the mcjohnson times

Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oie Oie Oie!

2011-12-15T02:29:00.000-08:00

Paula and I just got back from a barbecue in the park (no, I'm not joking). It only was our 3rd barbecue of our trip! I don't want to chat too long, since we're with friends still and enjoying wine, but I thought I'd share some photos of the trips.

Time for a vacation!

2011-12-08T14:53:00.001-08:00

We're putting the overly ambitious house remodel on hold, along with the exceptionally chilly house (a side effect of having holes in ceiling and walls in the middle of winter) for a little trip 'down unda.' The good people of Children's Hospital gave Paula almost a couple weeks off and she's managed to finagle a few more days for a pleasant trip to see our friend Rose get married. It is after all summer down in Australia.

So, we're off with new camera in hand and will perhaps update the blog periodically. For now though, its bon voyage to the gray, rain, and persistent chill. A huge thanks also to our parents for watching our children (Maddie, Gordon, Gus, and Cleo) while we're gone.

Overly Ambitious Home Remodel - Update 5

2011-11-20T00:27:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: We have finally bought the two pendent lights mentioned below. Progress. Still, we have two more lights to buy: one for over the sink and one for over the dining room table.

As always, we haven't posted any updates recently to the blog. I know...we're horrible people. It's actually a result of being a bit busy and not having time to really make as much progress as we'd like on the kitchen/house. We'll get to the much anticipated overly ambitious home remodel update shortly. But first let me explain a little about what we've been up to.

(Halloween: White Swan and Black Swan)

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that Paula is in the midst of her residency. She's actually now a senior resident and is referred to as an R3, which means she's in her 3rd (and final!) year of residency. The past couple months have been incredibly difficult for her. She's had some exceptionally challenging rotations, which is largely due to the combination of lack of sleep and long shifts, complex patients and families, difficult moral situations, and other fun stuff all jumbled up together. As I write this, she's in the midst of a 30 hour shift where hopefully she'll get an hour of sleep. The good news is that there's a few things she can look forward to.

First, in December we're heading down under to see our friend Rose get married in Melbourne. Rose and our other friend Lou are two great friends from Australia who made it out to our wedding. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make it to Lou's wedding, but we're not going to miss Rose's.
Second, Paula is on the "Global Health" tract in her residency. This adds a unique glimpse into global pediatric medicine, which is something she's uber-excited about. So, she'll get the chance to spend 2 months in Kenya during March-April working with a Kenyan physician.
Lastly, she's done in June!

So, there's a few big things she gets to look forward to over the next few months. FYI, she's amazing.

In addition to pretending that I've been working on the house, I've become a bit involved in my neighborhood. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm enjoying it and am currently the vice president and chair of the land use committee. I'm essentially the main editor for our community's blog and I also won a grant from the Pomegranate Center (a nonprofit design center) and Tully's Coffee to build a gathering place for our community. The later of these things took up a bunch of time during the summer.

Okay, okay, okay...we'll get on with the house remodel update...

WE HAVE A FULLY FUNCTIONAL KITCHEN AGAIN! We're a bit excited about it. The counters are in, the appliances are all in (minus the hood), water is plumbed, and we have lights. That's what I call a fully functional kitchen. Okay, never mind the door that needs to get switched out, the floating shelves that are still under construction, the pendent lights that we keep going back and forth on, the floors that need to be stained, and the window trim that still needs to get installed. The fact of the matter is, we can and have entertained friends now in our kitchen, which is pretty freakin' amazing to us after living in our makeshift kitchen in front of the fish bowl for nearly a year.

"What are our next steps?" you might ask. Great question! Well, Paula and I finally made a decision for our backsplash behind the cook top. The backsplash will extend vertically to the ceiling from the counter and will frame the cooktop and our hood (not installed yet) that are along the green wall in the photo above. It'll largely be a white 4x8 subway glass tile backsplash with a vein of this funky Regalia tile from InterStyle slightly off center (6x12 in the color Nip). The tile will arrive on December 27th apparently, so it'll be a new years resolution for us to get the backsplash done in 2012.

We're busy but happy and we're very much looking forward to our trip to Australia to see our friends. Did I mention it's summer there in December!

As always, here's our Home Remodel slideshow with a few more photos added to the bunch.

Overly Optimisic Home Remodel - Update 4

2011-08-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since our last post. I know you all missed us and have dealt with many sleepless nights wondering how we are and whether we have a functional kitchen yet. Well, we're fine and still without a functional kitchen. No big deal, right? It's just 11 months of doing dishes in the basement laundry sink, filing up our Brita in the bathroom tub, and making do with our old stove I wired into our living room. Somehow, Paula still loves me.

The duration of this kitchen remodel is uber-annoying. The positives is that I've learned a lot about myself. For instance, I'm easily distracted and overly optimistic at times, as the title of this post suggests. However, the lack of significant progress on the kitchen is due to two distractions.

First, over the past couple years I've become involved in my neighborhood. It's a bit quaint, but I'm enjoying it. In April, I put together a grant application for a community project and was both fortunate (it was a cool project) and unfortunate (super busy) to win it! The project created a gathering place (sorta a park) on a private Christmas tree lot in the middle of the neighborhood. You can read more about the project HERE if you want. The project just wrapped up a week ago, so I'm able to now turn my attention back to the kitchen. That is until I find something else to distract me.

The second distraction, albeit minor, was that I took a week of vacation to to fly out to Boston to help Eirik drive back to Seattle. He, Heidi, and Skye moved back to Seattle for those that weren't already aware, since it's been nearly 3 months since they've been back. Very cool having them back!

Okay, so we've been slowly plotting along on the kitchen over these many months due to these two distractions. Recently though, the kitchen has begun to take shape and we've begun to get really excited. The cabinets are in and the counters were just installed. Just need to plumb everything up and install the appliances for us to have a functional kitchen. Totally doable in the next couple weeks. That is until I find something else to distract me.

As always, a few more photos added to our Home Remodel slideshow showing the new cabinets and countertops.

Twenty Two Colors!

2011-04-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: After writing this post, I thought it would be fitting to say thank you one last time to Margaret Radmaker, who lived in our house from 1956 after it was first built until selling it to us almost 2 years ago. Margaret passed away earlier this month. Here's a slideshow of our time meeting the Radmaker's after we agreed to buy the house from them. She was lovely and had many lovely bird houses.

Happy Easter!

Throughout this overly-optimistic remodel, the thing that has been the most challenging for Paula and I is conceptualizing what this whole thing is going to look like when its done. Having moved into a 1950's house complete with the colors and style of a '50s home...you know, the blond wood trim, pink tiles, and flowery-drapery. This remodel necessitates us defining our own style...which is?...well, that's the tricky part for us. It's made even more challenging when I have some priorities (like buy the most local, sustainable, and 'green' products that are affordable) and Paula has her's (dark cabinets, white countertop, bright colors, and affordable). It's why we got off to a much later start to this whole thing and why it's taken 22 paint samples to figure out what colors to paint the kitchen!

Back when Paula and I were hunting around for cabinets and countertop materials, we both fell in love with this bright green quartz countertop. We knew it was too much for our countertop, but Paula likes bright colors and we thought it might be a great color to paint our floating shelves. Now, we've decided to paint the entire eastern wall a bold greenish-yellow color, but which one? Turns out there's tons of greenish-yellows made by each brand known to man. Heaven forbid this be an easy process, right?!

For this blog post, I thought we'd unveil our 'style' for the kitchen, which is definitely a work in progress. This weekend marks a breakthrough for us though. We've selected Grape Green from Benjamin Moore for our eastern accent wall with the complementary Dune Grass and Timid White for the other walls and ceiling, respectively. So, now that we've got the color picked out, we can move forward and get this puppy wrapped up.

Here are some other aspects of our remodel that we've settled on too. We got our cabinets from Pacific Crest Industries, located in Sumner, Washington. I liked that they're a family business that uses locally sourced FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) wood products, developed a formaldehyde free eco-box of FSC material, and donate money and time to Agros. However, to keep things relatively affordable, we used their Amero line and stuck with the standard MDF material. Their MDF is still a pretty good product, but it's no eco-box. We chose the Wyoming door style, which is pretty much a standard shaker door with slab drawer, and upgraded it to the dark 'Java' stain color.

For the countertop, we exhausted all of the available ideas. We looked at several iterations of recylced glass/concrete slabs (this and this) made in south Seattle, recycled glass/epoxy material made on Camano Island, reclaimed wood slabs from urban forestry, looked at butcher block, stainless steel, tile, and recycled paper products. We stayed away from granite since I didn't want to use anything that came from a quarry. However, in the end, due to cost, style, and maintenance, we went with quartz. Quartz is a byproduct of quarry's, so it's a bit better...I guess. We chose the Chroma line and the Crystal White color. While this will be a beautiful countertop, I think, I believe its quarried in China. So, that sinks my locally produced hopes and dreams.

Our next great decision will be the tile for our back splash. We both like recycled glass tiles and I've scoured this amazing local tile maker (Bedrock Industries) for ideas, but aren't sure its exactly what we want. What I've recently found and really like are two recycled ceramic tile products made in San Jose and Portland. The first is Fire Clay and the second is Clayhaus. I really like the glossy, crackled look that both companies make. The Debris line from Fire Clay has much more recycled content and more colors, but Clayhaus has some different tile styles that are nice too. Paula hasn't had time to see these up close and personal though, so we'll see what she thinks.

Oh well, we've made progress and both Paula and I continue to find new ways to compromise. She's entertained my expensive taste for 'green'er products and has interjected well to keep us on budget...or at least closer to budget. It'll be a great kitchen, we hope.

Of course, here's our updated slide show of the house.

A much needed cure for SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

2011-04-12T23:02:00.000-07:00

As a native Seattlite, I have never been too bothered by the winter weather. It's grey and rainy, annoying no doubt but it's what I'm used to. Even trudging a half hour each way to class in college in something like 81 straight days of rain (a record)...up hill both ways of course...didn't get to me. But, second year of residency has (this is Paula by the way). I leave home in the dark, get home in the dark and never get to see out a window during daylight. My outside time consists of walking to the car in the dark and rain/scraping ice of the car in the dark. This combination of long hours, lack of sleep and constantly dealing with very sad situations has been a struggle for me this year and, for the first time, the grey and gloom has really tipped the scales. I'm now a firm believer in SAD and, more importantly, a firm believer in the power of sun, sleep and relaxation.

Per and I got to head to Cabo for a week (thanks so very much to my parents for sharing their timeshare). For those that followed our blog while we were in Europe, you know that my ideal vacation does not involve sitting in one place doing nothing. I like to explore, adventure and get out to see and do everything. Not so on this trip!!

Our day: wake up whenever, lay by the pool til whenever, wander the beach and into town til whenever, eat some food, lay by the pool some more, eat some more food, go to bed (AMAZING)!

We did do a few things. We did a sunset dinner cruise...all you can drink. A snorkel adventure on a random pirate ship....again, all you can drink. Whale watching, a trip out to Lover's/Divorce Beach which is by the famous Cabo arch. While there we saw some dumb tourists nearly drown because they wanted to swim on the Pacific Ocean side in the waves which were 20 plus feet...bad idea (as indicated by the numerous signs that say DANGER! NO SWIMMING) but luckily they were ok thanks to some locals. We also took a 2 hour trip to Cabo Pulmo which is in a marine reserve for more snorkeling with fishies, sea lions and a school of thousands of skipjacks...craziness. We saw more whales there too!

