Time Flies During Washington State Vacation

Blogging has taken a hiatus while I took 3 weeks off to go to the great state of Washington. It's the state that both my wife and I grew up in, and the place where our parents still reside. And, so, every year we try to go and spend a good deal of time there.

This time we spent about 10 days in a place called Birch Bay. It's on the coast (with a name like that, imagine)...and the temperatures were colder than normal. So, it was rather chilly to those of us who have had their blood thinned by the midwest heat and humidity. Still, a wonderfully relaxing time filled with great beauty and the occassional sand sculpture and bald eagle.

Then the last week or so of our visit was spent in the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, & Kennewick) visiting my folks. The Tri-cities is on the eastern side of the state, and it's a desert climate. So, after being lulled by temperatures in the 70s and 80s (and the occasional 60s!) on the coast, Richland woke us up with three strait days in the 100s!

Here time was spent looking for water to keep cool in. Here's a picture of me trying to keep track of my kids at the aquatic playground at Kennewick's Playground of Dreams

And, my dad & stepmom's neighbors had their grandkids visiting...and had set up an inflatable pool just right for jumpin'

Overall, a great trip with me ignoring work (for the most part).

I did do a major tidying up of the design of my homepage, though, using dreamweaver. I'm not a professional designer by any means, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Now, we're back in Bloomington and I'm getting ready for my Intensive Freshman Seminar...I've got LOTS of work to do to prepare for that, but I'm pretty excited about it.

And, expect more blog posts...hopefully.

I've given myself an incentive my including mention of the audioprof blog in the letter that was sent to the IFS students enrolled in my class...so I can't let it get too out of date!