[erikavanhuis]

Ok, so I know, the title of this is real original! I thought I'd start one of these.
Ummm, where to begin...
I just got back from celebrating my first wedding anniversary yesterday. Our anniversary was on Monday. It was very exciting, Mark and I both took a couple of days off work and just spent some time together.
So, that's about the biggest news I have right now. Other than that, a little about me...I work in a small office as the office manager (so small actually, that often I'm the only one here!). I've been working this job just over a year. It's a pretty good job. Also, I play guitar and keyboard. I love worship music.
Well, I guess this is an okay start. If someone reads this, great...if not, then I'll just keep a journal for myself! So, back to work. I'll write more later.

[erikavanhuis]

Well, another day done, and another day closer to our vacation in England! I'm getting excited! We still have to get our tickets though...that's just dang expensive. It will be worth it though. We get to watch one of our swimmers swim across the English Channel. She swam with our team for about a year, and just moved...actually the Navy moved her to Spain. She had an extra spot on her boat and asked Mark if he wanted to ride along, and we just couldn't pass up the opportunity. After coaching her and getting her ready, it is sort of dumb to miss it. Hopefully, there will be room for me to go along too. If not, oh well...I get a day in Dover on my own!
I guess I could add a little more about myself...my hobbies and such. I am a competetive swimmer, have been doing it for about 5 years now. I'm thinking of maybe trying to do a triathalon sometime...I don't know, we'll see. I also love to scrapbook! It's gotten addictive. We got an empty scrapbook for a wedding gift last year, and that's what got me started. Oh well, with Mark being a photographer, it's a good hobby to have!
Umm...that's about all I can think of right now...time to cook dinner...chicken sounds good!
More to come later!

[erikavanhuis]

Yeah!!! We got our plane tickets and hotel reservations all finalized yesterday. Oh man, was that a lot of money to spend! I'm getting excited!
In other news...it's so dang hot right now! In the midst of a heat wave...I'm not used to heat like this anymore. It's supposed to be mid-90's today, and even hotter tomorrow. The real challenge is keeping the house cool. We have no windows that we can open, only the front door. The fan helps a little, but I'd rather have air conditioning...of course it wouldn't really make sense to get that because it would only get used about 10 days out of the year here...it just doesn't get this hot! Oh well, I guess I don't really mind it though, as long as I don't have anything that I have to do and I can just sit and do nothing. I confess though, 10 days of heat like this is better (in my opinion) than 100 days straight of rain! Don't get me wrong, I don't mind rain, it just that when it rains so much, you get wanting to go outside, and you can't because it's raining, and it just gets so dark and gloomy out...
Ok, wow...random babbling there! Anyway, time to get back to work! That's all for now!

[erikavanhuis]

Well, it's finally cooled off to a tolerable upper 70's-low 80's around here. Much better than the high 90's of last week! We did everything we could to stay out of our house because it was just too hot! It's good that it's cooling off because of my scrapbook workshop this weekend. Hopefully I'll get at least a couple of people to show up...everyone keeps backing out. I may have to cancel it if I don't get someone...oh well, things will work out. If nothing else, I'll get a weekend to scrapbook while Mark is out coaching at the swim meet. I'm still debating on whether or not to go with him on Sunday or catch a ride with his dad to church. It's been sooo good lately. I love our church. I've grown so much there, and by leaps and bounds too. It's exciting to watch God work, and to be a part of it! It is such a neat group of people too. It really feels like family there, and there's no place we'd rather be. It is so great to just go and be in the presence of God. We have such incredible worship, and the preaching is just awesome...and then to just sit there afterword and just linger...there's nothing like it!
Other than that, just another week of the same ol' stuff. Oh, well. I guess that's it for now. More later...

[Icerose]

Hey Welcome to the blogs! I guess you started a little while ago, but hey. Wow, competitive swimmin' sounds really interesting. I had thought about joining a swim club this year, but decided on football instead.