It's the only vacation I've ever taken where I don't feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. I'm back at work now and feeling so much better!! I'm sure my patients and coworkers appreciate it (I image Per appreciates it too!)

Here are a few picts:

Overly Optimistic Home Remodel - Update 3

2011-03-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

In our 2nd update to our Overly Optimistic Home Remodel, Paula and I had wrapped up the installation of our plumbing and electrical. The guts to our glory if you will. I'd also already installed some custom brackets for floating shelves. Since then Paula has essentially been sequestered over in Port Angeles on a two month WWAMI rotation working at a pediatric clinic and studying for Step 3 of the USMLE. My intent was to take these two months to make some serious progress on the kitchen/dining room, but like always, I was slightly more optimistic than realistic.

Over the last couple weeks, I sealed up too many cracks to count with that expandable foamy-stuff, hung batts of insulation in the walls, and installed sheet rock on the ceiling. Turns out, all that stuff helps keep the heat in the house... I hired a couple experienced guys to install the sheet rock on the walls and tape/mud the seems. Taping and mudding, from what I had heard, is an art form. Since Paula and I didn't want any seems visible in these high traffic areas, we decided that hiring that out was a good idea. In hindsight, I think we were right.

Today, a couple things wrapped up:

Paula finished up a marathon of studying and completed the Step 3 test. Good job, Honey!
The dry wall guys finished up the taping and mudding and now the kitchen/dining room is beginning to look like a kitchen/dining room.

This weekend, Paula and I head south to Cabo San Lucas, MX for a little sun. This has been a particularly miserable winter (we're currently on flood watch here), so the sun will be a god send. When we get back, its time to sand the floors, paint the walls, and install the cabinetry. The end is getting close...er.

As always, we've added some more photos for your viewing please.

Overly Optimistic Home Remodel - Update 2

2011-02-25T20:44:00.000-08:00

In our first Overly Optimistic Remodel (OOR) update, Paula and I had wrapped up major demolition for Phase 1, which generally includes a full kitchen remodel and partial dining room remodel. We had installed a new-to-us red oak floor and left a gaping window bank, ceiling, and all manners of entry for frigid air to enter our home.

Side Note: Turns out using a compostable, 0.007-mm green tarp as a construction tarp may have temporarily satisfied some personal desire to reduce the carbon footprint of our OOR, but it doesn't do much to keep the cold out. As a result, we burned through 200 gallons of heating oil in nearly 3 months (only used 100 gallons all of last year). So, there's me with an oily egg on my face.

Since our last update, we've been making more tangible progress. Finally, we've got our two casement windows and large picture window installed thanks again to our bad-ass friend, Nelson. While that's awesome, the cold still is coming in and oily heat is escaping faster than _____ (insert your own Nicolas Cage movie joke here).

One things that's taken a lot longer than necessary are 3 floating shelves that we've got planned for our kitchen. These shelves are supposed to hold our dishware and other heavy items while having hidden support (ergo the term 'floating' shelf). However, the question of how to build the shelves and support it sufficiently without having the shelves collapse or bow has taken more thought than I'm usually accustomed to. In the end, I found a local iron worker who made some beefy 3/8" x 8"x 6" angle brackets that I've mounted using 1/2" lag bolts to 2x3s sistered to studs. I had 14 brackets built but after hearing the subtle laughter while explaining my approach to a co-workers cabinet-making husband I decided to increase the spacing between the brackets and only ended up using 6. Hopefully I don't regret that.

I pulled new PEX supply lines for the sink, dishwasher, and fridge. Super easy and totally recommend everyone using PEX if they need to re-plumb their house, although apparently copper has some natural antibacterial properties. I hired my bad-ass friend's (Nelson's) plumber, who basically works for coffee, to install a new waste vent too. All of this was approved by the plumbing inspector today!

I installed new recessed lights, pendant fixtures, and gang boxes for receptacles and switches throughout the kitchen and dining room too. Here too, I hired an electrician to make all of the connections though so I don't a) kill myself and b) blow out the expensive 3-way dimmer switches we purchased. Again, the electrical inspector approved all of this too.

So, this weekend, I'm hoping to purchase myself some dry wall and start installing some insulation so we can keep some oily heat in this mo'fo.' Looking forward to composting my construction tarp.

Again, here's some update pictures of our OOR.

Overly Optimistic Home Remodel - Update 1

2011-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

Last time we posted, Paula and I had moved through the house like a tornado destroying much of what we saw in sight. Having begun to piece the house back together again, Paula and I installed a reclaimed red oak floor in the kitchen with much satisfaction. That seems like years ago now...

Shortly after, our cabinets arrived! Sure, they're still in boxes and taking up a ton of space, but at least they're here and getting anxious to find their homes.

Paula, our friend Nelson, and I have taken out the large window in the kitchen to make room for 3 new windows (All of which don't leak heat like a sieve and 2 of which actually open!). However, we got a bit held up and haven't yet managed to complete that task since we only were able to get 1 installed before it got too dark. That task should be completed by next week though.

We've been getting the plumbing sorted out too in the past month. I took out the 1/2" old galvanized pipes to the kitchen and had a plumber install a new drain and waste vent. Finally, this weekend I pulled the supply lines for new hot/cold water lines.

One thing I've been spending a lot of time on is trying to map out the electrical for our new kitchen, dining, and living rooms to sort out what makes sense. I had an electrician and a friend who's a contractor give me some advice, which was awesome. So, I managed to install the recessed lights, boxes, and pulled the new wire. However, when it came to connecting everything I decided to have an electrician handle that so a) I didn't kill myself and b) I didn't blow up expensive 3-way dimming switches. That's essentially done now and we actually have light in our new kitchen!

Things are coming together and hopefully we'll soon be able to insulate the walls and close them up. Keep your fingers crossed.

I've added a few more photos to our slide show for you to check out if you're interested.

And so it begins...

2010-12-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

Phase 1 of operation Blow Our House Up and Slowly Try to Put it Together began a few weeks ago. Actually, it began almost a year ago when myself and some good friends (aka. the CHUMPS) replaced a load bearing wall between our dining room and living room with an engineered beam. So we've had a hole in our ceiling since January...which is pretty awesome.

Our intention was to start our remodel many months ago, but the lack of experience in all things remodel and home ownership coupled with our recognition that Paula and I have different interior design aesthetics whilst sharing no ability to conceptualize design has slowed us down. And then there's the obvious which is Paula's insane schedule that regularly saps her of energy and motivation. She's rallied more times than not though while I bug her about how low the carbon footprint is of locally harvested alder cabinet materials, the advantages of low-formaldehyde medium-density fiberboard, great strides in locally produced recycled concrete countertop materials, and other boring topics that would put most normal people to sleep. So, she's a champ.

About a month ago though, we sealed our fate by throwing down a chunk of cash on new kitchen cabinets and countertops. Paula and I have been drinking Pepto-Bismol with dinner since. They've not been delivered yet, but their imminent arrival has required us to start getting serious about this remodel and begin making progress. So, I spent two weeks thinking the remodel through a bit and trying to plan all of the steps for a major task that I'm woefully unprepared for. And finally, one weekend when Paula was on call I hung two large green sheets (I think Maddie's thinks they're like the green curtain the Wizard of Oz hides behind because she's been so scared of all the noises coming out from behind them...) to separate our temporary living/dining/and cooking quarters from the chaos and demolished much of the kitchen. The process has taken a bit longer than I had scheduled (probably because I have no idea what I'm doing), but I think we've been making decent progress.

This weekend, Paula and I completed our first task where we can actually see progress towards a new livable, functional kitchen. We finished putting in a new-to-us red oak floor in the kitchen. I bought about 250 square feet of old red oak flooring in all types of condition. We really only needed about 200 square feet of flooring, but there's a ton of crap that you get when you buy reclaimed flooring (e.g., tongue and/or grooves missing, split boards, etc.). But now we've got a sweet hardwood floor with most of the imperfections strategically placed where the cabinets will be. All that's left for us to do now with the floors is to rent a drum sander so all the miscellaneous boards that have traveled far and wide to end up in our kitchen can feel and hopefully look somewhat uniform (we're not going to stain the floors yet). For now though, we're enjoying having a tangible example of progress behind the green curtain. Victory is ours....

Next step is either installing our new windows, running the new plumbing, or running the new electrical. Not exactly sure though since, I repeat, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Kayaking with a dog?

2010-09-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, the weather was actually sunny. Crazy, I know given the torrential downpour that has been our summer. However, we took advantage of the sun and tried something that Paula's always wanted to try...kayak with our dog, Maddie. (Just so we're all clear, I always told this would never work.)

So, here's what we did. We outfitted some padding to fit in and around the stern dry storage compartment where we hoped that Maddie would sit calmly.

Then Paula got the kayak in the water and I tried to position Maddie into her compartment where she was to sit calmly and enjoy the weather and good company. However, that didn't last very long at all. Maddie wanted nothing to do with that cramped, unstable perch (just like I told Paula she wouldn't).

Not to worry, I took Maddie home while Paula hung out in her kayak and then we could finally enjoy the weather and a rare day off for Paula.

Not a bad day.

Cool stuff has been going on...

2010-08-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

Paula and I have been busy lately, although it doesn't feel like it at the time. However, having looked back through some photos lately I realized there's lots of great and fun stuff we've not shared. Have no fear, we're going to slowly catch up over the next couple weeks. So, stay tuned...

Our Grow Operation

2010-04-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, when the weather was nicer, Paula and I got excited to start working out in the yard and start our first garden. So, I did a bit of research and picked up some lumber to build some raised beds. Meanwhile, Paula went to town on planting seeds for all sorts of soon-to-be delicious veggies (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, basil, onions, and more). She wasn't too sure how green her thumbs were, so she planted a ton of everything.

The next weekend, I borrowed a truck and picked up 2.5 yards of an herb garden soil mix from Cedar Grove. Paula and I did the back breaking work of hauling the soil by wheelbarrow around the house to the garden beds. After 2 full weekends, we had 2 pretty kick-ass 4' x 8' raised beds. I've been 'feeding' and 'energizing' the soil in preparation of the new plants by spraying various garden 'tonics' onto the soil as recommended by a master gardener in one of the many DVD's we've checked out from the library.

The next thing is to put in the garden starts, right...

Well, apparently there was still about 2 months of growing for these garden starts that Paula got going. Furthermore, her thumbs have turned out to be SUPER green. She only had a few seeds not germinate. So, we had to convert our smaller bedroom into a home made greenhouse to house all the garden starts that are going crazy!

After some discussion, we decided to build a new garden shed in the backyard. Actually, Paula didn't want a new shed (wasn't a priority) but I was a rude and unthoughtful husband and moved ahead with it anyway. So, I spent the next several weekends working on a new shed. While its just a shed, I didn't have any plans and wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do, so it took some time. Nevertheless, we're almost done! I still need to install the siding, add a gutter, and pimp out the inside with shelving. But, we finally had it ready for us to move our grow operation out there about 2 weeks ago after I installed 5 grow lights! (We go all out in the McJohnson household)

So, now we have tons of veggies that are going nuts in their new home and we're looking forward to mothers day when we're apparently able to put these babies in their fresh beds.

