO ready for croatia tomorrow. All we want to do is hit the beach and relax. And despite how cool Budapest is, we have lost our city appreciation skills after being in so many big beautiful cities in a row. We are also tired of sweating, and weary of sight seeing.

Also, we went to the Budapest history museum today which was pretty interesting. This city has a lot of history as it has changed hands so many times over the years, being a big center of trade on the river and all. But the point is Stephanie saw an artifact she liked and tried to steal it. The baggage people caught her on the way out however, and she got arrested. We had to spend all the rest of our budget here to get her out. What an idiot.

Okay have I forgotten anything? OH yeah, the weather is pretty crazy, every day it is scorching hot and then every evening almost it has gotten really stormy and poured down rain. Yesterday we were chilling in our hostel as the rain came and it started coming down harder than I have ever seen it rain in Seattle. We all ran outside and danced and played in the rain, the streets filled up instantly and we splashed around in our clothes and it was the best ever.

OH ALSO we went to some Roman baths (or were they Turkish?) and it felt sooo nice to soak in super hot water for three hours. (rotating between other baths of various temperatures) Aaahhhhhhh. To relax. What a good idea.

Okay I have run out of things to say. CROATIA HERE WE COME!!!!!!

Vienna

2008-07-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

OMG WE ONLY HAVE 19 MINUTES TO BLOG!
Vienna is nice. We were hot and so we went swimming. Stephanie got attacked by an Austrian river shark and lost her leg. But she fought the shark and got her leg back in the end. We also ate some kebabs and some ice cream and like to nap in parks. We also went to a nice market.
THE END

Prague Pics

2008-07-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, here we go. Again, see previous posts for details of our adventures in Prague.

the city is very architectural. It looks like this everywhere, all the time.

Nice view, probably from a castle or something.

Dylan is enjoying the view

Another castle

Awwww what a cute picture. That's no backdrop. That's the real thing right there.

Lots of buskers on the bridge

Some whale penises. (The long leathery things in the front) We went all the way to a museum on the other side of the city to see these bad boys.

Blythe's birthday cheescake time!Chillin at our hostel with some of the people we met

Friendy wendies

Very serious

Yay! Czech beer!

Mmmmm weinerschnitzel.

Birthday ice cream time! despite what it may look like, we are not drunk. yet...
what? No mom, of course we haven't been drinking.

Alright. I've given you some pictures. My work here is done. We are in vienna now and happy to be back on the Euro, since we have a lot of those leftover from Germany.

Later!!

Krakow Pictures!

2008-07-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

Okay all, here is the moment you've all been waiting for. Picture time!
I won't really write about anything since I already did that. See the other posts for details.

So here are a few gems from Krakow:

the city from atop the clock tower in the town square

me getting strangled by a statue

Blythe enjoying some nice salt in the salt mines

Dylan enjoying some nice potato pancakes

just a nice picture

some crazy breakdancers in the town square

We went to the dragons cave where the dragon was slain which according to legend founded the city of Krakow or something. Here Blythe and Dylan are preparing to fight it.

The entrance to Auchwitz

Birkenau

My internet time is ticking so I can't show you too many pictures.
So there you go.

Czech me out

2008-07-01T06:57:00.001-07:00

Hi friends, time to tell you all about our lives in Prague.
We are staying in a pretty awesome hostel which is on the pricier side for hostels but still pretty cheap. It's got a big kitchen and lounge and all that good stuff, best of all, we've met lots of travelers. They say it's a good hostel if you find people to go out with that night.

So on our first day here we really needed to do laundry but didn't want to pay 300 crowns to do it at the hostel (20 dollarsish/load... I know... what a rip.) So we spent most of the day hauling our laundry around and sitting around waiting for it at a final price of about 10 dollars. Worth it? I don't know. But our night made up for our lame day.

Sunday night was a big soccer game, the Eurocup, Spain vs. Germany. Oh excuse me, I meant football. And you know how europeans love their football. The entire city square was packed with people, watching a couple giant TV screens that had been put up, and it was pretty fun. Spain won, but I didn't really care, or really watch the game, but it was a good ol' time. We went with a gaggle of people from our hostel, they were older, 24ish, but they were fun and from all sorts of places, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, the UK, so many awesome accents. I wish I could say things like mate, fancy, and cheers without feeling stupid. Oh well. Anyway after the game we went to a pub with our hostel buddies plus some other people we somehow picked up. It was a pretty jolly fun group of people. Afterwards we realized that the buses didn't run at night and some people took a taxi, but the hardcore of us walked all the way back. Long way. But it was all good.

As far as the actual city goes, it is very very architectural. Everywhere you go you are surrounded by giant old buildings, and the skyline is dominated by Prague castle, which is the biggest castle in the world or something. We spent a while wandering around the gardens but didn't want to pay money to actually go inside. We've pretty much been just marveling at the big buildings everywhere but don't really know what they are. Still, it's an awesome city and we are enjoying ourselves.

