Family Updates and Hard Scaping photos

Howdy all, Okay update.

Jon finished another great season of soccer, I took a spill running downhill on a chip sealed road (lots of blood and a bruised knee), Chery continues to shoot people....uh pictures I mean and Gabe...well Gabe is Gabe; wounds, head injuries and still cute as a button.

On to the house and yard. Hard scaping is taking place after all the vision and designing. The guys at Cadman delivered three loads of riverbed sand, one of 5/8 minus and two of 1 1/2 clean rock for drainage. Paul, over at Pine Creek Nursery, dumped about 25 tons of 1 to 1 1/2 man basalt for the wall. I used some of the leftover darker colored basalt to complete the beds by the entryway and transitioned to the lighter colored rock at the corner of the front patio, seen at the bottom of the post in the second photo. We shaped out the outline for the back raised patio with string, tweaked it a bit and then started building. At first I was using the "tractor appreciation" technique of two hands, a shovel and a wheel barrow. That was fun. After spilling the wheelbarrow several times and in frustration lofting the thing across the yard, I began to search out other more mechanically advantaged options. I accepted an offer to borrow a tractor from Jon's soccer coach, KUBOTA ROCKS! And in 6 short hours I pretty much multiplied my progress ten fold. (Below is a shot of the begining of the stairs that will lead from the patio to the back yard. At this point the wall will be about 4 1/2 feet tall.) I WANT A TRACTOR! Then the snow started falling today. It is pretty but I really wanna keep working out there although the cold and wet is not to attractive. (Below is a shot from the other side where I decided to dismantle the base of the wall to gain access with the tractor.) The main issue is that we have Thanksgiving parking to think about, not to mention it's kinda fun driving the tractor. The rock and gravel seems to be somewhat blocking the vast majority of the driveway and needs to be moved. So maybe later today and the next few days will provide time to clear out the driveway and get the backyard presentable for Turkey Day.

Happy Thanksgiving, talk to ya soon,

Tony

Wallace River Fish Hatchery Tours 2010

It is that time of year again when the boys get to play with the spawning salmon. This year both Jon and Gabe led their own tour groups, Jon even got to lead his own 4th grade class through the hatchery tour. This year was a low return run of Coho salmon and the holding pen was occupied by a quarter of the normal count of fish. The weather held for both days as the clear sky allowed full viewing of the local foothills and mountains. We welcomed the buses and lead the kids to the holding pond for the introduction and fertilization demonstration. Gabe soon realized his tour guide vest was upside down and in need of a little attention.

The short intro told the life cycle story and emphasized habitat stewardship concepts, but the fun was the demonstration.

After fully sliming themselves the tours led the students through six different stations explaining egg storage and development, natural habitats and food, tagging and migration studies, anatomy, stewardship and hazards, and finally returning and spawning salmon. Jon carried the female Coho to the area for the anatomy demo leaving behind him a trail off eggs along the way due to her being so ripe. It was a great couple of days and the boys shined with their knowledge and entertaining ad libs. In all they led four tours of groups from 30 to 10 kids. The tours were organized through their Four-H club, Bicycle Tree, and hosted by a chapter of WSU's environmental studies program....

Tony

Oh, goodness was that me....

Not much to say here about Gabe's costume choice this year...

Tony

Scotland part 2 and a little of London

(My apologies for the delay in posting) After two days in Inverness, a quaint town nestled seven miles north of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, we traveled via rail to Aviemore, the outdoor activity center of Scotland; picture Whistler in the early 80's without the glamor of the village and all that brings. The Adventure Travel and Trade summit was staged to begin the next day and we snuck in a bit ahead of the majority of the 400+ delegates from around the world. The next four days were a whirlwind of activity for Cheryl and me. Cheryl was part of the photographic team bouncing from event to event recording speakers and happenings. A lot of her pictures were used on the big screen to update attendees on the day's activities and also on the web site. I was tasked with various duties and projects. We would wake around six, hit the ground running and crash back in bed at or around midnight. During the summit we met and worked with adventure travel industry leaders, guides, agents and press from literally around the world. Most notably was Dr. Sakena Yakoobi who spoke to inspire the industry to look outside itself and serve the world. She selflessly leads the way through her institute in Afghanistan: http://www.afghaninstituteoflearning.org/ We were all deeply humbled by her talk.............