Home Repair 101

2010-03-25T00:55:00.000-07:00

With the majority of my experience in carpentry and construction limited to house building trips to Tijuana, Mexico, I have begun a massive learning experiment. Paula and I purchased our house with the understanding that we'd update it and do as much of the work as we could ourselves. Paula has entertained my willingness and eagerness to use our house as a massive learning experiment. So, she's graciously entertaining and put up with all my tangential ideas about different floor plans (which she has many great ideas about), which walls to blow out, and where we should add bathrooms and bedrooms. It's amazing we've made any progress.

Paula and I are settling on a pretty comprehensive floor plan rearrangement which will keep our time and bling invested in the house for a few years, we've begun to make a little progress. In late January, some brilliant friends and I took out a load bearing wall and replaced it with a gluelam (e.g., an engineered beam constructed of laminated pieces of wood). Taking load bearing walls out are super easy...right?

The idea was to blow out the wall between the living room and dining room to create a more open feel (sort of like a half-great room). Above is a picture of the living room taken when the previous owners were living here. The dining room is on the other side of the wall on the right.

So, we built temporary brace walls on either side of the wall we were going to remove. Ahren and Nelson are trying hard to play the role of the stud in the temporary walls.

Once the temporary walls were up, we slid the gluelam into the attic, cut the ceiling joists that were resting on the top plate, removed the top plate, and then fastened the gluelam to new beams and the ceiling joists to the gluelam. Piece of cake. Actually, it wasn't too terribly difficult, although I chalk that up to the Nelson, Ahren, and Matt holding my hand through the whole process.

Now, we've got a large open room that includes a distinct area for dining yet is large enough to make the house feel so much larger. The only problem is that we have a hole in a floor and exposed insulation hanging down from the season. Oh well, we'll sort that out sometime in the next 2 years.

A New Year..

2010-01-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

It's a new year and a new decade. Personally, I could not be more excited to have the "Naughties" over and done with (with the exception of a few key events). Now, a week after 2010 rolled in, I thought I'd reflect on our final events of 2009.

To usher in the holiday season, I drank some crazy Kool-Aid and smothered our tulip tree infront of our house with 1,000 white LED lights. I've received several complements on its glow by the astronaunts in the International Space Station, so I've got that goin' for me.

Then, Paula and I hosted Thanksgiving and attempted to cook a turkey without killing everyone. The fact that everyone is still alive following that dinner suggests turkey wasn't a complete flop. More importantly though, we were surrounded by great company and were reminded of all that we have to be thankful for.

In early December, Eirik, Heidi, and our nephew Skye came to town for a pre-Christmas visit to check out Eirik's show at the Henry Art Gallery (by the way, check out his show at the Henry which is up until the end of January). While it was a short trip, I had plenty of time to subtly work several bad habits into Skye's routine for Eirik and Heidi to deal with later (sorry in advance, E&H!).

The joys of Paula's work schedule kicked in at Christmas when she was on-call and had to work Christmas Eve and into Christmas day. Fortunately, she got off work pretty early and was able to enjoy Christmas breakfast at my mom's house. Very relaxing! Then, we hopped on the ferry for a trip to Vashon. Again, we had a fantastic time with the family and relaxing on the beach.

Our nephew, Luke, decided once on the beach that the water looked too wonderful for dogs to enjoy by themselves. Needless to say, his cold feet and wet pants changed his mind relatively quickly.

The day after Christmas, I kept another tradition alive and well with my good friend Jeff (aka. Jefe rojito bonito). Since high school, Jeff and I (along with our friend Drew who has failed to live up to the responsibility of such a tradition) have gone swimming in freezing Lake Washington. This year was no different. Paula came to document the occasion and remind us how dumb it is to jump in a cold lake. Clearly, she doesn't appreciate the need to polar bear it every year.

New Year Eve (my least favorite pseudo-holiday) was spent appropriately with our friends, Josh, Melissa, and Chad. Paula had 3 days off and we made the most of it. Chad invited us to his cabin (aka., the Elk Horn Lodge) in Packwood near Mt. Rainier where we ate, read, ate, watched movies, ate, played games, ate, ate, and snow shoed. What better way could we roll in the new year.

So, now it's 2010. We've set many resolutions that we've already forgotten, but we're excited for what this year/decade has in store for us. We remain hopeful and looking forward to the changes ahead.

Happy New Year everyone!

Doctor Claus

2009-12-24T23:54:00.000-08:00

It's officially Christmas and Paula still has about 13 hours more of work before she can come home and get some sleep. Truely, she's Doctor Claus for some kids tonight...

So, on behalf of Doctor Claus and myself, Merry Christmas!

By the way, sorry we haven't posted any McJohnson updates recently. We'll be better.

Stamm Camp!

2009-08-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

So last week I took a little hiatus from my life in the hospital to go back to camp! Sweetness! It's a special camp that was started 40 some years ago by a cardiologist named Stanley Stamm (who by the way still has his own elective where one lucky resident gets to hang out with him and learn from his vast experiences for a month...another perk of the rotation is that he stops everything to go swimming for an hour in the middle of the day!! This is the way all residency should be right?). Anyway, he wanted all kiddos, even those with complex medical problems to have the opportunity to go to camp so he started one up. It's grown and developed over the past 40 years...many of the counselors now are formal campers, there are about 100 kiddos and tons of volunteers to manage the kid's medical needs while ensuring that they get to have a fantastic time. There are a number of kiddos with developmental delay, kids in wheelchairs etc etc and all of them get to go swimming, boating, fishing, horse back riding, watch skits and sing songs. They stay in cabins together and have a generally awesome time!!

It was phenomenal to be a part of. The kids are delightful and joyful, though some with behavioral disorders definately provided some challenges. The volunteers are truly servants. Getting all the kids ready isn't as easy as just telling them to get up or go to bed...it means, changing their diapers, giving meds and feeds, dressing them and brushing their teeth. I have always had great respect for families with disabled children and the amount of time, effort and coordination that is involved in the daily caretaking of their children, but none so much as I have now. It is truly a constant undertaking...but so rewarding as the kids give so much back. What is particularly special about this camp is that the kids get dropped off...no parents, no sibs, a real camp experience. There are a lot of amazing camps out there for families with kids with medical problems, but not many that give the parents a week off and the kids a week away. It was awesome to be a part of it...if only for a few days!

Perks of Home Ownership

2009-08-11T00:06:00.001-07:00

Last night, I bought a barbecue and Paula and I made dinner and actually ate together! This is a quasi-big deal since we didn't really have space to actually sit down together and eat at a table...facing each other...and talking like a normal couple in the last couple years. While we did have a table at our old place, it was usually full of crap (mail, keys, books, bags, etc) so we never had a place to really eat other than our couch and coffee table. So, last night was great.

...Then tonight we actually had dinner...at a table with friends...in our house. Our first real dinner in our house with friends! Again, due to space issues and lack of defined dining location, we only had friends over for dinner a couple times in the last couple years. So, this was rad. Paula made pumpkin ravioli (hand made ravioli and it turned our great!), I made a Gorgonzola cream sauce, and our friends Shannon, Erica, and Phil brought the rest of the fixins'. Lots of fun.

So, we're beginning to really enjoy this home ownership thing.

Adjusting to our new home

2009-07-29T08:00:00.001-07:00

Last Friday, Paula and I began moving into our new home. It's pretty exciting, but we're sort of making it painfully drawn out by moving over in the little loads that our mini-van carries. But, we're nearly finished and we're all beginning to adjust to our new place. We christened the house with my mom, Eirik, Heidi, and their son Skye who were in town.

Due to the heat wave, Paula and I are adjusting from our quasi-finished basement where temperatures feel like they're 30 degrees cooler. Our pets on the other hand have been having a more interesting time.

Maddie has been coming over and hanging out while we've worked on the house for the past month. So, she's quite at home in her back yard now. Gordon (aka. Fat-tastic), is the easiest going cat in the world and essentially thinks everything on the planet is for his benefit, which is making his transition go pretty smoothly. However, Cleo and Gus (our two neurotic cats) have their own methods.

(Maddie in her back yard)
(Gordon and his dominion)

After letting Gus out of the pet carrier, he ran directly into the return air duct system associated with our furnace. While he eventually came out, he then hid above the duct system in the basement for another day. The bad news is that Gus (typically a white cat) is now gray. The good news is that we've had our HVAC system cleaned out.

(Gus is in there, somewhere)

Cleo (a small black cat) has found every small nook and cranny for her to blend into the darkness and shadows. Her favorite spot in our old place was below the guest bed, which seems to be a prime location for her again.

(Camouflaged Cleo)

And so it begins...

2009-07-12T23:03:00.000-07:00

We've got the keys to our new 1956 house! So, let the chores, projects, and to-do lists begin.

First on our list is remove the carpet and refinish the oak hardwood floors so we can move in. This is what I and the pooch started on Saturday afternoon while Paula was off saving kids lives. So far so great. The carpet has been coming up pretty easy. It's just time consuming getting all the tacks and staples up, but that's what books on tape are for. Already, the floors are looking so much better. However, give us a couple weeks and I'm sure they'll be even sweeter!

(Living room with carpet)

(Living room without carpet, but still with padding)

(Maddie enjoying the new/old oak hardwood floor)

We're excited to start planning out the project list, building the house in Google SketchUp so we can play around with future design ideas, and generally working on the house. Although its in good condition, I'm sure there's going to be a lot that we'll need/want to do.

I've also met some of our neighbors too. Seems like the whole block are full of good, friendly folk. Especially when they're having an ice social in early August! It's like they already know what my weakness is.

It's official, we're HOME OWNERS!!!

2009-07-02T16:43:00.000-07:00

We just got the call that all the paperwork is complete and we're now terribly in debt. We're so excited to start pulling carpet and get the renovation show going. The Radmakers have another 10 days in the house to move out and settle up with everything. So, that puts us into moving on July 12th, if we want. However, I think we'll probably stick around where we're at through July and slowly move over while having our floors refinished. We're looking forward to having a house warming party/bbq as soon as we can. I guess that means we'll be needing to buy a bbq in the near future...

Bring on the tax breaks!

Rounds 1

2009-06-25T14:19:00.001-07:00

As I write this, Dr. McPoland is in the middle of her first day of her residency. She's on Team 1 (don't exactly know what that means) making rounds on wards. I think her situation is that she's working with a team who's handling the kids that are admitted into Children's for certain ailments. This is a Q4 schedule, which means that she's on call every 4th day. Today is her first day and she's on call. The double wammy! I expect she'll be a little tired after her 30-hour shift that will end around 2pm tomorrow.

If you read this today, keep her in your prayers and send her a text telling her good luck and not to fall asleep while inserting an IV... I'm sure she'd appreciate the thoughts.

Strange Timing

2009-06-25T14:13:00.001-07:00

Looks like we haven't been the only ones impacted by bad appraisals. Turns out our realtor's office has had 5 low appraisals this week alone! The Seattle Times had an article about the situation as well. Looks like its become a national issue and is slowing home sales.

