Happy Thanksgiving!


(Awkward smile....get me out of here!)


(My nephew Carson being a Pilgrim)

11/29/09 10:03 AM

I think this is a record! I have never updated the blog this quickly. It’s going to be a short one because not too much has happened. I’m happy to announce that I have CLEP’d (tested) out of 6 credits worth of Spanish. I was only six correct answers away from getting the full 12 credits. I was so mad at myself. I had taken hours worth of practice tests (which were supposed to mirror the actual test), but the actual test question structure was completely different. The practice test did not prepare me for the level of difficulty that I was about to experience. I need 12.33 general ed credits to complete my degree. All of my upper division classes are done. Once my degree is done, then I will get ready for the GMAT and hopefully get into a good school to get my Masters.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! The night before Thanksgiving, Lesley and I drove around the water to her parent’s house. Steve and I went and saw “Old Dogs,” while Lesley and Debbie went to “New Moon.” There were many laughs in the show I saw, but it isn’t a movie I would buy. My movie got out before Lesley’s, so Steve and I went in and watched the last 20 minutes of New Moon. We were probably the only two guys in the theater. As for the movie, it looked good from what I saw—really dramatic. Lesley made the comment as we were driving away from the theater, “You should work out more so you can look like Jacob.” Then she smiled and batted her pretty little eyes. It made me laugh. She’s lucky she’s a girl and she can get away with that.

For Thanksgiving, we went to the Payne’s for dinner. The Payne family is a really close family friend with the Miles’. After a yummy and filling dinner, we watched a movie called “The Family Stone.” I slept through a lot of it. After that movie was over, the men watched “The Magnificent 7.” It is a classic Western with Steve McQueen and others. Lesley slept through this movie. The next day neither Lesley nor I went shopping on black Friday.

Well, I gotta go get some breakfast, prepare my lesson, and go to church. Bye.

Here's some pics...





(Lola's new bed!)

11/7/09 9:32 AM

Hello everybody! It has been a really long time since I updated the Sadler Family blog. I feel bad because I had a lot of family members and even clients at work who were telling me to update the blog. I think that you all just wanted to see new pictures of Lola. As I speak, she is chewing on a bone underneath my chair. Lesley is getting her beauty rest on this cloudy and gloomy Saturday morning. Recently God decided to turn on the water over Seattle and it hasn’t stopped for a few days now. I was telling my mom the other day that this Winter I’m going to hibernate in my house huddled next to one of those lights that give off real light. That way I’ll get my vitamin D and feel alive and happy. I’ll wait until May-ish until God decides to turn on the lights outside and turn off the water. I am glad He waters a lot because I sure love the beauty of the Northwest. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I am going to have to take a break from writing because I am going to the quarterly primary activity. Today we are practicing for the primary program that will take place tomorrow. Dan Shaw and I team-teach the Valiant 10 aged kids. These kids can get crazy sometimes………….I’m back.




(Cooper Camping)




So what’s been happening in our lives since I last updated the blog? Hopefully I can remember everything. I’m going to have to look through our pictures to refresh my memory. The summer was filled with many vacations—long and short. The highlight of the summer was going to Utah. I was able to spend a week down there with my family before Lesley and her parents arrived and we all went down to Lake Powell. My family and I went camping. Sara and Carson were also able to come. It was hard for me because Carson hadn’t seen me for almost a year and he was rather shy. While in Utah everything worked out to where I could be there when my brother Chanse (whom I call Marcus) got to open his mission call. He was called to the Argentina Salta mission. I can’t believe he is old enough to go on a mission! I was also able to see all my grandparents and stand in the circle while my homie Mitch blessed his baby Ryder. Throughout the rest of the week my family and I went on bike rides at the Jordan River Parkway and went karaokeing (spelling?) with my bro and his friends at Applebees with half-off appetizers.







Lesley packed up Lola and drove down to Utah with her parents and aunt. Lola was going to stay at my parents for the week that we were gone to Powell. Lola got to play with my parent’s big puppy lab named Cooper (Coop) all week. I felt bad for my parents and am grateful they watched our “Welsh Terror” the whole week. Lesley and I were able to go to Lunch with her friend Erin, see my Mission President and his wife (the Fillmores), go to a BBQ at Copperton Park, and go to a Bees baseball game and watch the fireworks afterwards. We also got to go through the Oquirrh Mtn. Utah Temple, which was amazingly beautiful.

Powell was a blast this year. There were more people on the houseboat this year, which meant less wakeboarding for me. We played lots of games, watched movies, got rained on, had a bat fly into the houseboat, ate great food, and got to spend time with some of Lesley’s siblings and their kids. I didn’t get a very long lasting tan at Lake Powell. When we arrived back in Washington, I immediately turned white again. Bummer.

About a week after returning from Powell, we packed up again and went to McCall, Idaho with friends from the ward—The Deru’s, McClain’s, and Dennison’s. We stayed at the Deru’s parent’s cabin on the lake. (If I remember right, McCall is about 8 or so hours away from where we live.) We wakeboarded, skied, wakesurfed, and dock jumped. We went to hot springs and just hung out and had a great time. I introduced them to the wrath of stinky Parker.