Day one of the summit was a "Day of Adventure" with several activities provided for the delegates to experience the local area including whitewater rafting, hiking, mountain biking, nature walks, deer hunting, rock climbing, and canoeing. I was thankful to have the opportunity to get a spot on the Spey River Canoeing and whiskey tasting trip. It was hosted by David Craig who owns and runs http://www.speydescent.com/ , a small adventure company specializing in open canoe runs of the history rich Spey river. David was an amazing guide with an encyclopedic knowledge of the country side, local history, the river and of course Scotch Whiskies. We began with a short van ride to the put-in point where the boats were already waiting for our arrival. The weather was cool with what would become a strong tailwind and thankfully no rain. Our group of nine included writers, river guides, travel consultants and me, a firefighter. After a short paddle lesson and introduction to David's mistress (the Spey), we paired up and began the day on the river. I shared a boat with a freelance writer based in San Fransisco, Don, he was a great paddling buddy with just enough experience to make it a fun day. That's us, I'm in the blue Smurf hat. We floated the initial easy water and listened to David's descriptions of early Scottish river life. As we passed various geographic features, plants and homesteads David would expand his stories to included botany, geology and intriguing descriptions of bloody battles fought on local soil. Most of the names and titles allude my English speaking tongue but the pronunciations sounded romantically beautiful. Even if it was just a rock on top of a hill. The river led us through farmlands supporting sheep and cattle. Long ago the river banks were thick with trees resulting in a new fly fishing technique suitably called Speyfishing. Due to the dense woods at the fisherman's back a special style of casting was invented to eliminate the need for the traditional fly fishing back-cast. Eventually the local land owners mowed down the trees for improved view and easier river access. So today the dense woods are more like spots of random trees. The river meandered lazily through the country side and soon expanded to form a wider body of water. Just prior to crossing the open water we stopped for a breezy lunch of tea, coffee, homemade sandwiches and biscuits sweets. The company was friendly, the weather was lovely, and the service was over the top personal. David's wife had lovingly prepared three different sandwiches for the lot of us to enjoy and enjoy we did. There was mature cheddar with fruit chutney, salmon lox and ham sandwiches to choose from. All were equally as delicious. After lunch we made our way to the open water choosing not to tie up and raft but to make our way as several separate boats. The threatening whitecaps reached higher and higher as we crossed the lake. Thankfully we all reached the far side with not one capsized boat. Safely back in the calm waters of the Spey river main channel we continued our float toward the awaiting whiskey tasting. The next section of water brought with it a couple small areas of textured water requiring a greater level of concentration. Having cleared all but the final rapid we were welcomed to the take-out point by a set of pipes belting out into the heather and aspens. Yet we still had a small section of technical water. The romantic sound of the pipes combined with the late hour and the anticipation of some of the world's finest whiskey distracted us all resulting in a rather hilarious log-jam of canoes at the sharp left-hand bend. All went well and again we averted a capsize. After a small duty of loading boats we were led like piper-mice to our destination nestled in a carpet of ferns and heather. The tall trees hugged the small yurt where we were treated to mystically intimate tunes, wonderfully creative yarns of flavour planets, aging processes and the finer arts of Highland Scotch Whiskey distilling and aging. We had the immense honor of having Dr. Andrew Forrester, the Balvenie Ambassador to the UK, educate us on all that is Scotch Single Malt Whisky. So began our meandering of a path through the best of the Balvenie elixirs starting with the Signature moving to Single Barrel, then Double Wood. We made a short stop to examine the true pure spirit in its raw form before continuing on to the Portwood 21. Then a treat, we were blessed with a half dram of the wonderfully rare Thirty, a bottle of bronze goodness none of us would choose to afford. Finally we rounded out the pallet exercise with a tasting of the latest experiment of Peatwood, a malt with wonderful accent of peat introduced during the drying process of the barley. Our day of adventure ended with a late return to the hotel. We had passed the time of using the shuttle van and had to cram into David's personal vehicle, it was one last bit of fun before returning to the Summit.............................

The remaining three days of the summit were a blur of activity consisting of 15+ hour days of lectures, networking, and generally taking care of the delegates needs. We ate at meals sponsored by Scotland (haggis), Ecuador, Finland, Mexico, Brazil and others. It was exhausting, challenging and at times really fun. But when it was over we were all really glad. The final night ended with a few hours on the dance floor with delegates from all over the world. Cheryl and I scheduled seats on the buss to Edinburgh departing at 5am the next morning. We hastily packed and made our way bleary-eyed out to the buss. We spent a few hours touring Edinburgh and eventually met up with our traveling group for a train ride to London..........................