Timing is a funny thing with houses. 2 years ago, Paula and I had to pull out of the housing market because of the uncertainty with Paula's residency and where we would end up. That's after making 4 offers on houses that we may not realistically have been able to afford. So, God hooked us up there and the timing worked out perfectly for us to buy in a depressed 'buyers' market. However, just as we make an offer, we get on the front-end of a crazy increase in mortgage rates and weren't able to capitalize on the really low 4.75% interest rates that were steady for a couple months. Now, we're on the front end of a really crappy appraisal issue that's slowing down sales and/or terminating contracts. At least we've been on the front of these issues and not at the pinnacle of them.

Moral of the story: Life is funny and timing is everything...I guess.

Thank you, Radmakers

2009-06-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

The Radmakers have lived up to their name through this mortgage and appraisal fiasco that threatened to unravel the purchase of our house. As I wrote about in our last post, the appraisal came in very low (~30K low of the purchase price) and no one thought it was fair since the house had 5 offers and we weren't even the highest offer. Our realtor and their realtor thought the appraiser used really bad 'comps' (short for comparable home sales) that aren't truly reflective of our house. For instance, they used a house on a really busy street and didn't adjust the price accordingly as their supposed to. All sorts of really weird things. We felt horrible for the Radmakers because we really, really like them and want them to get all they can for the house since living in these retirement communities isn't exactly cheap. However, Paula and I don't sit on a pot of gold that can cover that kind of shortfall.

In the end, we had to let the Radmakers know that the appraisal came in really low and we did everything that we could to get it higher (our broker had it reevaluated up, but still $15K short of the purchase price). So, the Radmakers came down on their asking price but we had to come up with an bit more queso. While it's stretching us a bit further than we'd like, we can make it happen and are thankful for a fair couple to work with.

The moral of the story is that we're back on track and are set to close NEXT THURSDAY! We won't technically move in for a little while after that since we gave them 10 days to move (they've lived there 50+ years and have a lot of cleaning and packing to do) and we may pull up the carpet and have the oak floors refinished before we move in. It looks like we'll be moving in late July to early August (sorry Merry, you can't get rid of us that quickly).

We're both really excited. Granted, I'm a bit more excited since Paula's really nervous right now about both being in so much debt (do they sell organic top ramen?) and at having to start on-call in the wards at Children's on Thursday. So, if you've got a sick kid admitted to Childrens some time during the 30 hours that Paula's there on Thursday and Friday morning, say hi to her.

That's all for now.

Potential Home Ownership Drama

2009-06-19T22:41:00.001-07:00

So, our latest home ownership saga has been us waiting on our house appraisal to come back. If it appraised for the purchase price, then no big deal and we can get a loan. If it doesn't though, then the bank won't give us a loan for the purchase price and we're sorta stuck trying to figure out what to do. That's the position we found ourselves in this week.

Apparently, realtors and mortgage broker's have been anticipating this situation with recent changes to the appraisal/mortgage broker relationship that got some into trouble during the housing boom. Now when you need an appraisal, you have to schedule one through a third party and there's no interacting with them. So, when you have an appraisal and no one thinks its accurate, then there's no real way to discuss it and we're stuck having to go to the sellers to negotiate. It's a very frustrating situation to be placed in as buyers because now there's a chance that we won't get the house when we want it and are happy to pay the purchase price as we've already negotiated. But that's real estate apparently.

Wish us luck as we try to ask the Radmakers to lower their selling price...

Chelan Wedding

2009-06-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

Paula and I had a great weekend in Chelan as our good friends, Emily and Tyler, tied the knot. Paula was smokin' hot as a bridesmaid and I just tried not to screw up as officiant. They were married on the shores of Lake Chelan. The gals wore turquois dresses with white shoes while Emily wore white with turquois salsa-dancing shoes. Tyler and his groomsmen were absolute bad-asses, wearing brown pin-stripe tuxes with cowboy boots AND SPURS. Totally bad ass.

Here's the view of the wedding from the officiant's perspective!

Meet the Radmakers

2009-06-09T23:46:00.000-07:00

Last week, Margaret and Harold Radmaker (the sole owners of the house we're buying) had us over to their place to see whether we were interested in any of their furniture. As it turned out, we were not. However, it was a perfect chance to see our new house again and hear all of Margaret's stories. She and Harold have raised all their kids there her daughter still lives near by. Margaret showed us all the different places her grandkids would hide. Totally fun!

While I had some ideas on different 'home projects' that I think would be fun, Paula and I didn't feel comfortable discussing all of that during our visit and taking lots of photos of the interior. However, our realtor Jim, was nice enough to grab some great photos of the front and back yards. Here's a little taster of what we're getting ourselves into. You'll also get to see some of Margaret's 100+ bird houses. She knows when, who, and how she got each one.

Apparently, Margeret and Harold planted a pear tree (no jokes, please), a bing cherry tree, and another variety of cherry (some kind of European cultivar). Not to mention all the other shrubs that we're going to have fun maintaing...

Graduation Day!

2009-06-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

So I officially finished medical school this past weekend. I got to wear a funny outfit and a funny hat and got called up on the stage to receive my doctoral hood and diploma...so crazy! I still can't believe that anyone thought it was a good idea to let me graduate, I feel so unprepared for internship but, everyone else says they feel the same way. (Incidentally, the diploma they handed us on stage actually said that we don't officially graduate until the 12th...maybe the school is still reserving the right to revoke our graduation after all!).

After the ceremony, we headed to Beth's house for a little open house celebration. It was a great time fill with wonderful people who I love and who have supported and encouraged me throughout the years. I truly feel so blessed to have such incredible friends and family.

Now I have a week off before I start my residency at Children's. (Oh and just an FYI, I highly recommend not getting sick in July...)

Taking the Physician's Oath.

With my good friend Kirsten.

Per happy I'll finally be making some money.

A happy graduate!

With my parents. Aren't they the cutest!

We Are HOMEOWNERS!!

2009-05-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

'Nough said! Can't believe it and we are kind of freaking out but are super excited!

Apparently it was pretty close but the sellers really liked Per and I from when we met them so they went with our offer.

Anybody good at removing pink tile??

(Lou...the basement will be open for you and stew to move in when you get here...)

Here's a link to the MLS listing with photos.

Buyer beware

2009-05-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

After putting in a solid full-price offer for a house that's been on the market for less than 12 hours, the selling agent said that he would review offers today at 2:30. We found out by late morning that we were competing with 2 other offers though, so we sweetened the pot as much as we were comfortable (waived the inspection and added an escalator). However, at 6pm tonight we found out that while we were the highest of the 3 offers they had in writing by the 2:30 deadline, another guy gave them a verbal offer at 5pm (2 1/2 hours after the deadline) for $5,000 more than our highest price (he of course knew our highest price and his agent was able to stall for 3+ hours so his wife could see the house). So, the selling agent countered us by asking for our highest price (the ceiling of our escalator) and 10 days to move out after the closing date (while we're paying for the house) or they would go with the verbal offer. What the hell...?

So it looks like their agent is toying around with us a bit by using this verbal offer that may or may not come back in writing. All this taking place while we had dinner plans with our friends and their parents to discuss their upcoming wedding that I, Reverend Johnson, am officiating. What a pain.

In the end, Paula and I rolled the dice and countered the sellers back. We've essentially gave in with the exception that we asked for some closing costs back (to cover the time that they are still living in the house after closing while we're paying on the mortgage) so we have some cash to perhaps update the 1954 interior.

What's really bothered us about this whole thing is two things:

We're being toyed around and are essentially competing against a verbal offer that came in 2 1/2 hours after the deadline. Had the sellers realtor been toying us around with the other 2 written offers, I'd be okay with that.
We've been told its such a buyers market and that sellers are throwing themselves at you to pick up your closing costs and offering you their first-born. This seems more like what it did when we were looking two years ago during the height of the insane house market when we made 4 offers (1 house had 12 offers, 1 house had 8 offers, and 2 houses had 4 offers). We obviously didn't get any of them...thankfully.

All of this to say that the house is cute and great and highly sought after. By making our counter offer, we've opened ourselves up to loosing the house. At this point though, I think Paula and I feel okay if we don't get it. If we get it great, if we don't...well the sellers agent will be haunted by the shame of his ethical standard and would be black listed from the northwest MLS (okay, that's just my wishful thinking).

We've only been looking for a week, another great house will show up right? Right? Right? We'll see how our rolling of the dice works tomorrow. I'm not sure what the odds makers would say right now on our chances.

I thought this was a "buyers market"

2009-05-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

So we scrambled last night to put together an offer on a house that came on the market mid-afternoon yesterday. Sure, we didn't waste any time, but that's what you do after you briefly look at a house and dazed by the cuteness that is Margaret and Harold. They're the couple that's lived in the house since it was built in 1954 and are selling so they could move to a retirement community. They're super cute...especially the 100+ bird houses that she's collected and put up every spring in her back yard. Love her!

However, it's less than 24 hours from when we saw the house and the selling realtor has 3 offers! I thought we, the buyers, we in the driving seat in this silly market?...What's going on? Aaargh. So, Paula and I scrambled again to sweeten the offer while still trying to grapple with the balancing act of price versus what we remember of our 1/2 hour visit. I guess it'll all work out in the end just like God has planned, but that's sometimes hard for us and our cramped border collie to accept.

We'll keep y'all posted.
Cheers

First Time Home Buyer?

2009-05-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Paula and I just made an offer on a house and we're freakin' out! We've been through this two years ago at the pinnacle of the market and fortunately none of the offers we made were accepted. However, we've both been told over and over again that this is a buyers market but that houses that are move-in-ready and well priced still go pretty quick. So, the house came on the market this afternoon and before they could even post photos we had visited in and were writing an offer.

What do you think?...did we come off a little desperate?...whatever, who asked you anyways...

So, we'll see what happens tomorrow and whether they accept our offer we proceed into large quantities of debt. Wish us luck.

Photos of our trip...

2009-05-16T10:44:00.001-07:00

Hello all! Thanks for keeping up with our blog during our European Adventure. For your viewing pleasure, we have posted the best of our 1,000+ photos on our Picasa web album. Links to those photos are below. You can double click on the slide shows to be taken to our Picasa site.

Boston, Mass: Visited Eirik and Heidi and our new nephew Skye! Long-time friends, Drew and Kelli, live about a mile away from them and let us stay with them.

Greece: Spent about a day in Athens doing the ruins thing and got rained on a lot. Caught a ferry to the island of Mykonos for a few days then on to the volcanic island of Santorini for a few more. Lastly, we spent about 9 days traveling through Crete.

Italy: Flew from Athens to Rome and walked endlessly from historic site to historic site. Amazing. Started at the Vatican and then made our way southeast to the Forums by way of the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and numerous beautiful piazzas. Then, we caught a train to Florence for a few days, caught a bus to Siena for another couple days, and took part in two wine tours to the Chianti region and Burnello region. Then it was on to Cinque Terre, which are 5 gorgeous towns along the Mediterranean where they've established vineyards, olive groves, and lemon groves on terraces built into steep slopes. Cinque Terre is now a national park and each town is connected by a trail and rail. Gorgeous!

