With hopes of a better day of weather for John's last major outing before the Buglet's arrival the target was Mowich Lake on the northwest side of the mountain. Although the weather was great the snow was inferior to that at Paradise.

Welcome to New Zealand. Home of the Louis Vitton Cup (we didn't know what it was either), 19 Starbucks, and long lost friends Kitty and Paul. Although the Ellis crew doesn't return to Seattle until May (browndogdaily.com for details) John, Amy, and the bug will be back in time for New Year's Eve festivities, though they may not be awake for it.

A quick hike at Deception Pass, a tasty turkey courtesy of Mom, and head back to North Bend to prepare for work on Friday. After half a day of work head south to Portland to visit anyone and everyone on Amy's side of the family. Oh yeah, and go shooting with Uncle Alan, armorer to the stars. If ever we need firearms, I'm sure there's more than a few to spare.

The next weekend began with a planned two mile hike to the Denny Creek Slippery Slab with Amy's dad, Carl, but both he and Tokul were so eager to continue so up they went to Keekwala Falls. It's probably spelled wrong, but it was quite impressive. After that the trio continued up through Hemlock Pass (aptly named, I might add) to Melakwa Lake. Rack up another nine miles for this day.

John and Tokul were both a tad tired from the unexpected Melakwa hike, but onward to Sunday and a planned 10 mile hike with Dan and Juneau up to Mount Margaret, the Twin Lakes, and Lake Lillian. The day was spectacularly clear and cold providing great views of everything, especially old Rainier.

John and his father spent two days in Helena, Montana, fishing the Missouri River way up high before it becomes a slow-moving, silted, mess of a river. They had a guide named Tim who guided (what else would a "guide" do?) them down miles of otherwise inaccessible water to only the best spots to catch rainbow and brown trout. Many were caught in spite of amazingly cold temperatures the first day and high winds (30 mph) the second day.

The route took them up the back of Garfield Mountain and into the bowl from the high side. The first stop was Green Ridge Lake where Tokul went fishing, though she didn't catch anything. After a rest they scaled a hairy slope (800 feet in a quarter mile) to get to the top of the ridge at 4600 feet before realizing they had no idea where the trail was. Before they gave up, they did get to see Caroline Lake, but with their energy fading and time running short they called off the search for the Garfield Lakes and returned to civilization.

Early the next morning we rose at 4:30am to get to Moose, Wyoming, by 7:30 for a rafting trip down the Snake river. We were reunited with virtually the entire Kowal side of the family (John's mom's side). Everyone piled into boats to gawk at the mountains and wildlife while making faces for the camera. Although we saw a moose hidden in the brush it wasn't until later in the day when we saw a younger moosewhile hiking from Bradley Lake to Taggart Lake.

The next day we trammed to the top of Rendezvous Mountain (10,000 feet) with John's sister Amy and her husband Ryan only to find the trail the two macho guys wanted to hike was closed due to snow. It turned out that although it was 15 miles and 4,000 feet of elevation loss the snow wasn't much of a problem, though blisters were rather annoying.

July 6 was the reason we were there and we witnessed a lovely wedding under the watchful gaze of the Teton mountains. Sean and Karen turned in a circle throughout their ceremony and they made eye contact with everyone there so we all felt like we were a part of the ceremony.

The next morning was another early killer. We drove north through Grand Teton into Yellowstone all the way to Norris. We did a few of the normal sights before collapsing. The next day we were rejuvinated and hiked in to see Fairy Falls much to Amy's relief.

The fence: With the extraordinary help of friends and family all the posts are set and some panels have even been put up. Can it be that some day there will really be a place for Tokul to run around without fear of an unscheduled exploration? Of course, the irony of the situation is that Tokul's been perfectly willing to hang around the Moosefish estate during construction. Why is this being built again?

Work: Amy's almost done with another school year and looking forward to a summer of yard work, studying, and perhaps, just perhaps a spot of employment. John's been spending nights at the Times for infrastructure testing and working on a contract job on the side. Who needs sleep?

Entertainment: John and Amy tripped up to Vancouver, B.C., to visit Dan and Serina who they met in Sienna, Italy. As in Sienna, Dan and Serina helped the moosefish couple find the best restaurants and generally enjoy the simpler things in life.

Training: John finally committed to a five-day hike in August with Dan and Nick. Of course this means it's time to start training now. That means 50 pounds of water and weights in the backpack and up all the hills he can find. Tokul accompanied him up Little Si (where they also embarked on a new sport called "geocaching") and Dan foolishly followed him on a failed attempt to find the two Garfield Mountain lakes. Only a couple thousand feet of elevation gain, but with no trail it was brutal.