London brought with it a time of decompression from the stresses of the Summit, we each processed it a bit differently, overall we were happy to be done. Cheryl and I took a midnight walk on the Thames crossing the Tower Bridge and taking a ton of photos of the illuminated bridge and castle. While shooting the Tower Castle we actually saw a fox, red body and white tipped tail and all, slink out of the landscaping and shoot down an underpass tunnel into the night. (Most of the photos Cheryl took are larger files so I can't post them here, refer to her Facebook page for viewing when she gets them uploaded.) We spent the next day celebrating Cheryl's birthday on and off tour buses seeing the city and the sights. We ended up in the Soho district for dinner and a show, we saw STOMP in an small theatre. It was a blast! We walked around a bit and then caught the underground back to the Tower Station to make it a night. The final day in London we spent as a couple. We covered about 10 miles of the Thames river bank walk, visited the only firehouse in the city of London (had some great tea with the on-duty crew), and checked out a street market just as it was closing. We even enjoyed watching a movie crew filming the second "Jonny English" movie on the street next to our hotel...........................

We departed London the next morning catching a taxi to the airport. A little duty free shopping and a LONG flight home brought us to Sea-Tac only one hour after we departed. I still have a challenge with the math on that one.......................

Tony

Scotland

After flying across North America and the Pond, we arrived in London Heathrow with an hour to meet our connecting flight to Edinburgh. Rushing through Immigration and Customs we discover the weather is so bad that our flight is delayed for several hours. Stuck with a few hours on our hands the six of us sat in a pub and enjoyed a meal and a pint. On the TV screens we watched coverage of the rained out Ryder Cup; standing water on the fairways, rivulets on the greens and blasting winds. So began our trip to Scotland. Cheryl and I are traveling with members of the ATTA heading to Aviemore, Scotland for the Adventure Travel and Trade World Summit. Cheryl is the official event photographer and I am just a volunteer. It just so happens there is a marathon the day before the Summit in a small town thirty minutes north of Aviemore; the Baxters Loch Ness Marathon. It runs pretty much the length of Loch Ness. After a great meal we make our way to the gate and catch the short flight to Edinburgh. At this point Cheryl and I broke off from our travel partners to head out to Inverness for a day of exploration and preparation for the Sunday race. We left the airport riding in a double-decker bus to the train station. The half-hour trip was our introduction to Scotland. We sat up front on the top level to take it all in. We saw amazing old world architecture mixed with modern lines and materials. We experienced firsthand the adventure of driving the narrow roads. Our arrival at the train station was announced by a whiplash U-turn followed by a staccato parking job. The bus emptied quickly and folks scattered in all directions: some heading to the station, others along the stone sidewalks and still more down stairs leading to the nearby castle. Cheryl and I made our way to the station and booked out train to Inverness. We grabbed a small bite while we waited in the station. Out tickets guided us to the proper platform for the train and we were surprised to find it already there and ready to depart. We boarded, stowed our bags and found seats for the four hour ride through the night. The train departed five minutes early into the evening. About forty-five minutes later the conductor made his way to our car and requested our tickets. We dug them out of our pockets and presented them only to hear, “You are on the wrong train.” In the country for only a few hours and we are already on the wrong train. We explained that the reader-board said Inverness and he confirmed that this trail will eventually end up in Inverness. It just takes a much longer route and stops at every town along the way. The more direct train left five minutes after the train we were on from the other tracks on the same platform. Oops. Yes, we would end up in Inverness but several hours later than expected. Now, we had booked a quaint B&B in town with a late check in time of 9 pm. The weather delay meant we would not arrive until close to nine. Now with our train blunder we would not arrive until roughly 1 am. I was becoming concerned about reaching our destination and not being able to get in. We arrived as scheduled in Inverness. The town was mostly closed down and asleep sans the pubs. A few taxis waited outside the station for fares and random folks exiting pubs dotted the streets and sidewalks. We were not sure about the distance to the B&B and debated if we should take a taxi. The driver, hearing the address said if we didn’t mind a few stairs, it would only be a few minutes’ walk. We thanked him and made our way through the night. The rough hewn stone stairs were not too bad and soon we were at the top standing in an intersection analyzing our map in an effort to get orientated. A very friendly rather drunk man approached and offered assistance. We said he was walking home from the pub and was going our way. We found out that he and his wife, who by the way loves Americans, were married in San Francisco. We found the correct road; Southside. But we could not find the house, until another gentleman who was sober got us pointed in the correct direction. We parted with our new drunk friend and found 20 Southside Rd. The front door was cracked open allowing access to the foyer. We clicked the buzzer and were quickly greeted by a groggy teenage boy who kindly greeted us, took our orders for breakfast and showed us to our room. It was 1:15 in the morning. And we were asleep quickly. (Please take time to visit their site at: www.atholdene.com) The next morning we awoke still tired from the previous days’ adventures with planes, trains and…buses. Breakfast was served in the main dining area downstairs. Cheryl had porage and I had a traditional Scottish meal of eggs, ham, sausage and black pudding. It was a heavy and calorie rich plate. Freddy, the man of the house, said he would tell me what was in the pudding after I had finished eating. It was more like a paddy of black oatmeal, onion and spices fried in bacon fat. But there was a more gamey flavor there that I couldn’t quite make out. Later I found out that was the pigs’ blood. Yep, that's the flavor I couldn't place. Here is a view of the front of the B&B. Out the door and to the marathon check in. We made our way back through town, now in the daylight, to Bungth Park located in the center of Inverness. The River Ness quietly bisects the town and provides for wonderful Atlantic salmon fishery. Above are a few shots of guys fly fishing in the traditional spey style. Marathon check-in was just like any other check-in where you are asked toshow you entry info, check you name off the list, get your packet and confirm the correct race number. It was interesting being around runners from different countries. It wasn't all that different from races in the states, just different languages. The rest of the day was spent walking around the town. We stumbled on a small church hosting a wedding seen here with a few nervous gents outside, found a local shopping area with a butcher shop and even a "pound" store, and the local fire department (unfortunately they were out on a call).