UK: We flew from Milan to Edinburgh and stayed with our good friend Lou, her husband Stew, and Stew's parents Moira (aka Moisy) and Ian (aka the Big Easy). Lou showed us around Edinburgh for a couple days and drove us down to Liverpool for the Liverpool v Newcastle football match. From Liverpool, Paula and I drove through Wales (beautiful) and then onto the Cotswolds region of England (also beautiful). We ended our UK jaunt with a few days in London.

Rambling Update

2009-05-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

We're back from our trip now and are finding ourselves being absorbed back into the routines we had left behind. Work and responsibilities will do that, I guess. We still don't have our photos loaded to a website for your viewing pleasure, but that will probably happen over the coming weekend. Fortunately, my computer crashed the day after we returned and I've been enjoying recreating my virtual life over the past 4 months. I guess I'm pretty lucky that we had backed up most of our stuff recently though.

On another note, I thought I'd pass this note of clarification forwarded to me by our friend Lou who was the lucky entertainer and tour guide while we were in Scotland visiting her. You may remember from the Rambler's Side Note in our last post that she had mentioned that ramblers (e.g., people who like to walk everywhere...especially upon really old rambling tracks) could essentially walk wherever they wanted and even pitch their tent where ever they wanted. As it turns out, this isn't completely true and we now have more detail thanks to Lou's legal background research. This could only mean 1 thing if she has time to do this legal research, swine flu hasn't reached epidemic status in Scotland yet and the public health department isn't too busy. However, without further ado, here's the details that Lou sent over on rambling:

Fact 1. It's legislated! Walkways are regulated by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

Fact 2. The public have traditionally been allowed unhindered access to open countryside. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 formalized and extended this right, by creating a general presumption of access to all land. Take that stinkin' farmers! Please note, don't tell my dad I just said that. I am, after all, a farmer's daughter.

Fact 3. I was right! There is a Ramblers Association in the UK, but they prefer to just be called The Ramblers....friendly folk, I'm sure!

Fact 4. There have been land owner vs rambler court cases of late, I'm guessing the ramblers walked to the court room (baboom, ching!) Ann Gloag won a court case in 2007 that meant ramblers couldn't camp on her castle grounds - so I guess this means JK (the Harry Potter author) is safe from Paula pitching a tent too!

So, there you have it. Sounds like rambling is legal in the countryside and not necessarily anywhere within the City of Edinburgh. Also, doesn't sound like we can pitch our tent on J.K. Rowling's backyard without having Dobby the House Elf coming out and kicking our ass.

The Crown Jewels (no, it's not a euphemism)

2009-05-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since we've updated our blog...sorry. What can I say but they don't have a lot of internet cafes in the super-cute villages and hamlets where we've stayed in Wales and the Cotswolds over the last few days. However, we're in London now which means that we successfully survived driving on the opposite side of the road from the opposite side of the car as they do throughout the UK. We also successfully made it without major navigational issues thanks the trusty navigator Paula. The only quasi-sad thing is that we're nearing the end of this 5-week adventure. I say quasi-sad because it's sad that I will have to return to work (no offense Katie and Gerard if you read this...), but exciting since we'll be able to see our family, friends, and pets (Paula's especially excited about seeing her fat cat Gordon).

Anyway, I'm rambling on now (interesting side note about rambling at the bottom of the post)...on to the update.

As I said, we're in London right now and a block away from Trafalgar Square at the moment. We've just spent about 3 hours in the Tower of London which is more of a compound than a tower, so its sorta poorly named in my opinion. The Tower of London is home to many really fascinating historical events including the beheading of 6 pretty royal and important people among other things. It's also home to the Crown Jewels, which are pretty impressive. Puff Daddy has nothing on the Queen and her bling bling (actually, I don't think anyone on the planet has more bling or bigger bling than the Queen since she has the largest cut diamond). Perhaps she can afford the phatty jewels since they charged us £17 per person (that's nearly $25 per person for a whopping total of $50 for Paula and I).

We've also checked off some pretty cool tourist stops already including Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge, the London Eye, the Globe Theater, and Tower Bridge. Tomorrow we'll head to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard, perhaps to #10 Downing Street, British Museum (I know, I know...I said no more museums...we'll make this one an exception because its free), Hyde Park, and other fun stuff. We may even catch a showing of the Wicked musical (I may let Paula do something she wants to since there's no football on the tele tomorrow). Who knows, we may get a bit crazy in London on our last night! If we're lucky, my night will end with the world spinning again and Paula helping me to bed...(just kidding...)

Earlier in the day, we arrived from Burton-on-the-Water and dropped off our rental car. Burton is a beautiful little village in the Cotswolds region of England (west of London and east of Wales). We've been told that the Cotswolds are home to some of the most beautiful towns and rolling hills in all of England and I wouldn't be surprised by that. We walked through beautiful pastures and fields throughout the rolling hills and made our way to Lower Slaughter, another small village that's really just gorgeous residences and hotels. Before that, we made the obligatory but pleasant trip up to the lower Midlands to Stratford-upon-Avon where we visited Shakespeare's birth place and his tomb. Sort of a tourist meca and a literary pilgrimage now, but it was pretty cool and also very beautiful.

The day before, we had drove from Wales where we had spent the night, made our way along the beautiful welsh coast and arrived at the village of Broadway in the Cotswolds. Another beautiful village where we didn't have much time to spend since most of our day was in our car driving through the countryside. We only had enough time to watch my gunners fall to Manchester United and ran into some annoying local Man U fans in the pub. Paula did a marvelous job of controlling me though so I didn't pop my top and say something regrettable.

The day before that we spent driving through Wales. Who knew Wales was so beautiful! For such a small country, they've got loads of beautiful coast, castles, rolling hills dotted with white sheep, and very small and quaint villages. We made our way out to the Conwy Castle in the north of Wales and then on to White Sands beach in the south for part of our time in Wales. Unfortunately, we could only drive through the massively beautiful Snowdonia Park but it was enough for us to get a feel for it and hope to come back to spend more time there.
I almost forgot...the Liverpool v Newcastle game was AMAZING! We sat with the Newcastle fans since I could only get tickets to the game as an official Newcastle supporter. However, the outcome was just as I expected...Newcastle got beat handidly 3-0 (sorry Joel, they were dreadful). Liverpool could have beaten them even worse since they hit the woodwork 3 times and scarcely missed the goal a couple more times. Paula points out that Newcastle did play pretty well at times, but irregardless it was a blow out. The Newcastle fans were histarical though and out-sang the Liverpool fans in my opinion. Perhaps the Liverpool fans had gone to bed, but the Newcastle supporters were singing things such as..."you stole my stereo," "you only sing when you're stealing," and "you're just a town full of smack heads" (apparently there's an image that people from Liverpool are nothing but thiefs and heroin addicts). It was also the place to be seen as well...Daniel Craig (the actor that plays James Bond) was at the match... Lunch was no picnic though...Paula and Lou had fish and chips and I tried the chips and gravy barm (still not really sure what it is). So, I had a great time and I think Paula even enjoyed herself.
This will probably be our last post until we get back home and have a chance to upload our photos.

On behalf of our guest blogger (Paula) and I, the McJohnson's would very much like to thank you for following us on our trip and contributing by way of your clever comments and poll requests. Thanks so much and stay tuned to the McJohnson Times...there will hopefully be more exciting news relatively soon as its house hunting time when we get home!

(Rambling side note: On our drive from Scotland to Liverpool, Lou (our Aussie friend living in Edinburgh) explained to us that rambling (e.g., going on long walks through the countryside) is a big deal in Scotland. Apparently, there's really old rambling trails all over Scotland that are protected under law and anyone can walk on them. The funny thing is that these trails are largely on private land, so anyone can go walk on these trails and essentially tresspass with legal authority. What's even stranger (from an American perspective) is that you can walk on anyone's property and even pitch a tent to camp on their property with no big deal. There's got to be limits as to where you can do this, how long, and how close to other residences, but we don't know them. So, we were wondering whether we could pitch our tent on J.K. Rowling's yard and get away with it. For those that don't know, J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books that Paula and I read over and over again and who also takes up residency in Edinburgh (we Google Map'd her house). We're not sure whether these rambling trails and their camping rules apply throughout the UK, but we did use public walking trails in the Cotswolds which took us on private property. Anyway, thought that was interesting.

Ciao Italia...

2009-05-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

Paula here with a bit of an update...we've been enjoying ourselves (and refusing to pay €4.50 and hour for internet) so we haven't had much time to write. Now though, we have free internet (and free washing) since we're in Scotland visiting my friend lou and her hubbie stu. Goodtimes.

So here's an update from Siena on...you may want to sit down, get some din din and get comfortable because this could be a long one. Feel free to pat yourself on the back if you make to the end...it may be like putting in 3 hours at the Vatican museum (i.e. quite an accomplishment).

Siena was lovely. A smaller town with a lot of character and as Per mentioned, close proximity to wineries. We did a couple of wine tours, one in Chianti and one in the Brunello region which is known to have the best wine in the world currently...it's the soil apparently. The second tour did not bring about a whirling and twirling world for Per; however, it did bring about a few more bottles of wine for us pack (very carefully) in our bags. I'm praying I don't smell wine eminating from my back pack upon our arrival back in the states. Though it'd be an excellent reason to get new clothes and would likely smell much nicer than my dirty clothes so... We visited a couple of precious hilltowns in the region, Montalcino and San Gimigmano, which were fantastic...I am realizing more and more that I am a small town girl. Not sure if that means I should move back to Vashon someday but the cities do overwhelm me a touch.

From Siena we travelled on to Cinque Terre which was easily my favorite stop in Italy. It was a bit of a struggle to get there as we had to take a bus and three trains and as our bank noticed some "unusual activity" on our account so we couldn't get any money...minor problem. Apparently they aren't reading our blog and didn't know we were in Europe. Nevertheless, we stayed in Montorosso al Mare, the western most town of the 5 towns on what is considered the Italian riviera. It's gorgeous! Five small pastel towns built into the rocks on the coast line connected by trains and a 13km walking trail. As we arrived on Wednesday (Champion's league semifinal match day) we headed for lunch and Per promptly found a cute Panini pub that would be playing the game that night...Thank the Lord!! our plans for the evening were set, now what to do for the rest of the day. We wandered, laid on the beach listening to Harry Potter (fyi I'm making sure to put the HP in every post...love it! and am now searching Edinburgh for JK Rowling and secretly hoping to visit King's Cross station in London!! Best Ever!) and then headed to Vernazza (next town over) for a bit of Gelato and a Gordon sighting, which completed my vacation (for those that know me well, I LOVE my fat cat Gordon).

Next day we did the 13km trail. Up and down steep steps and trails along the coastline and through farm land of olives, lemons and grapes built on the steep hills. You'd have to be in quite good shape to farm that land...whoa! We stopped in each town for a little exploration, drinks, lunch whatever...quite a great way to spend the day which ended, again, laying on the beach massaging our sore muscles.

