Bright Thursday morning

Grace and greetings.

We have made it to Anchorage on our two week whorl wind tour.  We spent the Fourth of July with my brother and his family in Portland; enjoying the time with them; the fireworks and the excitement of the neighborhood fireworks setting the neighbors lawn on fire that was quickly put out.

We spent a week in Seattle shopping, seeing old friends and being able to spend time with my sister and her partner.  We looked at schools for Sam, and the winner so far is the Art Institute of Seattle.  They have several Bachelor of Arts programs.  The two tracks that Sam is interested in is "Animation" and "Digital Film."  He is leaning towards the film making but we will see what happens over the next year or so.  One of the pluses for the Art Institute of Seattle, is that it is a three year program, but goes throughout the year, which means one can not spend the summer making money to pay for the next year.

Tuesday Kim finally had her court date with the Social Security Disability judge which was held via video teleconference.  The judge had two witnesses: a psychiatrist and a vocational expert.  Our attorney was impressed that the judge had done her homework and reading Kim's file.  Because of that, after Kim's testimony and the one of the other experts, the judge ruled that Kim fit the definition of disability without all the other testimony we were ready for, including me.  That is a big relief for us.  Now Kim needs to figure out who she is now that she has been declared "disabled." 

The rest of the week here is going to be spent doing the normal vacation type events: catching up on movies, shopping, doctor appointments and seeing a tour of some of the glaciers tomorrow.  Since there is no movie theater in Barrow, Kim and Sam came down with a list of movies in mind.  The movies we have seen so far: Star Trek, (with my brother and his family), Wolverine, Angels and Demons, Transformers, Night of at the Museum, and Harry Potter.  For me, the best was between Harry Potter and Star Trek; for Kim it is those two and Angels and Demons; for Sam it is Wolverine.

Well, it is time to get some breakfast.  I will try and post our time with the glaciers later, after I can up load the pictures on our own computer.

Peace and blessings.

Grace and greetings.

Kim and Sam have now joined me in Seattle. We spent the July 4th weekend with my brother and his family in Portland, and we promptly were sun burned.

While we are back in Seattle for this week, Sam has been catching up with some of his friends and so are we. We have done many of the tourist stuff, like buying clothing, shoes, etc; and of course eating out at real restaurants that we have been wanting to try again.

Last night we were able to make it to the Texas Rangers-Seattle Mariners game. We were hopping for good seats but still ended up in the upper deck, which of course the sun beat down on us until the fourth inning, after it finally became a wonderful night. Unfortunately the Mariners lost 6-4, where just like last week against the Angels, the Rangers scored all their runs on home runs.

What is amazing at the moment, is that we have not seen that many movies yet. In the past when we get out of Barrow, the first thing Kim and Sam check out is what movies are playing. We have only seen two so far, "Transformers" and "Star Trek." Though Kim and Sam really loved Transformers, I thought it was a let down from the first one, and too much fighting of the transformers, still had a hard time figuring out who was who.

Today we are on our way to a church retreat to see some friends that we will miss if we go to church tomorrow. Then we will have dinner with my sister and her partner. Then we leave for Anchorage on Monday for Kim's Social Security Disability hearing on Tuesday.

Well it is time to get ready to go out into the "HOT" Seattle weather...okay it is only in the low 80's, but it is hot for us.

Peace and blessings.