tiger mountain hike by.peter
mon.jul.31

Today our team left behind our work on Vista and Longhorn Server for a morale building and team bonding exercise. Our mission was to hike all the way up Tiger Mountain, then hike back down again. The hike proved to be a journey of epic proportions – 8km round trip reaching an elevation of 610m at the summit. I can still feel the pain in my legs right now…

We met at 12:30pm to organize carpooling. Since Tiger Mountain was only 10 miles from Sammamish, I decided to take my own car so I could head straight home afterwards. I stopped by Maccas on the way to grab a bite – hey, I was gonna work it off anyway! I followed directions to Exit 20 on the I-90 at Preston and was met by a gravel road. To avoid kicking up gravel and dust I drove slowly about 600 yards in until I reached the parking area. I met up with the rest of the team, most of whom were well prepared for a hike, but some were more formally dressed than I would be on most work days.

Led by Scott, we began our journey. We made it about 100 yards in when we realized we lost half the party. We turned back to check the maps and see if we could locate them but they were nowhere to be found. Despite the setback, we decided to continue. It started off as an easy stroll but the further we ventured in the more difficult the terrain became. Luckily the weather was perfect for hiking and the trees covered the sun from reaching us. About a mile in, we started to lose more people as the difficult climb took its toll. Several short stops were intended to allow the tail to catch up but it still seemed like they were too far behind so we continued. At about the 1.5 mile mark we ran into the group we lost in the beginning. Apparently they had taken the “cable route”, a path that was more direct but more dangerous. This path was used to lay power cables for some transmitter stations in the mountains.

With the group now reunited, minus strugglers, we continued up the mountain. On the way up we crossed several groups on their way down. There were school kids on summer vacation, couples with their dogs and small family groups. Climbing the mountain was starting to become more difficult so I decided to make more frequent stops to take photos. It wasn’t long before I realized I had become one of the strugglers. In my rush to catch up I accidentally took the cable route and I could see why it wasn’t recommended. I think at some parts the incline was greater than 45 degrees! My legs were really starting to feel like jelly. I think I did about 0.5 mile via the cable route – that should teach me a lesson.

Eventually I made it up to the summit where most of the group had started celebrating with a bottle of whisky. The view was spectacular – you could see the mountains where we had the Microsoft picnic to the East and Puget Sound to the West. If you looked North West you could make out the Seattle city skyline. We even saw several power gliders just above us taking advantage of the rising air.

So, what do Microsoft engineers do when they get to the top of a mountain after a two hour hike you may ask? Believe it or not, they talk about the same thing they talk about in their sleep – work. Maybe conference room #3200, the one on our floor, was booked for the day? The positive thing that did come from the work-related meeting was the intention to organize more events like this, hopefully one per month.

After about 30 minutes at the summit we made our way back down. Going down was a relief to our tired leg muscles but it was treacherous on our knees and ankles. Not only that, going down a steep incline with loose gravel and large stones presented many opportunities for a sprained ankle. There was one particular bend that was right on the edge of a cliff which required a lot of care to negotiate. Luckily we all made it to the bottom without much incident. We spent another 20 minutes at the bottom chatting before the others made their way back to campus. It was 5pm by then and I headed straight home.

 

a close up photo by.cristina
mon.jul.31

lana's breeder sent us this photo of lana today ...

she's almost 8 weeks old now!

 

growing babies by.cristina
sat.jul.29

we're told lana and her siblings are doing great and getting bigger and more clever by the day! here they are at about 7 weeks old ...

photo from www.divineshihtzu.com

have a guess which one our little lana is ...

... she's the first pup on your left :-).

 

counting down the days by.cristina
fri.jul.28

some exciting(!) news to share ... for awhile now i've been in search for a new addition to our two-member family. i adore animals and the thought of life without one just doesn't feel right to me. so peter (who has finally stood up and admitted that he is in fact a pet-person haha) quite easily agreed that we could get a puppy once we had settled down here :-D. he's actually (almost) as excited as i am about it! so after almost two months of searching, researching and contacting various breeders, we finally picked out the little girl who'll be joining our family. she's a shih-tzu and peter came up with a name for her already ... "lana" :-D.