Headed to Edinburgh via Milan the next day and today have enjoyed a bit of a wander around the city with Lou...I've also enjoyed chatting persistently with Lou (not sure Per knows quite what to do with himself though I'm sure he's thinking that it proves his point that I am my mother's daughter...she can talk like no other! and now he's watching Real Madrid v Barcelona on the tele so he can't hear us yammer on anyway) Today, we headed to the castle, grabbed some fish and chips (they serve it here with peas also), walked up to the top of Arthur's Seat which is a large hill, quite a trek really, in the middle of the city that affords gorgeous panoramic views. Also enjoyed a little beverage in the pub with all the oddly dressed (kilts, floral skirts on men, jerseys, peter pan outfits...you name it) rugby fans. Apparently there's some big tourney on this weekend and all the crazies are out.

Our plan for the evening is to have a fried cheeseburger...yep, you read that right...apparently its the most delicious thing on earth prepared by the Jesus of frying. Lou tells us it has made some rather health conscious folks question why they ever deprived themselves of such a wonder. It's 2 patties of meat and 2 slices of cheese deep fried in batter and comes in a paper bag...that's the simple secret to glory.

Then we head to Liverpool tomorrow. We have greatly enjoyed our time in Edinburgh. It has been so wonderful to see Lou. She is just one of those fantastic people that I truly value in my life and I was quite devastated when I couldn't go to her wedding so it has been so fun to see her and meet her great hubbie.

South Queensferry...

2009-05-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

Today was a long day, leaving Cinque Terre around 6:55am - arriving in Milan by train at 10:00 am; bus to the Milano airport at 11:30 am - arriving at 12:00 pm; flight from Milan to London at 5pm - arriving in London at 6pm (1 hour time change); and finally catching a flight at 6:25pm to Edinburgh - arriving around 7:30pm. However, now we're here with Lou and Stu (Stewart and Louise Laing) and Stu's folks Ian and Moira (aka. Big Easy and Moisey) in their beautiful home nestled in the town of South Queensferry just outside of Edinburgh. Apparently, this is the southern town where the queen would catch the ferry to the north; thus, its name...

Lou is a friend of Paula's from Melbourne, Australia (...you pronounce Melbourne with a silent 'r' by the way) who made it over to our wedding and is perhaps one of the funnest people we know. She met Stu traveling through South America after leaving our wedding, so we take some credit in arranging their chance meeting...

Apart from basking in our clean clothes that have just come out of the wash, tomorrow we're going to be guided through Edinburgh as Lou has agreed to give us a 24 hour tour. Then on Sunday, the 3 of us will road trip down to Liverpool for the Liverpool v Newcastle match. We're having a great time getting to know Lou's husband Stu, and his parents Big Easy and Moisy are fantastically gracious hosts. More details will be shared once we have some clue as to what we're going to do...

Our time in Italy was a blast and we thank all that provided such great recommendations that helped us along our trip. It's a bit too late in the night to properly bestow our thanks upon Italy for being such great hosts and showing us a great time, so that will be tomorrow with pictures. For now, a hearty thank you will have to do.

Hope you're all well and happy May Day back in the States.

whirling and twirling world...

2009-04-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

Not sure why my tolerance has fallen apart so quickly...I mean I did drink a delicious Moretti beer out of a can while walking through the streets of Siena for lunch yesterday. However, during our trip to the Chianti region yesterday, my world started spinning again.

We had a great time touring the Chianti region despite being a part of a large bus tour and sort of grossly took over small towns with our short stops. But, we stopped at two wineries and tasted some fantastic varieties of Chianti, Chianti classico, and other yum yums. It seems a waste to taste and then pour the remainder of the poured wine into a little tub to be tossed out, so I made sure to swish and slurp each lovely drop. The result though was stained red teeth and a whirling world...oh and a receipt for purchasing a few too many bottles to be delivered home (my fiscally conservative wife is extremely excited about that...).

Anyway, the world has slowed down yet again and we've booked another wine tasting tour to the Brunnello region (southern Tuscany where the soils are better for even tastier wines). My fingers are crossed that we...I mean I...don't purchase more wine.

That's all the post that we have time for today. Oh...and I'm really not perpetually drunk on this trip as it may seem from reading these posts...just enjoying myself and good Italian beer out of the can.

Oh Fiorentina...

2009-04-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

After giving Rome a systematic beat down during a two day visit where we essentially saw everything (or at least it felt like it after walking hours upon hours), Paula and I watched Roma receive a beat down by ACF Fiorentina last night. As Paula described in pretty great detail, it had taken a lot to get tickets to the match. Here's why...although I think only 2 of you might care...skip ahead if you don't...

So, each Italian soccer (or calcio) team sells its tickets though different online vendors. The problem is that they don't really sell them online. Instead, you have to buy them in person. Then, say you want to go to the Fiorentina game, but you're in Rome. Well, they won't sell the tickets to people from out-of-town, like Rome...especially if you're trying to buy the tickets in a city that is going to be playing Fiorentina. According to the guy we talked to in the AC Roma team store, the fans will likely get violent to one another. So, you have to buy tickets in Florence in person for the Fiorentina game. Fortunately, it was the first thing we did after arriving in Florence off the train.

Paula and I had spent much of the day wandering around Florence. Yes, we did the Uffizi museum (a well known museum in a horrible building and horrible lighting for a museum) and the Academia museum (not much there except the original David statue, which is pretty amazing). We looked into renting a car (which essentially would have cost our first born) and then mosied over the Boboli gardens. Afterwards, we made our way to the stadio for the match.

The night was spectacular! We started off grabbing a panini and Coke from a street vendor similar to a tail-gate type situation you might find at a Seahawk game. The difference of course was the wild boar laying on the chopping table where they were slicing off fresh, delicious meat for the sandwiches (apparently, with the swine flu outbreak, its a good thing the boar isn't from the Mexico). Then, everyone has to go to their own enterance to keep people organized and separated. In all honesty, the stadio isn't very nice in comparison to any stadium you might find in the states. It's essentially a community field where the team plays. Actually pretty refreshing from US sports where if they don't have a nice stadium they complain and threaten to move the team (or actually move it...bring back the Sonics).

Fiorintina played in their purple home jerseys with gold lettering. Roma was wearing their away whites. I didn't know anyone on the Fiorentina roster at the start of the game but recognized Totti, Baptista, Riise, and Pizzaro off the Roma squad (Pizzaro got a red card in the game). However, Fiorentina played fantastic. They were much more aggressive and strung several series of beautiful passes together. They drew an early goal, and then another, and then another, and finally another. Alberto Gilardino (number 11) had 2 great goals and played a great game overall. As did Stevan Jovetic (number 8) who was perhaps my man of the match. Julio Baptista from Roma put in a late goal to break the shut out, but it was nothing to write home about... The 4-1 result solidified Fiorintina in 4th and Roma in 6th on the Italian Serie A table.

Here's a video of the Fiorentina fan's celebrating after a goal. The guys in front of us were elated and gestured thier pleasure towards the Roma fans...especially the bald guy who was amusing the whole time. You'll notice I turn to the small section of Roma fans (fenced in between barbwire) being pelted and insulted by Fiorentina fans as part of the celebration...

(Back to news about our our actual trip)

Today we took an early bus to Siena. It's a bit rainy, but not too bad. However, the town is small enough that we've been to most places that we're excited to see (we're done with museums and churches now...and that's final. I think we're going to try to tally all of the museums and churches we've been to and add it to our blog in the future). So, we spent about an hour trying to figure out where a restaurant, situated in a cave somewhere outside of town and recommended by my friend Cory, was located. However, that didn't pan out so well.

So, we've booked a tour to Chianti tomorrow to imbibe and celebrate the wine there. The next day, we're looking into booking another tour to south Tuscany to enjoy the wine from that region. Unfortunately, the cost of renting a car and our hope to buy a house when we get back home has prevented us from renting a car and spending true quality time in the towns recommended by everyone that offered advice to us. So, we'll be stuck to visiting via a crowded tour bus full of potentially drunk and poorly behaved Americans. Oh well...

That's all the news for now...talk to you soon.

These boots AREN'T made for walkin'...

2009-04-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger Paula again with another eyewitness report of the most enthralling happenings of Per and Paula. Well, not so much enthralling but here is what I've got...

Since Per sobered up (by the way he forgot to mention that he left the camera at the restaruant when his "world was spinning"...luckily the waiter came running after us) we have made quite a journey. First Crete to athens via overnight not super comfortable ferry, though Per did let me sleep on the couch while he slept first in two rock hard chairs then on the linoleum floor (he's such a good hubbie). Then via plane from Athens to Roma...which was much more comfortable and they even served food and didn't charge us for our checked baggage!! I didn't know airlines did that anymore. Amazing!

Anyway, as we had a half day in Athens before we had to catch our plane, we visited the National Archelogical Museum which was quite impressive though I did feel that I'd seen many of the antiquities before in the smaller museums that we'd visited. We pressed on though and despite sore feet and mushy minds (I am not a museum girl, hard as I try, I'm better outside enjoying natural surroundings) I felt we put in a solid showing at the museum...3 hours is pretty darn good! We also visited a local market, saw some freshly caught fish and freshly cut meat (took picts for Ani...yum yum), visited the Plaka and had one last gyro (oh how I will miss them) and cafe before heading to the airport and a bit more harry potter...love it!

So on to the airport and to Roma! We got into our place, took showers and crashed. to be blunt we both stunk and we're quite tired since we'd been in the same clothes for 2 days with very little sleep. Then, this morning, drill sergeant Per had us up at 0645 and off to the Vatican to start a day of walking, and more walking, and, just to top it off, a little more walking. I wish I had a pedometer! We got appropriately dressed (no shorts or tanks for the vatican...and I even put on a necklace and my new cute red shoes which are Merrils...I know you all thought I put heels on or something didnt you...not so...but they could have used a bit more breaking in before today) and off we went. St Peter's Basilica was amazing! absolutely gorgeous. Really can't be described. I was particularly excited to see the Pieta by Michelangelo which did not disappoint. We again put in a solid hour plus showing (with the assistance of an audio guide to lengthen our stay) before we rushed off to the Vatican Museums. Again...amazing...tons of cool incredible stuff which can't really be described. Definately worth seeing though. I did find it a bit odd that there are a ton of "pagan" works there...Greek and Roman gods and what not which are more beautiful than those in the National museum in Greece...seems a bit wrong to me but that's just my opinion. The rapheal rooms and Sistine Chapel were stunning. Per got some contraband photos of the Chapel but got stopped in the midst of one of his famousn panoramics...it would have been an entire circle.

From the Vatican we did a walking tour of Roma. And, yes, for those concerned, we did stop at the AS Roma store to try and get tickets to the Roma v Fiorentina game on saturday. Oddly enough, the tics are only available in Florenece so we have another soccer related project for tomorrow...woohoo! We also spent a good half our trying to find a specifically recommended gelato place...for those that know Per...you understand. We didn't find it...turns out the address was wrong...but we found a replacement. From there visited the Pantheon...freakin' big dome which makes it totally not conducive to picts...jeez...the forum, spanish steps, trevi fountain and a bunch of other stuff we happened to along the way. We had a nice din din at Campo di Fiori amidst the thunder and lighting (per made the excellent observation that due to the high number of bronze statues around the town it's unlike that you'll be struck by lightening) and then came on back to our place...to check email and learn that our tics to the liverpool match have arrived safely in scotland (thanks lou).