You are so crazy lucky to be going across seas! I have always wanted to visit Ireland, and one of my friends is actually in England now. I think he is. He was. But anyhow.

How long have you been playing guitar?

Icerose

[erikavanhuis]

Wow!! Someone wrote in here! I'm excited! Ok, well a little more about me then I guess....
Here goes:
My name is Erika, I'm 22 and happily married to the most wonderful guy in the world (his name's Mark, I guess I'll have to post some pictures sometime), no kids yet - give it a year or two, I've been swimming competetively for going on 5 years now, I love to scrapbook, I play the guitar...I'm not real good at it although I've had a guitar since I was 18...decent enough to lead worship for our youth bible study that we used to lead though, I also play the piano/keyboard...I'm better at that. Oh, what else...I work for a very small company as an office manager. The company I work for inspects cranes...somebody's gotta keep everyone that uses them safe. Usually it's just me and maybe one other person in the office, so it's nice. Yeah, and I'm going to England next month. One of our master's swimmers is swimming across the English channel, and she said she had an open spot on her boat, and since my husband is the coach, she asked if we wanted to go along and we jumped at that chance. I've never been out of the country, except to Victoria, Canada for a couple of days. Um...I love going to church, but I've said that before...we belong to a church in the Seattle area, it's nondenominational and we love it there.
Anyway, I was hoping this weekend to have a scrapbooking workshop at my house, but I may have to cancel it because everyone backed out at the last minute..grrrrrrrr......oh well, I can always rescedule. I'll have to find another swim meet weekend, that way Mark doesn't have to sit around and listen to a whole bunch of women....!
Well, that's about it for now, I've probably repeated some stuff, but I guess that's okay.
More to come later!
God bless anyone who reads this!
-Erika

[erikavanhuis]

Well, Monday morning here...back to work. Ok, so this weekend didn't work out exactly how I had planned it, but it turned out okay anyway. Everyone backed out of the scrapbooking get-together on Saturday, so I went to the swim meet with Mark. It actually turned out better that way because I'm going to do a catalog order show instead of a workshop thing...I can still get free stuff that way!! It was good for me to go to the meet too because I got to spend more time with Mark, and we only had one person from our team at the meet, so I got to keep her company. She's new to our team too, so that was good. She did well in the meet too. After we got done on Saturday, we went to a camera store in Seattle, where Mark found a new camera, and he ended up buying it. So, yeah, it's a good thing that I went with him. We were hoping to make it to church on Sunday, but that never happened because we didn't get out of the meet until about 2:30. At least we didn't have to stay for finals! Oh well, we'll make it to church next week...we're having our church picnic. That will be fun. We never made it to that last year because we were on our honeymoon!
Well, now it's Monday, and I'm back at work, all by myself in the office today and tomorrow...yeah! Sometimes that's a good thing, but more often than not, that makes the day go by so much slower...Oh well, I will find things to do. If not, there's always the forums here, and I've got a couple of magazines to read, except I feel bad doing that all day because I'm getting paid to work...I guess if I've already gotten everything done though, I've done all I can do.
So, that's it for now...time to find something to do here at the office...actually I'll have some paperwork to finish up from a job done last week later on today.
More to come later...

[Icerose]

Hey cool you got the little linky thing working in your sig...I have been cleaning all day, and weeding, so is that a better Monday than sitting in an office? But I have also been swimming...yippee

Iceorse

[erikavanhuis]

Suprisingly enough, I've actually had quite a bit to do today at work! I've just now got it done though. I wasn't the only one here today either...my boss showed up. It's okay though, it made the morning go faster. Everyone's gone now. My boss gave me the hugest compliment today...he told me that out of all the employees that he's ever had, there's only 3 that he would hire again at any other business in a heartbeat, and I was one of them!!
That made me feel good because shortly before that, I screwed a job up, and one of our customers went to another company to get it done because I told them that we couldn't get the inspection done the day that they wanted. It's okay though, the customer was sort of a jerk to me anyway...
Wow! Two posts from me in my journal today...
Oh well, enough for now...more later...