Later in the afternoon we found a friendly taxi man who drove us the seven windy pasture lined miles to Loch Ness.As evening approached the city began to light up and present Cheryl with more photographic opportunities.

Our day done and souvenirs bought, we arranged to meet up with our group at a local pub; The Castle Pub. They rented a car and wanted to drive up to have dinner. It was a late night full of laughter and stories. Marathon day arrived welcomed by overcast skies and a light misty drizzle. Cheryl and I walked to the finish area so she could see me off aboard the awaiting buses and be driven to the start area.

This was the ninth running and it appears they are really getting popular. The Marathon has around three thousand entrants and the other events, 10k, 5k and children's Wee Nessie Run, added an additional couple thousand participants. The drive to the start was a meandering single lane white knuckle adventure. The Highland region was once densely forested long ago but the vast majority of those trees are long gone, used for castles, houses, and fire. The never ending rolling hills are blanketed with pink and white heather and various grasses marked only by the short stone walls and weathered wood post fences with barbed wire. The predominate pasture animal is sheep and there are a lot of them. We look out the bus windows during the drive taking it all in. Even the local folks enjoy the show on our glass movie screens. We spot a few deer, pheasant, shaggy Highland beef and grouse. Farm houses made of stone with slate roofs dot the route tucked in near small stands of trees established near water sources.

The actual start was a straight stretch of typically narrow road with woods on one side and a clearcut on the other. Yes, there is still logging in Scotland but you can see management in a replanting process. We all unload the buses and pour out onto the road, many vanishing into the woods to attend to personal needs. The announcers corralled us in, took our clothing bags, lined us up and, just as the pipe band made its way through the hoard to the starting line the, sounded the starting horn. The race began with a few miles of rolling downhill dotted with "pimple" uphills to the shores of Loch Ness. Holding back a bit, most of the experienced runners glided through the light rain reserving energy for the secret hills at mile nineteen and twenty. Cheryl and I had discovered the hills the previous day on our excursion to the Loch and the little town of Dores. As we reached the shore of the Loch Ness at around mile seven, the clouds broke and the sun triumphantly made its way out. I had studied the course a bit and anticipated a rather level shoreline run what I didn't expect was the continuation of the rolling hills. This course was a bugger. Arriving at the eighteen mile mark just a bit behind my goal pace, the real hills began. Mile nineteen stunk, I had to slog (fake running: when you try your hardest to look like you are running so you can mentally say "I didn't walk". That is when the kid on the trike passes you.) the steep parts, and mile twenty was worse. That's where my pace dropped into double digits and I knew I had lost hold of my goal of a 3:45 finish. I knew the hills had done me in but I was still running at at twenty one, two and three. Having attained the summit of mile twenty the train I was part began the five mile descent into the town of Inverness. I stayed on a reasonable pace ticking off the miles doing pace-math and playing the mental games it takes to stay focused. At the twenty five mile mark Cheryl met me and rattled off some shots.