Tomorrow is another big day of visiting the colosseum and palatine, then to florence and the doumo! my red shoes might have to be put away...bring back my tennis shoes!

Happy day to all and much love and special thanks to our parents again for taking care of our animals. kisses and hope that wasn't too boring!

Oh and we can't post photos from the computer we're using. probably a good thing since we probably took 200 today (not joking) and it would probably take too long to figure out what we should include and we're too tired to deal with that at the moment.

An Unorthodox Easter

2009-04-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

This may be our last post for a couple of days since we're staying tonight in Rethymno on Crete and then making our way to Iraklio for a late-night boat back to Athens and then fly to Rome for a couple of packed site-seeing days. Perhaps we'll have a chance to post in Rome, but we'll probably be too tired from circumnavigating the city by foot.

So, here we go...

Paula and I survived Greek Orthodox Easter. It was actually pretty anticlimactic for us as we thought there would be more festivities. The night before easter (the 18th) there was a late-night service that was apparently the place to be seen. We got there plenty early and found a spot in the courtyard outside the church. At some point shortly before the service began, trumpets and drums sounded from the street and a procession of Greek military personell from all the different branches marched in and lined the courtyard, esentially creating a walk way for higher ups to get to church (see photo with the dudes in berets in front of the church). Despite the service taking place inside the church, every time a dignitary showed up they would play a little instrumental piece and then stand at attention. Quite the ordeal and an interesting blend of church and state.

At the end of the service, the pastors/priests/internet-reverends (whatever they're called) walk out with their banners and a candle. They then light the dignatary's candles who in turn light the lay person's candles and it spreads through the crowd like that (see photo of Paula with her candle lit). Sort of cool... Then, the head pastor/priest/etc. kisses the dignataries and all is pretty much done. At that point, we're told that everyone goes out to eat, since they've gone 40 days (in theory) without eating meat, and there's a lot of fireworks (we were thinking 4th of July style). However, the fireworks were little more than 12 year old boys lighting things that went 'bang.'

The next day was another service that Paula and I decided to skip. We thought there would be more festivities However, all the restaruants had lamb roasted on a spit. Each taverna and restaruant had their own spit and their own lamb. Here's where our Easter became a little less orthodox...

Paula and I decided to try a cute taverna away from the marina that had their own lamb on a spit. Since I try essentially anything that is 'Greek' or 'Cretan' cuisine (the mountain snails aren't really worth trying, FYI), of course I had to try the easter lamb. Our meal was great. We had a Chania Salad (essentially a Greek salad with local feta-like cheese "masithra" - I think its feta from goats that have a large wildflower diet, so its seasonal), lots of bread with local olive oil, Paula had a chicken souvlaki, and washed it all down with a liter of their home-made barrel red wine (see photo). According to Paula, we both drank essentially the same amount of red wine. However, I find that claim to be hog wash...cause my world was beginning to turn... Then they brought out the raki (remember the Cretan moonshine - see Photo). I killed the raki at the expense of my sobriety and pretty sure I might have tipped them handidly. Because of our meal and more imporantly the beverages we enjoyed, I had to spend a few hours in bed, which sort of ended our Easter rather abruptly.

Today was a new day though, and I feel terrific...thanks for asking. We drove to the head of the Samaria Gorge (longest Gorge in Europe at 16 km). Paula really wanted to hike it, but its closed until mid- to late-May from what we understand. However, the drive was great in our cute lil' Toyota Aygo. Now we're in Rethymno, which is not all that great after Hania (or Chania). Rethymno is a college town surrounded by resorts along the coast. So, there's plenty of people and lots of tavernas, but Paula and I would probably prefer to be in Hania another night. No complaints though.

Tomorrow begins the long slog back to Athens arriving by boat at 5AM the following morning. We'll have a half day in Athens to catch the Athens Archeaological Museum before heading to airport. We'll arrive in Rome later that night and prepare for Rome in 1 day. It's totally going to work, don't worry about it...

So until then, I hope this post didn't bore you to death. We're both sober and healthy. We'll chat again soon...

Overwhelming Response...(NOW WITH PHOTOS!!)

2009-04-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all that posted their recommendations to our blog for where we SHOULD NOT go in Italy. Looks like we had the exact thoughts as the majority of you... The only thing we were sort of excited about in Venice was taking a gondola ride. But, I think we'd prefer to spend more time in Florence and Cinque Terra. So, that's settled. Thanks again.

Also, apparently we didn't have the blog open to comments (thanks Merry). We heard that several people had wanted to comment but it wouldn't allow you to, so we've fixed that. Sorry...

Now, we've had a busy day and its only going to get busier. This morning Paula and I wolk up early (7am bus...she's like a drill sergeant) and we caught a bus to the start of the Imbros Gorge (see photo). We had wanted to hike the Samaria Gorge, but that's still closed from the rains this past winter. It'll open up next month apparently. The Imbros Gorge was beautiful though and Paula and I had it to ourselves since we left so freakin' early. The plus side is that we were back to Hora Skafion where we had stayed the night and parked our car by 11am. Getting a good 13 km in by noon is pretty productive.

Then we mosied up to Hania (2nd largest town on Crete) where we're in a freakin' adorable pension . It's in a really old (14th century) venitian building in 'Old Town' right next to the marina (see photo of the view from our terrace in Hania). We grabbed lunch, walked around a bit, and found the Greek Orthodox Church where we're going to an 11pm Easter service tonight which goes till midnight. After that, apparently there's fireworks and everyone goes out to eat since they've been avoiding meat for 40 days. Then, tomorrow morning, there's a second Easter service from 8am to 10am that we'll go to as well.

That's about all that we've got planed so far. However, now we have some work planning our trip to Italy in a couple days. Thanks for all your thoughts, seriously.

New Poll is Up...

2009-04-17T10:58:00.001-07:00

Hey folks,
We're again soliciting thoughts on what we can skip in Italy. We don't have enough time to see everything we were hoping without just doing drive-bys at each place. So, please share your thoughts in our poll (see the right hand side of the blog).

Thanks again.
p&p

Guest Appearance by Paula

2009-04-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all, this is Paula, my first "guest appearance" on the blog. (Per said I coundn't check email unless I blogged. If only I had tricia lenssen's creative writing skills I'd be more up to the task. Neveretheless, I'll try not to bore you.)

So here it goes...

Since last Per wrote, we have watched 4 more soccer games and spent another 2+ hours on the internet trying to obtain tics to the Liverpool v Newcastle football match. Have no fear, they were obtained and are being shipped to scotland as we speak. (note, the immediate task after I finish is to spend another 5 bazillion hours on the computer trying to get Roma v Fiorentia tics...per tried calling fromt the cave of Zeus's birth but to no avail...He is persistent though and I don't doubt he will prevail...not even Zeus can stop him!)

Anyway, as for the rest of our trip...

We left Iraklio, barely making it out of the tiny streets unscathed in our mini rental (which gets remarkable gas mileage I must say.) Per evaded walls and cars and went the wrong way down one way streets numerous times while I cried and panicked in the passenger seat. Honestly he did great...I would have crashed! Then we headed to the east side of Crete. Went first to where Zeus was born, a big cave up on a beautiful plateau in the mountains. Per though it would be funny to have picts of him taken being "born" in the cave...if I could post them I would. The cave (Dikteon) had lots of stalagtites, mites and a little pond. Apparently was a place of cult worship at one point because of it's association with Zeus.

We wandered from there around the the towns surrounding Lasithi plateau. It was once a rich farming area with 20,000 windmills on the plain. Now many of the towns are in disrepair though quite quaint and cute in their own way. Seems to be quite the potato farming area now as all the abandoned building are full of spoiling potatoes...not sure what that is all about but interesting nevertheless.

We drove for a long time then around the eastern side of Crete and despite the moratorium on ruins, stopped at Lato which is a Dorian site. I fought glondor in the circle of death, won easily of course, we watched a goat stand on his hind legs and eat olives and decided we'd seen enough of Lato and headed on to Myrtos for lunch. Thus far, this lunch was my worst...8+ (I know I'm prone to exaggeration but this is not one) cats surrounded us the second we got our food. One stared at me through my whole meal but I had to resist the temptation to feed them because the last time I did that I got bitten and thought I might get rabies. It was hard, they looked sad and hungry...honestly, there are a lot of cats in greece and to that point they'd all looked very well taken care of.

We ended up that nigh in Zaros, a pleasant mountain town where we stayed in a super cute tradition pension. The owner was lovely...spoke rapidly in greek constantly...we nodded and smiled. Went for dessert at the place she recommend (just dessert mind you because we had a large late lunch)...a little more miscommunication and we ended up with 3 side dishes, a large salad, bread, and 3 or 4 main dishes....our tummies were quite full. then came the raki (traditional liquor of Crete...basically moonshine.) Per and I were doing our best to take it down with smiles on our faces when, low and behold, the TV popped on behind us and you'll never guess what channel it got turned to...wait...try and guess...yep...go ahead...that's right CHAMPION'S LEAGUE!! woohoo! Ended being quite fun as we watched the game and chatted with a couple of the people our age that live in the village. they were a lot of fun and it gave us a lot of extra time to finish the Raki...unfortunately when you finish, unbenownst to us...they just bring you more. In the morning we had another copius cretian meal, which was delicious, and headed to Rouvas Gorge to work off some of the massive calories we'd consumed. It was a fun hike, lots of cute goats and beautiful scenery.

Per wants me to stop writing now...getting too long...and he needs the computer to find tickets, so quickly. We spent the rest of that day at the beach listening to Harry Potter (that's right, you all know I love it). Saw some nude folks enjoying themselves. Sorry mom, Per and I did not partake in the nudity...I know you are disappointed with us. Forgive us. Today has been another mainly beach day as well. Went to Prevali Beach after visiting the the Preveli Monastary which has a rich history of being a center of resistance in Crete, both against the Turks in the early 1800s and again during WWII where the monks (armed in both cases with major weaponry...monks + guns = sweetness) helped allied forces escape the Germans. The beach was fab. It is at the base of a gorge with a palm forest and freshwater stream flowing into it. I stuck a toe in the water, a first (way too cold for me) and per enjoyed his hammock (thanks mom and dad).

Ok, that was long. we're off to hike some more tomorrow and then we'll enjoy Greek easter! much love to all

Ruined Out...

2009-04-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Crete yesterday after a bumpy ferry ride. This morning, Paula and I went to Knossos, the largest palace of the Minoan civilization. It's pretty crazy that these folks showed up about 6,700 BC (or something) and then disappeared about 3,500 years ago. One of the thoughts is that they disappeared as a result of the volcano eruption that shaped Santorini. However, after visiting that ruin and then the archaeological museum here in Iraklio, Paula and I are about spent with old rocks and portions of frescoes. Tomorrow, we're heading to the cave where Zeus was reportedly born. Since that's quick trip and we'll get a bit of a hike out of it, we're going to see that mythological 'ruin,' but after that I think we're putting a moratorium on old stuff. We need more beaches and mountains. The car we've rented should help us get out and about.

Paula is getting a little perturbed with me...tonight is the Champions Cup matches and we're surrounded by tavernas (restraunts) that will be showing the games. She thinks all we're doing is watching soccer on the trip, which is not entirely true. Oh, and today we spent about 3-4 hours trying to figure out how to buy tickets to the Newcastle v Liverpool and Fiorintina v Roma matches while we're in England and Italy. Haven't had much luck on that front yet, but I'm working on it.