First came Christmas on December 15. Yeah, I know, but John's sister Amy and her husband Ryan were leaving for their honeymoon so the four and John's mom had an early Christmas. Of course, the traditional Christmas came ten days later at the new Moosefish estate with John's mother and Amy's parents.

On the 28th John and Amy headed south to Sun River for New Years with the Irvines and Grays keeping them company. Dan snowshoed with John one day and those two were joined by Jenn and Amy the next on cross-country skis. Both outings wound up stopping at Todd Lake which had a spectacular view of Mt. Bachelor.

The 13th found Dan and John (with Juneau and Tokul in tow (or towing to be more accurate)) climbing Mt. Teneriffe. Named after one of the Canary Islands, Teneriffe nonetheless was covered in snow, sheathed in clouds, and 4800 feet and 14 miles round trip. Ouch. To add insult to injury, time was short when the part reached the saddle at 4200 feet so they had little time to search for the summit trail buried under feet and feet of snow.

The town was complete with a bakery, residential district, and the mandatory crazy rich person's castle. Why, there were even a collection of jack-o-lanterns to light the way for the little ones.

Even with such daunting numbers Tokul and John headed out early Saturday morning only to get lost once again. Perhaps "lost" is the wrong word since we had a pretty good idea where we were, but we couldn't find the trail. So tack on another two miles of aimless wandering before we even started the real meat of the hike.

The hike was promised to be about 12 miles, but Dan entrusted the map and directions to me which soon led us to the north face of the mountain which was, essentially, unclimbable. We retreated to the base and began working around an unnamed peak to the back side of Mt. Washington.

Eventually we reached the summit at about 4,400 feet. The dogs were bushed and immediately crashed. I took a million pictures of the mountains and Tokul before realizing that if I looked south I'd see Mt. Rainier looming over the Cascades.

Thankfully, both the fathers of the bride and groom applied the baby pressure to the new couple so it seems John and Amy are officially off the hook for the time being.

After we parted ways in Florence Amy and I toured the highlights of the birthplace of the Renaissance all the while worrying about the fact that our flight from Rome to London left July 11 instead of August 11. Needless to say, we weren't on it. Luckily, we found a great guy at the Lufthansa office in Rome who reissued our tickets in less time than it took to find their office.

The airline office was probably the newest building we've seen all day since we've been shuffling along the Via Sacra like a couple of real toga-toting Romans back in the days of the Republic. We even walked on the same stones they did. Pretty cool, huh? Now if we could only find some place to relax that was cool and didn't charge us 5000 lira an hour.

The best two stories came from a three-generation packet of estrogen (grandma, mom, and daughter) in the car next to us last night. A man in their compartment let a gas into the air and left the car. The gas rendered them unconscious and they were stripped of valuables including passports and earings. Their other story, though less sinister, seems much more frightening to me. A first class car that was supposed to have air conditioning didn't and a mini-riot broke out because the passengers couldn't open the windows. Granted, we've had but a single experience, but I'd have to say the Italian trains are a pale shadow of their French counterparts. Still, no more night trains for us and only a couple more day trains before it's all over and we become ordinary stay-at-home citizens again. Bummer.

Never fear, though, weŽre doing smashingly. We arrived in Spain yesterday evening, navigated the Metro, and introduced me to the wonders of (a) not knowing any of the languages being spoken and (b) some tasty meat product in a pita pocket shaved off a pole. Please donŽt tell me what it was, I donŽt want to lose the joy until later.

From Normandy we headed to Amboise in the Loire valley. It was here we foolheartedly rented bikes and started on the Road of the Vinyards which promised to be flat, but was actually up and down from the grape growing plateau (amazingly beautiful) to the valley floor where each house had a mini winery in a cave carved into the cliff behind the house. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday so we only went in one of the caves, but perhaps that's best otherwise it would have been that much harder to get back to Amboise. As it was, we took one wrong turn and wound up on a busy road on the wrong side of the river for the last couple kilometers. Oh well.

The next morning we left the Grays around 4am and headed back to London to drop the car, tube to the train station, and tunnel our way onto the Continent. After a brief bit of claustrophobia during one of the shorter, earlier tunnels I found a place where I could relax and we arrived in Paris shortly. The city is huge and more reminicent of New York than London. The language has thrown us for a bit of a loop, especially me since I'm supposed to speak it. Go figure. Already we've climbed the Eiffel Tower (by foot) for the sunset view and toured a tiny portion of the Louvre. We're heading for Notre Dame now for yet more stairs and then to L'Arc de Triumph for, you guessed it, more stairs!