I pushed through he last mile knowing the goal of running under four hours was in jeopardy. I had lost a few valuable minutes in the last couple miles and knew I would have to grit out the last mile to stay under. I crossed the main bridge with the snake of other runners over the River Ness while Cheryl crossed the narrow wooden footbridge downstream. I tried to dig for anything left upping my speed a bit and was then reminded of the last twenty five miles by a golf ball sized cramp in my left calf. It kept me from accelerating as I wished. I found a balance between cramping and speed and made it to the finish. I placed 975th out of 2489, finishing in 4:00:18.

The finish area was very organized and the volunteers took great care to get us our bags, shirts and finish medals, there was even a pint or two to be had.

We found the free showers for a quick rinse, stumbled back to the B&B to collect our bags, hopped aboard a train and headed for Aviemore for the ATTA Summit. Arriving in Aviemore we were greeted, along with delegates from all over the world, by the Visit Scotland tourism board.

Tony

2 for 7

It is 7:30 am and C-Shift doesn’t officially take over Station 16 for another thirty minutes. I am on B-Shift and right now we are recapping the night and enjoying a cup of hot coffee in the kitchen. We do this often as the off-going crew helps to get the on-coming crew up to speed. We chat about calls and training and most importantly turn over any information regarding the rigs and equipment we used. At 7:45 am the tones go off and we are informed of a man down on the fishing pier, CPR in progress. Often times we hear, "CPR in progress" and it comes to nothing; but not this time. Aid 16, Medic 17, Engine 17 and Battalion 16 respond to the fishing pier to see a small group of folks standing near the end of the five hundred foot long L-shaped pier. We unload all our gear and banter back and forth about the call, the length of the walk to the end of the pier and if the guy caught a fish. As we begin our march out, the group of people parts and we see a young man doing chest compressions. CPR in progress, indeed. Our level of intensity ratchets up a couple notches. The Medics lead the way with the rest of us in tow carrying aid kits and a defibrillator. I am marching out beside my BC and we discuss the possibility of the guy going down after catching a salmon. We arrive, take over active CPR, establish and airway and assist his breathing with a Bag Valve Mask. Now you must understand we don’t do CPR on live people. This guy is down on a cement pier not breathing and pulse-less. He is, for all intents and purposes, dead. We all work smoothly as a team. My Capt and I switch off with compressions and bagging. The medics hook up a monitor and begin and EKG. An IV is prepped and a line is established. The medic getting the needle into the patient’s arm begins to speak Vietnamese to the small crowd of Asian gentlemen standing around in hopes one of them might understand and help with a history of what happened and who our patient is. It doesn’t work. They all look at each other with puzzled faces and stop talking amongst themselves. A second Medic unit arrives and begins to assist. We have been doing compressions and bagging him for about 2 minutes when we have the defibrillator analyze his hear rhythm to see if he needs a shock to stimulate his heart to reestablish a heart rate. The d-fib shocks him and it works for about ten seconds then his heart goes back to a condition called ventricular tachycardia. V-tach is when the bottom of the heart muscle is fluttering out of sync with the rest of the heart muscle. The muscle fibers that make up the tissue that usually constricts and relaxes as one unit are not working together. The shock is a way we can oftentimes "reset" the entire hearts and get the fibers to constrict and relax as one large muscle mass. It is working, kind-of. We continue with CPR and the Medics follow their course of treatment with several meds designed to get the patient’s heard going again. We shock him four more times and each time the heart beats on its own for a few extra seconds. It is encouraging. We are keeping his blood circulating with the physical pressure created by the compressions and with each successive shock his heart is fighting to regain is position of pumping blood. As we work the thought of the situation plays out in our heads. There is a little pool of blood on the ground near the patient and we discover it is fish blood. Now most of us are fishermen and we can’t help but look around for and absent fish. A bystander with a camera phone states he took a picture just prior to the man going down. I look at my BC, who is scribing all the details and drug information on the back of small scrap of paper, and smile, our suspicions were accurate. He caught a thirty-plus inch King Salmon and had a heart attack. I ask the photographer what the time stamp is on the photo and then inform the medics that CPR started at 7:38, it is now past 8:00. CPR has been active for over twenty minutes. We begin to discuss getting the patient on a bed and to the hospital. As we discuss how this will happen we continue to think, "Where the heck is the fish?" A gurney is delivered and we strip all the pads to have a hard surface in case we need to continue CPR en route. The patient is loaded quickly and we are off to the Medic unit for transport to Stevens Hospital. While walking to the rigs I notice a small piece of paper fall from the full hands of my BC. It looks suspiciously like the note pad containing every bit of information about how the call went, what meds have been used and time stamps of each dose. It flutters to the edge of the pier and silently falls all the way to the ocean below. A bystander hears me mumble that we will need that piece of paper and he willingly climbs over the edge past the barbed wire and the "No Trespassing" sign to the rocks below. He wades knee deep to retrieve the paper and returns in less than a minute wet to his knees. A police officer on scene jokes that he won’t get in trouble for the climb. We load our patient and head out to the hospital continuing CPR and shocks each time getting more and more response from the traumatized heart muscle. I am tasked with driving the Medic unit. The four medics in the back are moving about in the rig while I drive and inform me that I need to drive slowly and carefully as we only have a seven minute trip and we are not in a huge rush. Right now the patients’ condition is improving and he is responding to the meds. As we arrive the medics try on last medication and we rush the patient inside to the waiting cardiac team. We give a short report and history to the team, direct the family to his side and depart the room to get back into service. Our work is done. Later that day we learn he was transferred to ICU for continued observation. What that means is our dead patient is now alive and expected to recover. A save, we got a save, in part thanks to the quick action of the bystander with the phone who had taken a CPR class. I am now 2 for 7 on CPR calls. A week later we are informed by the hospital staff that the gentleman walked out under his own power. He was taken home by his thankful family and fed a salmon dinner, his salmon. Apparently his buddy claimed the fish and put it into a cooler right as the gentleman went down with the heart attack. The news of his condition was delivered to our station by one of the medics and was greeted with handshakes and congrats on work well done. We all took part and worked the call well and the man survived an attack by the Fire Department. If you haven’t had a CPR class, take one. You never know when you might need it, hopefully you won’t. Tony