Lesley and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary on Sept. 12th. We stayed at a timeshare in Blaine, Wa., which is literally on the Canada border. Lesley and I went surfing as much as we could this summer. I finished my classes at University of Phoenix and now I’m studying to test out of the remaining credits for my Bachelors in Business Administration. Lesley recently underwent wrist surgery to re-route some tendons and file down a painful bone spur. She has had a bum wrist for the last month or so. Lesley also started school again at the end of September. She is in her final year of her Radiation Therapy program at Bellevue College. She is working very hard on homework and working in Valley Medical Center across the street from our apartment complex. We moved into a two-bedroom apartment at the end of September. Lola would have her own room if she didn’t like sleeping on mommy and daddy’s bed. So it has been very busy and I will use that as an excuse why I have not updated our blog.







One last thing I wanted to talk about before I post this……I was able to fly down to Utah for a long weekend. My brother’s farewell was Sept. 27th. He went to the MTC on Oct. 14th. I’m glad that I was able to attend this and see him one last time before he left. He did a great job in his talk. He spoke with power and with humor. I’m proud of him for always being such a good person and outstanding swimmer. I have enjoyed my friendship with him over the years.





Halloween was a lot of fun. Lesley and I dressed up as a Bavarian couple from Germany. I wore my lederhosen and Lesley wore an authentic German dress. She called us Hanzel and Grettle. We went to a party at the Dennison’s with a bunch of other couples from the ward.



Well, I successfully rambled on and on. Now its time for me to go to the gym and work on my six pack so Lesley can do our laundry on my washboard abs. (yeah right!) After the gym I need to run to the store and get some ice cream to cancel out my workout.

Adios!

A video of Carson's 1st birthday party 6.28.08

Carson's first haircut 2007

 

7/12/09 6:05 PM

Lesley and I have gone on many adventures lately. The summer has brought many dry days. We went 29 days without any rainfall. It was nice, but weird at the same time. Before I get into my spill, I wanted to wish my momma a Happy Birthday. It was yesterday. (I hope she enjoyed my hand-drawn card)

For the 4th of July, Lesley and I made plans to go to La Push, Washington with Lesley’s mom and her co-worker Christi. It is the very northwestern-most part of the state. It also happens to be the place where Twilight was filmed. The place has become a holy place to the Twilight readers. People are regularly making pilgrimage to this itty-bitty town. We stopped at a hamburger joint in Forks and I got a “Bella Burger.”

La Push is on or near an Indian reservation. Fireworks are legal on the “rez.” Consequently there were tons of little Indian kids shooting off fireworks. We camped right on the beach. The next morning we spent about 4 hours surfing. The waves were awesome. It is my new favorite place to surf. It is second only to Hawaii. Lesley and I have also surfed together on Huntington Beach, Ca, and Westport, Wa.























This weekend, Lesley and I went camping with some friends from the ward. We went to some church property in Arlington, Wa, about an hour and a half north. There we again camped on the side of a river. Saturday morning, we woke up and went for a swim in the freezing river. The swim only lasted about 5 minutes. We quickly drove home and got ready to travel to eastern Washington. Once we crossed over the Cascade mountains, it looked exactly like Utah landscape. A hot, dry desert. We went with Lesley’s mom, dad, and Christi to the Coldplay concert at the Gorge. It was the most beautiful outdoor amphitheater I have ever been to.








We ended up getting home at 3am this morning.

I am headed to Utah this coming Saturday, the 18th. It is going to be so much fun seeing my family and friends. Lesley will arrive on the 24th. My family and Lesley will be going to a Bees game and watching fireworks. We will head to Lake Powell on the 26th for the following week.

So that means that I have to really crack down on homework this week so I have nothing hanging over my head while I’m on vacation.

Luego!

6/6/09 9:50 PM

I have a whole bunch to write about today. Lesley and I have been on a lot of adventures lately. Every weekend for the last three weeks, we have been away from home. (This is one of the reasons I have been a slacker and have not called my momma for a while….sorry momma! I love you!!!) Lesley and I went camping over Memorial Day weekend. Last weekend we went to Seaside, Oregon. And today we were in Poulsbo and spent the day sailing.

Our Memorial Day camping trip was a lot of fun. We went to Lake Wenatchee in central Washington. It was a couple hour drive across the Cascade mountain range. We found a place to camp in a book I bought Lesley for her birthday. The book is called “The Best Tent Camping in Washington.” The camping place was off the beaten path in a really secluded part of the forest. We arrived in the dead of night. We set up our tent and went to bed. (I’m surprised we were able to sleep after seeing signs that said “BEWARE of Bears.” We awoke to see what a beautiful place it was. We camped pretty close to a river that fed into Lake Wenatchee. We walked around and found beautiful overlook views of the river. I would take Lola into the woods to help me find firewood. Lesley and I were able to get Lola to get in the water up to her belly. I don’t know how she did it because the water was ice cold. I tried standing in water below my knees and I almost died of frostbite. Another highlight of this trip was visiting Leavenworth, a small alpine Bavarian village.