Today is Blythe's 18th birthday, and everyone is napping to rest up for the nights festivities. We are going out to dinner and hitting the town. Dylan also found some cheescake. Mmmm. Oh, also Stephanie drank a whole glass of absinth, which is illegal in the US, and ran around Prague naked before jumping in the river. How embarrassing.
HAHAHAHAHA (Stephanie would like me to note that these stories about her have been fabricated for our amusement. I don't know why she doesn't think it's funny as we do.)

Anyway, we're off to Vienna tomorrow morning.
Cheers!

Krakow

2008-06-30T01:08:00.000-07:00

Long time no dig dogs!
Computers in hostels don't seem to like blogger, something about cookies or privacy settings. Also there are no USB ports in sight so this blog will be short on the pictures for a while. Sorry, I know that's the best part. But I will update for those of you who know how to read.

So we arrived in Krakow in the middle of nowhere and had to do some very skillful navigating and negotiating to get to the city without spending 5 million zlotys. Our hostel was fine, it was a big room with 12 beds but the people in our room weren't very interesting and slept a lot. But we loved Krakow despite our boring roommates.

The city is pretty spread out, but the main square is bustling with excitement, fire dancers, buskers, break dancers, and all sorts of exciting stuff. We spent a good amount of our time just chilling in the square at night, when it is cool and happy and busy.

We also took a day trip out to Auchwitz/Birkenau, which was quite an experience. It was very weird because it was a really nice day, and the sun was setting, and it was eerily pretty there. But it was very interesting and pretty intense to see that.

Let me see... what else did we do... oh yeah, we visited a massive salt mine that is centuries old, which was pretty cool despite being very touristed. We licked the walls. They were very salty. Also stephanie wandered off because she wanted to explore some tunnels and got lost. The fire department had to come find her and get her out. How embarrassing.

So that's pretty much our experience in Poland, we loved it, and pictures will follow when I can figure that out.
We are actually in Prague right now but I will wait to tell you about that until we have completed our adventures here.
Later!

Bonjour de Bruxelles!

2008-06-23T23:18:00.000-07:00

Hi from Belgium!
Today is our last day in Belgium which we will mostly spend doing laundry and getting ready for our journey to Poland this afternoon. So, I guess that means it is picture time.

This crazy character is Bruno, who has graciously agreed to let us stay in his house. Bruno and his wife Ilsa live in a small town called Gembloux, south of Brussels. They live in the lovely Belgian countryside, near lots of cows and fields. I made friends with some of the cows across the street.

Brunos House

Les vaches

Stephanie was very excited about the nice fields.

So on day one, Bruno took us to the city of Namur, and we went to a Saturday market and had some lunch. The next day, we explored the city of Brussels with Brunos daughter Morgane, who is our age and speaks pretty good english. Brussels has some really neat things to see, but they are kind of spread out. This is the main city square. Too bad pictures cant capture how beautiful and elaborate these giant buildings are.

Morgane took us to see the Atomium, which was built for the worlds fair in the fifties. We refered to it as Belgiums big balls. It cost money to do anything besides look at it though, so we just looked at it.

Morgane also took us to several of her favorite pubs in Brussels. One of them had a beer menu that was the size of... I dont know, a large enyclopedia. Yes, we have definitely been educated in the ways of Belgian beer. Bruno took us to an abbey where they make Mared Sous Triple, and bought us each a big mug. Yes, that is some strong stuff. We have also been tasting weird fruity beers and other strange Belgian specialties.

Anyway, yesterday we rode the train to Brugge, which some call the Venice of Belgium. There is very little traffic, beautiful canals with little toury boats, huge cathedrals and other giant beautiful buildings... it is just très très belle. Oh by the way, Stephanie was trying to lean over the railing to take a picture of a swan and fell in the canal. How embarassing.

Let me throw some pictures at you: (remember if you click on them you can see them bigger)

awww nice group shot...

Stephanie is angry that so many ridiculous pictures have found their way onto my blog. She is very excited about this garden in this picture.

Ah yes, Belgian waffles. We didnt actually eat them but I thought if I took a picture of them I would feel like I had experienced some culture.

We did however, have some belgian chocolate. Mmmmmm...

So that about sums up our adventures in Belgium! (look, I found the exclamation point. Still cant find the apostrophe though.)

Our next adventure will be in Krakow Poland, and we are very excited. See you then in the next chapter of the grand adventures of Katie Gates... and friends.

Germany Times

2008-06-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

Hello all, we have begun our wonderous travels and it is time for a travel update. This keyboard is annoying so I will just show you some lovely pictures of our trip thus far. I cant find an exclamation point so pretend that this post is full of excitement and emotion.

So after 15 hours of travelling we arrived in Germany at 7 in the morning ready to go to sleep. Instead, we travelled to St. Goar, in the Rhine river valley, which turned out to be full of old people and orphans. Despite there being really nothing to do, it is a beautiful place.