Mobile foundation removal complete!

After four days of breaking and hauling, the four ribbon slab foundations from the mobile home are now gone!! Woohoo!! We rented a CASE 580 backhoe with a breaker bar and a diamond blade saw from Eastside Rentals in Bellevue/Redmond. Doug, one of the owners, was fantastic aiding me with the right piece of big equipment and training me on it in the yard prior to rental. I would highly suggest these guys if you ever need heavy equipment. The machine handled the slabs great. They ranged in thickness from 6 inches to 3 feet! The thicker chunks took a bit more work but we got them moved off. The breaker bar attachment, kind of like a gigantic jackhammer, popped thru most of the cement with no problem. Here it is breaking up the old mobile driveway. I had a ton of help from a few friends and would have not been able to complete the task in four days with out them. The vast majority of the chunks of cement are being used by my neighbor as fill. So we didn't have to pay to have it all hauled to the recycler.

After the cement was removed we switched out the breaker bar for a normal bucket and dug the trenches for the water and electrical lines. Now all is covered and ready for winter. We are hoping to get more work done if the weather allows. We will need a good stretch of dryness to get a truck in with soil and rock. We are planning on using 1 to 1 1/2 man basalt rock for the retaining wall to tie in with the basalt raised beds on the north and south of the house. Paul out at Pine Creek Nursery has been a great help with decisions on the rock and hardscaping. He's got a great place out on Hwy 2 off Sophie road. So for now we have a large soupy semi-level mud pit for a backyard, perfect for raising two boys.

Here is the view from the master bedroom after all the cement was taken off. The remaining slab was the old garage and will become a second level to the patio. We will surround it with raised beds of similar basalt rock and stairs off the back then acid stain it a dark olive/brown. The upper patio will match up to the front and back slabs for a walk around effect. It will reach out about 30 feet into the the backyard with access to the main house through the double doors. There will be three sets of stairs from the upper patio to the yard. (Completion date projected to be in the fall of 2011.)

We are also getting ready to head out to Scotland for the Adventure Travel and Trade Summit. We are good friends with the Prez and he is flying us out to help run the event. While we are out there I will be running in the Baxters Loch Ness Marathon. I will update as events unfold. hopefully with pictures from Scotland.

Tony