I wanted to ensure we got a puppy from a reputable breeder (which explains my lengthy search heh) - and the the breeder of lana is actually the president of the shih tzu club here in washington, so i feel very reassured! when we went to visit her home it was obvious her dogs were very pampered and well taken care of. her entire home was designed and built with the shih-tzus comfort in mind. after some research i found out that lana comes from a long line of champion shih-tzus ... her dad won "best of breed" and "best of winners" in a show competition ... and can you imagine my surprise when i discovered that lana's great(x3) grandmother was mentioned in a shih-tzu handbook i'd purchased the other day! the book stated that lana's great(x3) grandmother was one of the top-producing shih-tzus in history! wow!

but that wasn't what sold her to us of course. we had gone out to look at her when she and her siblings were almost 6 weeks old (about two weeks ago). the puppies actually had their own nursery room in the breeder's home with a custom built crib just for them ...

the puppy nursery
photo from www.divineshihtzu.com

lana was running around in the crib with her sister and her four brothers. they all looked so adorable but she was the one i noticed straight away. i picked her up and she didn't fidget at all but remained calm in my hands. i thought to myself "gosh i hope this one's a girl" at which point her breeder said that the one i was holding was a girl and in fact her favourite hehe. peter was also holding one of lana's siblings but as he looked over to the little girl i was holding, he smiled and nodded hehe. yes lana was hands down the cutest, but what impressed us the most was that she was already potty-trained at that young age. yes, potty-trained! and we got to witness it too! i had put her down to see how she interacted with her siblings ... and after some short play ... she left her siblings and headed to her "wee-wee pad" on the other end of the crib, squatted and did her thing! awwwwww ... it was soooooo cute!! peter and i looked at each other with delight. peter had said from the beginning that he wouldn't hesitate paying more for a puppy that was potty trained, so i knew this little girl had definitely won him over :-).

lunch time for lana and her siblings!
photo from www.divineshihtzu.com

so ... *happy dance* ... we'll be picking up lana in a couple of weeks when she's around 10 weeks old :-). her breeder feels that that's the appropriate age when they can leave their mum and siblings, and we weren't about to question the opinions of a lady that's been involved with shih-tzus for almost 25 years. in the meantime we've been purchasing all the necessary food and supplies (and lots of toys!) for lana that her breeder has recommended. i've been having so much fun with it :-). you wouldn't believe how many pet stores we have in the area and oh the variety of products - it's definitely a very pet-friendly (pet-pampering) community!

unfortunately we didnt take any photos during our visit to the breeder's home so i don't have any close-up shots of lana to show you just yet. but we won't have long to wait until we see her again so you can bet you'll see more than your fair share of photos of her when the little cutey arrives :-D i'm soooooooo excited!!!! can you tell? :-P

 

a well earned rest by.cristina
thu.jul.27

my mum announced her resignation this week ... she's finally retiring! :-) i'm thrilled! one of the things that i admire most about her is that, although she's always worked hard, she's also always made time for life's pleasures. it's a balancing act that she's perfected and peter and i are learning greatly from that.

looking back on my childhood ... i see how much fun she made it! she'd throw us fantastic birthday parties and even bake our birthday cakes, at easter she'd organise exciting easter egg treasure hunts for us, and during christmas she'd turn our home into a christmas-themed wonderland! she encouraged us to believe in santa claus, the tooth-fairy ... but not the boogey-man hehe. she took my brother and i to all the fun places kids wanted to go! and she'd always let us go on those shopping mall rides haha. she let me have ballet, tap, jazz, piano, tennis and any other lessons i wanted. anyone could easily see that mum's happiness derived from seeing her children happy. she's always been completely self-less ... incredibly giving ... and when you talk to her she really listens u know? ... even when we were little kids. i know i can tell my mum absolutely anything ... because she's always created an environment where i feel safe to.

it's understandable why so many of her friends have asked her to be their children's god-mother ... and i've heard many say they wish she was their mother haha.

so now that my mum's retiring perhaps she can concentrate a lot more on pampering herself! i know she's already booked a trip overseas for september ... and then she and dad will be coming over here to visit peter and i in october. we can't wait! :-D

 

house-warming & MS picnic by.peter
sun.jul.23

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for us as we rushed around trying to make the condo a place that felt like home. In the first week it felt more like we were living in Kennards Storage than a condo. Slowly we unwrapped over 80 items (boxes and large pieces of furniture) but the whole time I was really worried we wouldn’t have enough places to store them. Only now do I realise how much of a hoarder I am. I found items that I’ve forgotten I’ve had for almost 10 years! Err ... it’s getting stored again.