We stayed in the only hostel in St. Goar (the big-ish building on the far left) beneath Rhinefels castle (the castle in the picture...) We explored this castle for free by sneaking in the gate for the tour trolley. We didnt realize we had snuck in though until someone asked us for tickets and we didnt have them.

We went tunnel exploring and saw a lot of french ghosts and Stephanie climbed up a scary dark tunnel and almost died. It doesnt look like it because of the flash but it is pitch black in there.

On our second day after a wonderful nights sleep, we rented some bikes from a friendly old german man and went for a lovely leisurely ride along the Rhine. We also found a playground to spend the afternoon playing in.

So thats whats up. We are having a fabulous time and are in Belgium right now, and the only reason I am able to write such a lovely blog post for you is because we are staying with some family friends with a free computer. So dont get too excited, these are probably the only pictures I will be able to post until... I have no idea.

See you... when I see you.
Peace OUT

Au revoir! Auf Wiederhören! Na shledanou! and Goodbye!

2008-06-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go, off on our grand adventure to Europe! Me, Dylan, Stephanie, and Blythe will be flying out tomorrow night to Deutschland. Wish us luck! (We might need it... just kidding mom... no but really.)

Look, I made you a little map of our route:

I will try (but no promises...) to update this blog whenever I can find internet, so keep checking back! E-mail me your mailing address if you want a postcard, because I love sending postcards.

PEACE OUT Y'ALL!

Play Day!

2008-06-04T19:41:00.001-07:00

Man I'm getting good at keeping up with the bloggage. I wonder if anyone ever reads it.
Anyway... today was Play Day, which means that lots of fun bouncy things are inflated in red square for some bouncy FUN! It was also the last day of school/a potluck which was fun, and tomorrow morning is lab cleanup (at 8:30 am... why so early?) and then goodbye to my fellow science dorks.

Here are some lovely pictures of bouncy time:
(don't forget if you click on the pictures they will get bigger!)

So, the point is to stick the velcro things as far forward on the middle thing as you can before the bungee attached to your waist yanks you back. AMAZING!

Fire truck slide! (See us at the top?)

In other news, the bowling alley in Olympia is kinda sketchy, riding in shopping carts is fun, Heather is very good at throwing gutter balls, and we have nice smiles.

Well, I guess I'm a sophmore now. I don't like to think about that. One year closer to being an adult or something. Yikes.

The countdown has begun, our (me, dylan, stephanie, blythe) plane leaves for Germany on June 17th!!!! That is less than 2 weeks!! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Peace.

Ode to 302B

2008-06-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

Next week will be my last days as a freshman! My how the time flies!

For any of you readers out there who didn't know or forgot, I've been in the same class all year, (that's how evergreen works... and it's not a class, it's a program) taking biology chemistry and math, and have become rather fond of all my classmates and professors. But all good things must come to an end. Next year I will be taking a program called Health and Human Development (click on that if you wish to see a description), which I am excited about.

Anyway, I am sad to be leaving but not too sad because... WE'RE LEAVING FOR EUROPE IN 17 DAYS!!!! YIPEEEEE! Oh snap.

But really, it has been a wonderful year, and I am very sad to be leaving our house, even though it is gross, even though the kitchen is molding, it's been our home this year and we will miss it dearly. So here is a picture tribute to our family and our lovely/not so lovely home, and all the good times we have had here. Enjoy. Please imagine some sappy music like when someone gets kicked off american idol.

My... how clean our house once was.

What be a pirates favorite letter? ARRRRrrrGirls night!Typical Heler behaviorThis is the only picture that exists of Monika smiling,Watch out mon mons!Happy Birthday Heather!Happy birthday Monika!Monika didn't want to go to craft nite so we made a pot for her.Heather's Penis

Monika's Pretty Princess Birthday Party!
And the only group picture we have, so there you go.

Good times. I miss everyone already.

Sunny Times

2008-05-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

What's going on with this weather? All spring it is rainy and cloudy and kinda cold... and then BAM!!! Out of nowhere! 85 degrees and sunny all weekend. You should see my burn/tan.

Anyway, I had a sunny/hot weekend first going to Millersylvania state park just south of Olympia for some lake swimming summery fun, and then some nice hiking in the Capitol forest.

Feels like summer!
Here are some photo gems to feast your eyes on:

Oooooh... aahhhh

I just really liked this onion.

Red plum nantucket nectars = the love of my life.
This juice changed my life. It can change yours too.

Until we meet again.

Balloon Stampede

2008-05-13T16:34:00.001-07:00

This weekend we had a family adventure to Walla Walla for the annual Balloon Stampede!! I had a lovely time with the fam photographing (but unfortunately not flying in) hot air balloons!

Here are some of my favorites:

Awww, what a nice happy fambly.