Our trip last weekend was also a lot of fun. It felt as though we had gone back in time 9 months to our honeymoon. I took a day off work and we headed down the Oregon coast to Seaside. Lesley’s parents had reserved a couple condos at the Wyndham resort in Seaside. A couple of Lesley’s sisters and their families came from Utah and California to be with us. It was a lot of fun playing uncle that weekend. We went to Tillamook, OR and toured the cheese factory again. We spent a lot of time on the beach and in the swimming pool. Lola loved running around on the beach and getting in the cold water. She also enjoyed playing in the sand and meeting other dogs. Lesley fell asleep on the beach and got a good sunburn on the back of her legs. Lets just say she struggled to walk the next couple of days. It looks like she is wearing really high red socks.

Today Steve, Tyler, David, and I spent the day sailing in Poulsbo. It was my first experience ever sailing. It was tons of fun. It was an overcast day but there was a good amount of wind. We raised the sails high and hoped the wind would blow in a constant direction. We had to weave our way through the water, changing the direction of the sails in order to propel the boat. There were times that I thought we were going to tip over because we were leaning 15 to 20 degrees. I learned a lot about how to sail and direct the boat. It is a great feeling to get out there and be pushed by the wind. I wouldn’t mind having a sailboat in the future. Taking a few weeks off work and sailing to ports along the coast.

Well, I’m pretty tired and a little sunburned. I better get to bed.

Oh, PS…I’m excited to go to the 311 concert on Monday with some friends!!!

4/21/09 9:54 PM

What a beautiful weekend it was here in the Pacific Northwest. God seemed to smile down on us as the clouds parted and the sun shone. I want to think that the rainy season is over. I hope you all are enjoying comfortable weather wherever you may be. I can imagine my momma cracking the whip and getting my dad and brother raking the yard and getting everything ready for the summer. I was telling Lesley’s parents that I actually somewhat kinda sorta miss yard work. Crazy, yes! Lesley and I hope to have a little house of our own in the next couple of years. We are anxiously waiting to complete school and start making some money. If we have a little yard, we’ll just send Lola to mow the lawn. (Lola loves to eat grass when she’s not eating her own poop)

Lola is such a cute little beast. She continues to grow and develop her adorable little personality. She is really obedient some days. Some days she just does what she wants. For example, last weekend when Lesley and I were at the Miles’ home, Lola decided she wanted to run under the fence and into the horse pasture in the neighboring property. After eating a mound of horse turd, she decided to go say hello to the horse. Meanwhile, we are all calling for Lola to come back. She walked over to the horse and tilted her head, as dogs do, and stared in awe. She was probably thinking that the horse was a really enormous dog. I’m just glad she didn’t try to play with the horse.

Anyway, the 14th of April was my birthday. I wanted to thank all of you for the presents and birthday wishes. You all, especially Lesley, spoiled me. I had to work on my birthday. But after I got off, I went home and unwrapped presents and read Lesley’s funny homemade card. She made be a pan of brownies with a “P” made out of colored chocolate chips. We got some really good cheesesteaks from a nearby restaurant. We had about a half hour to kill before our movie, so we decided to get a little crazy and try the slots at a casino across the street from the theater. This was our first time ever trying our luck in a casino. We played $10 and won $23. So we came out with extra money in our pockets—just enough to buy some popcorn at the movie. I have no plan on returning to the casino. It’s just a weird and dark environment where people become slaves of a bad habit.

Anyway, we saw Mall Cop, which was a funny show. Kevin James is hilarious. He reminds me of my boy Mitch back home. (Speaking of Mitch and Sarah Perkins, they will be having a little boy in 2 months, and I wish them my very best and send my love. One day, their little boy will grow up and be an aggressive street walker like his dad.)

Lesley and I were able to get away last weekend. Lesley’s parents kindly watched little Lola as we went surfing this last Saturday. We drove a couple hours to a place called Westport--Lesley’s favorite place to surf in Washington. It was a sunny, yet windy day. The temperature was a brisk 62 degrees. The ocean was somewhere in the 50s. We rented some thick wetsuits equipped with hoods and booties. I rented a longboard and Lesley used her own short board. Lesley was fun to watch because she is so good. I often struggle to position myself in front of the good waves. Sometimes it feels like I paddle and paddle, somehow managing to get washed up on the beach. I swim a lot for exercise, but surfing kicks my butt. The water is so cold that when you dive under a wave, it feels like somebody is sticking tons of needles in your face. But once the adrenaline gets going, you don’t notice your cold face or numb hands. Anyway, it was a fun trip and I’m glad I married a girl like Lesley who loves to do things like surfing.

Well, it’s my bedtime. Luego.

(Surfing Westport)












(Beacon Rock on the Washington side of the border between WA and OR)


(This landmark made it into Lewis and Clark's journals)


(Overlooking the Columbia from Beacon Rock)


(Lola's First Hike)


(Lola walked a mile each way next to some steep drop-offs. She likes to look over the edge)


(Some Pretty Scenery)


(On the way back down from Beacon)


(My car. Her name is Ruby. I sold my Xterra 2 months ago)