When we left Sydney we brought most of our furniture and utensils but we had to give away most of our electronic appliances and equipment because the US couldn’t be bothered converting from 120V to 240V domestic electricity – just like they couldn’t be bothered converting to the metric system. For those interested, here's a list of the voltages used around the world. C’mon, even Afghanistan uses 230V.

Of the many electrical appliances that need to be bought, the most important item is the audio/video entertainment system. I have to admit that even though I’m supposedly an engineer, I know very little about home entertainment. I had to spend some time researching on the internet before I worked out which units to buy. In the end I, with Cristina’s approval of course, settled for the 50” Pioneer plasma, Philips DVD player and Yamaha home theatre system. The Philips and Yahama I picked up from Best Buy in Bellevue because their prices were already competitive. However, the Pioneer I ordered over the internet because I found an online dealer who offered the best deal with 4 year warranty, free delivery and free cables. They were 25% below the best price in any store!

The Pioneer arrived this week and it brought back that loving feeling to the home :). Unwrapping the plasma made it feel like Christmas in July....

The Christmas theme isn’t entirely random though. Each time Cristina and I have bought a new place, Cristina’s parents have been super generous with house warming gifts. When we bought our Strathfield apartment they gave us a Sony flatscreen and an air conditioning unit, for our Chatswood place we received a refrigerator and this time they gave us the plasma! Almost makes you want to rush out and buy another place just to see what we’d get haha :). Thanks heaps for the gift mum and dad! We promise to put it to good use!

To celebrate moving into our new place we decided to have a house warming BBQ. With temperatures hitting past 30 degrees celsius and home air conditioning unheard of in Seattle, it was certainly a house warming. Of the 12 of us at the BBQ only 3 of us were not Aussies. Rae’s husband, Jason, is from China. Bo’s girlfriend, Christine, is from Hong Kong. And finally Le Wang from – you guessed it –Toronto, Canada. Obviously. Sometimes it’s easy to forget there are actually Americans working at Microsoft. With so many Aussies, a barbie in 30+ degrees seemed just right. We even had prawns (which the supermarket mislabelled as shrimp) and lamb. One of the guys even brought Tim Tams and Pizza Shapes which had been flown in from Sydney. Tim Tams are hard to come by in Seattle - you need the right connections to get hold of a stash and it will often set you back a bit. So if anyone in Australia is feeling reasonably charitable please send some our way ;)

Everybody stuffed with food

The couples....

....
Sam & Alice.......................................Christine & Bo

....
Jason and Rae........................................Us!

The annual Microsoft company picnic for Microsoft families in the surrounding Seattle area was held this weekend. To cater for 30,000 employees and their families, the picnic had to be scheduled over 2 days and held in a location 20 miles south east of Redmond campus. The location was quite nice, surrounded by hills and mountains. Shuttles were organised to transport people from Redmond, Bellevue and Issaquah but we decided to take the car because we had arrangements in the morning which took us out of the designated areas. Police were used to redirect Microsoft picnic traffic to avoid disruption to the local traffic and boy scouts were used to help direct cars into parking areas. It was quite well organised.

Great views!

We arrived a little before 11am and got parking close to the gates. Looking around we noticed lots of little kids. This picnic was definitely a family affair. There were so many kids that they had to make every kid wear a yellow wrist band with the parent’s mobile number. The even had a stall labelled "Lost Kids". The event felt a little like a small Easter show. There were plenty of games, jumping castles, give away bags and free food and drinks. The weather was so hot it was difficult to muster the motivation to leave the comfort of the shade. We met up with the other Aussies and played a few games including Giant Basketball....

Steve managed 60 seconds on the bull!

Most of our group left around half-past three and Cristina and I, along with Bo and Christine, decided we'd check out some factory outlets that we were told were nearby. The shops were decent enough but the heat made our stay there quite short and we soon headed home. It was an enjoyable day though and despite the heat, we were glad we chose to attend the picnic.