[erikavanhuis]

I'm happy today! No special reason, just because...actually, Mark was so sweet last night. He got home late from work, but he had a good reason...he bought me flowers just because. I love it when he does that!
Anyway, not much else going on today...slow day at work...I'm here by myself all day. I ended up having to help coach last night at swim practice because our assistant coach is taking this week off, which means no swimming for me this week... I guess it's not too bad...there are nights that I'd rather swim though...I never know what to do with the kids that are just learning. I'd rather work with a group that I can give a workout to and not have to worry about always correcting or even teaching strokes, or making sure they don't drown! Hmmm, I wouldn't do very good at teaching swim lessons...
Well, that's all for now. More later...

[erikavanhuis]

Exciting day yesterday...we got our tickets in the mail for our England trip. It's getting so close, only 2 more weeks! There's so much to do before then though, like figuring out what we're going to take.
Well, the Olympics start in a few days. I'd better stock up on VHS tapes so we can record the swimming events. It should be good. The amount of coverage is amazing!
Well, I suppose I should probably get to work...another excitingly slow day at the office!
More to come later...

[Electra]

Hiya Erika! I'm new here, but i read your journal and i thought it was cool. well, i'll write more later but for now i gots to go....ttyl.

[erikavanhuis]

It's raining today...hard! Mark and I are supposed to go to a wedding for one of his employees tonight...and it's is supposed to be an outdoor wedding. I'm thinking she's probably bawling her eyes out right now, thinking that nothing is going to work out...she had a hard enough time just getting everything planned between dealing with her family and then her fiance living on the other side of the state, I feel bad for her. She is such a sweet girl. We've been praying for a little bit of favor tonight that the clouds will break long enough to get the ceremony and everything done. I know that it can happen. Mark and I have gone on photo shoots before - he's aspiring to be a professional photographer - and it's been pouring down rain on the drive over, but we've prayed and the rain has stopped just long enough to do the shoot, and then as soon as we've packed everything up and headed home, it started to rain again. God is good! So, I have faith that He can stop the rain again for a couple of hours! Heck, it's only noon...there's still 5 more hours before the wedding.
In other news...I get to see my mom tomorrow! That will be fun. Actually, my grandma will probably hog her, but Mark and I are going to breakfast with mom before she gets to the house so we can actually spend some time together!
Well, back to work now. More to come later...

Lord, please stop the rain this evening for Caitlin's wedding.

[erikavanhuis]

God is so faithful! The wedding did get moved indoors, but the rain stopped, and they were able to get their pictures done outside. In fact, the skies even cleared and the sun came out for about an hour or so during the pictures! As soon as they were done, it clouded over again, but it didn't rain! The wedding was pretty good too. They spent a TON of money. There were probably about 200 guests, and there was a sit-down dinner, salmon dinner at that. They told us it was $50 per person just for the food! Yikes! I'm glad we didn't spend that kind of money. Oh well, I guess when you have it, you might as well spend it.
Other than the wedding, it was still a busy weekend. Saturday, we went to a going away party for one of our swimmers who's going to college. Then, on Sunday we had our church picnic, and after that, another one of our swimmers had a birthday party, THEN, one of our masters swimmers invited us over to her house just to hang out! We did nothing but eat yesterday! It's okay though, I haven't had to cook dinner for 3 nights in a row now! I still have a ton of dishes from before that to do tonight though!
Well, that's about it for now...time to get some work done!
More later...

[SccHarpGirl]

Hi Erika!

So you're out in Poulsbo, eh? Nice area. I'm from Issaquah (only for 12 more days--until school starts) It's always nice to see another Washingtonian on the boards


The england trip sounds like so much fun! It's such a beautiful country; I'm sure you and your husband will have a fantastic time!!

Noelle