This could be our last post for a couple days since there's likely not much internet in these small Cretan towns that we'll be staying at. I'm also trying to figure out how to post some of our photos to the blog. Until then, toodles.

Poll Outcome and Brief Update

2009-04-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

As I sit here in an internet cafe drinking a Mythos beer and watching the Barcelona game, I am pleased to say that with your help we have decided to head south, to Crete. We were hoping to combine a couple options by taking a ferry to Crete to the Peloponnese Peninsula and head to napfolio. However, due to our booked flight to Rome on the 22nd and Greek Orthodox Easter shutting everything down in Greece on the 19th, this is out of the question. So, we'll live it up in Crete and enjoy greek easter and its red egg until we have to head to the mainland for our flight.

As for what we're up to now, well we're in Santorini staying in a cute little pension (room for rent) that has a shared terrace that overlooks the island's caldera. For those of you who don't know, this island is the sight of perhaps the world's largest volcano eruption. Now, the island is essentially just the outer rim (crescent shaped) of what was a pretty good size round island. We spent most of today on one of the black sand beaches, although Paula and I just got done enjoying a take out gyoro's and a bottle of local red wine from our shared terrace. Tomorrow we take a boat trip around the island, stopping at a couple small volcanic islands in the center of the caldera to swim in the hot springs and have some lunch. On Monday, we'll head to Crete.

It's seems like such a long time since we left home although its only been a little over a week. For those of you who don't know, the Greek islands and Greece itself it seems, is covered in dogs and cats. I asked a person here if there's any Greek person alergic to cats or dogs, but they either didn't know what I was asking or they thought it stupid question because of course the Greek aren't alergic. Either way, it's made us think about our cats and pooch a lot. Yes, we love our animals. We also VERY much love our parents who are jointly looking after them while we're gone. Thank you so much for everything, familia.

Choose Our Own Adventure

2009-04-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Paula has given me perhaps 10 different itineraries on where we should go for the next 10 or so days we have to spend in Greece. The problem is that there's too much to see. I mean, do we want to spend much of our time traveling around the Peloponnese penisula and see places like Napflio (Matt Diggs, Patricia Lenssen, and Joel/Denice Saxman loved it), make our way to the Ionian Islands to see Kephelonia (Mike/Katie Matesky loved it so much and their photos were beautiful), or go to Crete (a HUGE island with reportedly the friendlist people, located further south with warmer weather, and Zeus was born in a cave there). See what I mean? Too many choices.

So, we're taking our dilemna to you... Please vote in our pole on the right-hand side of our blog.

Mykonos

2009-04-09T02:22:00.000-07:00

Paula and I are enjoying our last day here on the island Mykonos before catching a ferry to the Santorini tomorrow. The weather has turned for the better for at least a couple days, so Paula is down at the beach now and I'm soon to follow.

Mykonos is beautiful with the main town (hora) of narrow, meandering streets. It makes for a confusing walk sometimes. All the buildings throughout Mykonos are white washed walls and roofs with typically blue windows. Very greek and beautiful. We found a great cafe along the waterfront where we could have dinner and desert while watching the Champions League games over the past two nights, so not much more I could ask for.

Yesterday, Paula and I took a day trip to Delos, a small island in the center of the Cyclades that is where Apollo and Artemis were born according to legend. For a long time, Delos was considered the center of Greek religion and culture. There were huge statues and temples on the small island to all sorts of gods and dates back to 8th century B.C. (although the first on the island dates to 3rd Millenium B.C. When the Romans took control of the island, around 200 BC, they turned it into a major port and its esimtated that 10,000 slaves were sold out of the port each day.

When we were in Boston, Paula and I talked about how great the history there was and what it was like to walk the Freedom Trail where Paul Revere rode. However, when you get to a place like Greece and explore sites like the Acropolis and and Delos, its such a long history that its hard to even appreciate fully without a better understanding of Greek mythology and the different civilizations that have lived here. Nevertheless, its very beautiful and interesting.

Whirl Wind Tour

2009-04-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we landed in Athens after a 10 hour flight from JFK and officially began a whirl-wind tour of Athens around noon (Greek time). One thing we realized, is that Greece is not always hot and warm. Unfortunately, we havent' spent much of our time in anything but 2-3 jackets and our rain coats. Hopefully, we'll be able to wear those shorts and sandles we brought.

Athens is a huge city of about 3 million, but most of the city is essentially concrete apartments and communities that have sprung up since the 1970's. So, we spent all our time in the historic part of town where many of the ruins are within walking distance. Paula found a self-guided walking tour off Rick Steve's website that we decided to try out. It's designed for a full day of sight seeing, which we further compacted into 5 hours. Without boring you of all the details of our tour, we ended up seeing the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Roman Agora (essentially the Roman town square) and the Temple of the Winds, Hadrian's Library, the Ancient Agora and the Acropolis of course. We enjoyed winding through the streets and taking everything in until the time difference caught up with us...we then took a 3 hour nap...oops!

We thought we'd try to get an authentic Greek dinner while in Athens. We shared a greek salad, Paula had a bowl of fish soup (essentially a full cod broiled with potatoes and carrots), and I enjoyed octopus in wine. The dishes weren't much to look at and our experience with Greek cuisine wasn't exactly like Anthony Bourdain's. However, we're unfazed and will try again.

Now, we're here on Mykonos in the Greek Islands. Despite the gray and cloudy weather, it's beautiful. We're excited to get to know the town and explore the island a bit over the next couple of days.

That's all for now from the McJohnson Times.

A little wetter than expected...

2009-04-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

We've been in Boston now for about 24 hours and our trip has started off a little wetter than expected. After seeing our good friends Drew and Kelli last night, the four of us went over to Eirik and Heidi's house to see them and our new nephew, Skye Roger Johnson. He's super cute (has Heidi's mouth and Eirik's nose, and Eirik's propensity of wetting himself).

Today, Paula and I dinked around town and walked part of the Freedom Trail. The history of this town is pretty amazing, although we were dripping wet since it happens to be raining. I just assumed it was sunny everywhere but Seattle. However, we're drying up now in time to grab Indian food for Paula's birthday.

After that, more Skye time!

Packing

2009-04-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

We're supposed to be packing right now; however, Holland v Macedonia is on and obviously a huge distraction. Paula's pretty much already packed (over achiever). Last minute laundry, packing, errands, cleaning, and cuddling our pooch is pretty much what we've got planned for the rest of the day though. Tomorrow night we'll be in Boston visiting our friends Drew and Kelli and getting to see Eirik, Heidi, and our new nephew (Skye). Very exciting...

Celebrations...

2009-03-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

God has been hooking us up lately as Paula and I have had a lot to celebrate. From births to birthdays and major milestones in Paula's long pediatric journey, here's a list of all our exciting news over the last couple weeks and the weeks to come...

1. We celebrated with Paul and Merry as they welcomed our niece Ravenna Jewel Dolan into the world,
2. We celebrated with Eirik and Heidi as they welcomed our nephew Skye Roger Johnson into the world,
3. Paula matched at University of Washington - Children's Hospital
4. Paula wrapped up classes/rotations after 4 years of med. school
5. Per turned 32 (I think)
6. Paula's birthday is on April 3rd
7. We leave on April 2nd to see our friends Drew and Kelli, meet out new nephew, and spend about 5 weeks in Europe (Greece, Italy, and England).

During our trip to Europe, Paula and I will periodically update the McJohnson Times with updates for those that are interested. Stay tuned.

MATCH DAY RESULTS

2009-03-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

It's Match Day today across the country and nervous med. students found out where they're spending the next 3+ years for their residency. This was the case for Paula this morning who found out that she's matched at Children's Hospital here in Seattle. We both thought that we were either going to end up in Salt Lake or Seattle, but we're both super excited!

It's nice to know the future and where we're going to be so we can begin planning. Paula couldn't be happier with Children's. So excited. Now we have to come up with plans for where to live and everything now. Plans we're excited about making!

The anticipation is killing us!

2009-03-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

As I write this, it's Tuesday evening and we're only about 36 hours from knowing where Paula matched for her pediatric residency! At least we know she matched somewhere and won't have to 'scramble.' Thank goodness... However, we're getting a bit anxious to know where we're going to end up so we can start planning.

Speaking of planning...Paula and I are in the midst of arranging our travel plans for nearly 5 weeks in Europe! We're heading to Boston on April 2nd with our new nephew, Skye Roger Johnson and then onto to Athens. We're having those difficult discussions on where to go and where we just won't have time for. What we know is that we're going to Greece and England. However, at the moment we're debating on fitting about a week of Italy into the trip. What a horrible dilemma.

Lots could be happening to us in the next couple months and even days, so stay tuned!

A bit of an update...

2009-03-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

So, Paula and I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping our blog up-to-date. However, this is the beginning of a concerted effort to stay current. The problem is that we really have nothing to share other than impromptu songs that Paula comes up with about her endless love for our cat, Gordon.

However, there's a few things going on right now in our lives...

First, we became an uncle/aunt for the second time today as Merry and Paul (Paula's sister and our brother-in-law) had a little girl, Ravenna Jewel Dolan. Eirik and Heidi (my brother and our sister-in-law) are expecting in the next couple of days/weeks. Very exciting!!!

Also, we have a rather large moment coming up on March 19th. That day is called Match Day and is the day when Paula and I find out where we're going to be for the next three years during Paula's residency. The process of the 'match' is that Paula submits a ranked list of programs that she interviewed with, the programs she's interviewed with rank the students they interviewed, and then a computer takes all the ranked lists from across the country and determines our fate through an algorithm. Whatever the computer tells us is contractually binding, so we don't have much of a say now that Paula has submitted her ranked list. We're excited to find out where we're going to end up so we can start making plans and looking for places to live.

Oh, we're also planning a nice little vacation in April and May. A little respite from the hustle and bustle before Paula becomes an indentured servant for 3 years.

That's about all for now. Hopefully our future posts will be more entertaining and exciting.

Singing Pooch

2007-12-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

We know we're lame, but this video of our pooch singing had to make it on the 'happenings of per and paula.'

In full disclosure, this is what paula and I spend most of our nights doing.

Poor Pooch

2007-12-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

For our inaugural blog posting (we're such dorks), we thought we would share the misery of our daughter, Maddie. The one-year old border collie/Aussie shepherd mix, who was bit at the dog park this past weekend. Paula was in the midst of providing the pooch with the greatest level of joy that Maddie knows by throwing the ball, when a berserk border collie randomly ran perpendicular to Maddie's direction and grabbed a heap of flesh from her left side. Needless to say, the remainder of the day was spent at Animal Critical Care where Maddie was shaved, stapled, and HEAVILY drugged. Unfortunately, the drugs wore off by bed time and she was in constant pain and would not lay down. Therefore, Paula and I spent most of the night caring for our ailing child.

It's been four days since the random hate crime and Maddie is coping very well. She's back to her usual incessant energy levels and constant terrorizing of the cats.

Hopefully, the happenings of per and paula will include actual substantive information in future posts that don't bore you to death. Until then, this will have to do.