 

photos of our condo by.cristina
fri.jul.14

it's still a work in progress but we figured you guys probably wanted to see some photos of our condo...

our condo (15 images)

 

home sweet home by.cristina
mon.jul.10

apologies for the lack of updates guys ... peter and i have been so busy with our move to the condo and all, that we've been spending any break time we had resting our tired and sore bodies. we handed back the keys to our corporate housing last friday but we had been staying at our condo a couple days prior, sleeping on an inflatable bed that we'd bought. it was actually quite comfortable considering what it was but we didn't have to wait long for our new mattress to arrive. we opted for one with a pillow top and peter and i love the feel of it! it's so soft! but ... the downside? it seems to have made getting out of bed a little harder for us hehe.

anyway, back to the move ... 3 delivery guys came out last friday to unload all of our shipped belongings from a big truck. by the end of it, there was hardly any floor space visible in our condo i kid you not. ok, we have waaaay too much stuff! peter was at work that friday so i was on my own. after the delivery guys had left i just sat in the condo for awhile looking at all our stuff, feeling completely overwhelmed. i had no idea where to start.

so fast forward to now and we've had about three days to unpack/sort/assemble/rearrange our things, and thankfully (amazingly) we managed to find space for everything. i haven't even started the decorating part (ie. the fun part) because there was just so much else to do and to think about. ahh, but the hard work is finally over and the fun can begin...

speaking of fun, peter and i had quite an enjoyable fourth of july. we, along with brendan, headed over to sam and alice's place earlier in the day to watch the soccer. afterwards we all went out for lunch and then met up with peter's other workmates (4 guys & a girl) who were all quite entertaining :-). of the 10 of us, alice and i were the only non-ms employees! we headed back to the apartment of three of the guys (rooming with each other) and chatted away until dinner. we all planned to watch the kirkland 4th of july fireworks together so we hung out and waited at their apartment, as they were only a few minutes walk away from the venue. the fireworks were so-so but the company made up for it. some of the guys in our group had bought their own fireworks and put on an awesome show for us when the crowds had gone hehe. it was so cool!

so lately peter and i have been making a lot of trips to places like home depot, fred myer, costco, ikea, etc. and i do foresee a lot more trips to come as we're no where near done. after rearranging all of our furniture we've realised there's actually quite a few things we still need/want to buy. top on our list (well my list anyway, being that i'm home all day) is a tv! i've actually been trying to compensate for the lack of one by watching things on here and here hehe.

guess what?? on the weekend, after peter had come back in from taking out the garbage, he calmly tells me, "babe, i just saw two deers walking on the driveway". of course i didn't believe him (peter's always kidding around with me) but he insisted i look out our balcony, as he thought they were headed towards the greenbelt (which our balcony overlooks). skeptical, but curious, i look out our dining room window (also overlooks greenbelt) and oh.my.gawd. there were 2 deers!! i couldn't believe it! i rushed to get our camera to take some photos of them from our balcony...

what a sight!!

 

we have the keys!! by.cristina
sat.jul.1

connie stopped by peter's workplace yesterday to drop off the keys to our new home :-). i was out for most of the day as alice had called up wanting to get together for lunch and to do some boutique-store shopping in kirkland. not long after alice had dropped me off, peter msgd letting me know that he had the keys to our condo and suggested we drop by there after he got home from work (yes it was empty but hey, we were excited! :-P). so we headed over there and when we stepped through the door, we couldn't help but look at each other with these big cheesy grins haha. we just knew for sure we had made a great purchase! both of us get such a good feeling being in that condo ... it felt like home instantly!

but ... for me, just one thing had to go. the walls of the guest bathroom were a light green and i couldn't stand it, despite my attempts to. i had sat in there for awhile asking myself, "now do you really need this changed? c'mon, really? need it?".

oh yes i did.

thankfully the rest of the walls in the condo were painted in colours that actually appealed to me (beige, light browns, a light blue) ... but the green bathroom had to go!

eww.

*shuts eyes*

so peter and i headed to the shopping area in sammamish today and bought some bathroom paint and all the necessary equipment to do the job (rollers, extension rod, painter's tape, plastic coverings, etc.). yes the thought of hiring painters had crossed our minds but peter decided he wanted to give painting a go himself this time. i must admit i was a little nervous, as i come from a family that have always left handyman-type duties to the professionals, but peter truly outdid himself today! let me tell ya, when peter puts his mind to doing a particular task, he does it thoroughly!

peter's meticulous prep work
(and yet he avoids wrapping gifts like the plague haha)

i have my blank canvas! yaaay!!

so what's on tomorrow's agenda? shopping for home stuff! :-D *blissfully happy*

baby, you rock ;-).