Who's... what's... huh?

Rest assured, all the little bits of string are nicely wadded into a relatively tidy ball. Tokul's splitting time between Langley and Kirkland and the house is being watched by our neighbors. (WARNING: They're under strict orders to shoot first and ask questions later. (Seriously.))

The fun began with a short hike up to Crystal Lake above the town of Mammoth Lakes followed by fishing the dangerous Hot Creek.

The group headed into Yosemite National Park on Sunday for more hiking and site-seeing including beautiful Mirror Lake and Half Dome.

She's gone for long hikes in the woods and snow. She's climbed a couple of mountains. She's completed four sessions of obedience training and gotten her CGC certification and she's been to the vet more times than I can count.

Add the fact that climbers training for Mt. Rainier use the trail, the threat of thunderstorms in the Puget Sound area, and "potentially heavy snow," according to the North Bend Ranger Station, and the hike looked like it could inspire a new clause of Rule 14.

In Seattle itself the worst damage (according to John) was to the Starbucks corporate headquarters. Say it ain't so! John was in a meeting before the earthquake and spent the rest of the day trying to keep the Times' servers from melting under the heavy load. Check out the seattletimes.com story for more details.

• Know the path you are following or
• Follow the most heavily traveled trail or
• Bring the whole map

The Hall consisted of sheets of newsprint that stretched from the ceiling to the floor forming a corridor through Shantytown. We then added spooky effects and even a crazy guy in a box.

To celebrate we spent the weekend at the Freestone Inn in Mazama, Washington, in the North Cascades. The inn is small and very intimate. Our suite had a fireplace, jacuzzi, and a great balcony overloolking the lake.

Martin proposed at a candlelit dinner by giving Nicole a special box he had purchased in Spain, a rock from a beach in the San Juans, and a simple ring. Get it? It's a rock and a ring in a box until he can get her a proper rock on a ring in a box.

On Monday night Tokul gained her second degree, this one for Beginning Home Obedience. Amy pointed out that Tokul now has as many degrees as John does, but only if you count John's high school diploma. Tokul begins Advanced Home Obedience toward the end of October.

Tuesday was spent at the vet for Tokul where she was spayed and generally made uncomfortable. After coming home she wasn't particularly interested in anything other than curling up into the smallest ball she could. Wednesday morning, though, she began acting more like her own self.

On top of all this Amy's lost her voice due to a rather nasty cold. She's learned enough from The Incredible Math Horse that she can convey her messages by stomping her feet, but she needs to use a microphone and speaker assembly at work.

The two had a rough start to the finals day barely defeating the "Have Mercy" team 6-5. The next game was against lostcausesforgoodcauses which fell 10-1. The final match, best of three, was ugly. Although starting off well, the first game ended 5-10 in favor of "Threepeat" who had, you guessed it, won the previous two years. The second game of the match wasn't as close as the 5-10 score indicated making a third game unnecessary.

The point is she got a job with Fuller, Mossbarger, Scott and May Engineers, Inc. as an Environmental Planner in their Water Resources group.

We picked up the sign on Saturday and of course decided to be real losers and drove to the intersection of the South, Middle, and North Forks of the Snoqualmie. This location served as the site for the "Welcome to Twin Peaks" sign from the television show. After a little creative propping we got the sign to stand up on its own and shot this picture. It's been slightly modified to make it match the Twin Peaks shot, but not too much.

• "Want to go (hiking or biking) today?"
• "I've never been to this place, but (a book or a friend) told me it was great."
• "Don't worry, it'll be easy."

Of course, it wasn't until after our most recent expedition that rule 14a was created and as a result I'm paying the price.

Dan and I decided to hike the Rattlesnake Ridge trail with Tokul in tow. It starts near the Snoqualmie Winery and ends at Rattlesnake Lake. According to Dan it was a paltry five or six miles which wouldn't have been that big a problem. We discovered our error when we reached the North Bend overlook and found a sign that said we'd already hiked five miles and had another six to go to get to the Rattlesnake Lake trailhead where the car was parked.

If I'd merely paid the scantest bit of attention to Twin Peaks I'd have known that the owls are omens and warn people of impending doom. We saw an owl in the first mile or two of our hike, but paid no heed.

We were, of course, delighted with the frequent Kodak moments such as the Snoqualmie overlook and a great shot of Mt. Si.

The aforementioned Mt. Si provided a great backdrop for some pictures of Tokul on top of the world as well as the three of us, though that was a challenge with the low-end camera we had.

What difference does citizenship make? This is James as an Englishman and James as an American. England's loss is our gain... I think.

No doubt you've heard about the fires in Montana and the havoc they're causing. None of the stories you read or the pictures you see really shows what's happening there. John's first view was from 20,000 feet coming into Bozeman, MT, at about 10:30 p.m. A huge section of the night was painted red by flames. The next morning John was introduced to the thick smoke that was everywhere in western Montana and how it colors everything you see.

After fishing the Beaverhead River on two separate floats (and doing quite well, thank you) John and his father headed toward the Bighole River. On the way they were passed by a helicopter working the fires. Shortly thereafter they came upon one of the many makeshift firecamps set up in the fields.

John was 5-1 in block play and won his first finals ladder match to proceed to the semi-finals where he repeated his dismal performance from the Seattle Open and lost to Pablo Coffee who he had defeated 26-3 in his first game of the tournament. John went crazy in his last match and defeated Pierre Dunn of the Croquet Consulate, Hungary, 26-2 to secure third place.

John's victory came at the price of severe distress to his right knee after an unknown incident caused it to swell, making it difficult to walk and play. After the first game on Friday John could be seen icing his knee on the sidelines. There is no final word on the severity of the injury or what caused it.

Amy was introduced to North Bend Elementary during her graduate work at Seattle University when she spent her student-teaching time at NBE. For the last two years she has pursued a position there or in the Snoqualmie Valley School District which covers North Bend, Snoqualmie, and Fall City.

NBE is 1.6 miles from home and the commute is a whopping six minutes.

School begins September 5.

The trail starts uber-steep, but flattens out after a while and sends you through a little valley of ferns. After that it's back to the uphill trek until you reach the top where Tokul decided she needed a little break.

Up on top John showed that he is the consumate geek by setting up a tripod, panorama head, and digital camera to capture the glory for all to see. What's the result? Check it out (1.6mb), but you'll need Apple's QuickTime VR.

The trip down was uneventful and most of Microsoft had left so the river was quiet again. Ahhh.

Best local media site (besides ours)

Super-clean design, robust power, a search engine that seems to read your mind-- seattletimes.com has it all. This is not only the best news media site in town, it's one of the best in the country. Take any of the big media companies' online efforts, whether The New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, or others, and you'll see sites that are, for the most part, ineptly organized, toppling over with clutter, ugly, and unwieldy. Only our friends at the Seattle Times Company seem to have understood how to make a news site that is easy to navigate, thoroughly functional yet handsome too, and that serves people who want access to the newspaper--not to order flowers, find a hotel, or sign up for free e-mail promotions. God only knows how much money the company is losing on this expensive endeavor, but that's really not your problem, is it?

Sunday morning found a completely different player in John and he lost his semi-final game 23-9 to Cameron Guernsey who placed second. Carl Uhlman, tournament director, won first place for the championship flight.

Ha! We spit in the face of steepness!

Tokul's first couple of steps in the parking lot gave us a great deal to think about. Would she actually get to the top? Tough to say. Once we got on the trail itself, however, Tokul became a puppy on a mission. She was intent in her quest for the summit with her nose pressed to the ground finding the way for us. The frequent switchbacks gave her a bit of a puzzle, but she was quick to find the trail again.

We were continually impressed by the types of obstacles she could overcome. Whether going up or coming down she seemed to be able to get over just about anything that stood as tall as she did. It seemed as though she pulled us to the top and, thankfully, we didn't have to carry her as we had feared.

The first ledge is lovely, but crowded. From there you can also see the second ledge up another couple hundred feet which was deserted so that's where we wound up for lunch. Of course we had the digital camera, so you can check out what we saw of Tokul as well as the view itself.

When we arrived at the bottom we were faced by Rattlesnake Lake itself which beckoned with its cool, cool waters. Amy and I kicked off our shoes and waded in as did Tokul. However, instead of stopping when the water reached her belly Tokul continued in and paddled all around. Big deal? Yeah! It's her first time in the water and against the odds Tokul is a natural swimmer. Hurray! As usual, you can check out a picture of her swimming here.

After we dried off we drove through Snoqualmie to Tokul Creek to take some pictures of Tokul's namesake and the road named after her.

For three or four days Tokul stopped eating completely and actually lost weight during a period of her life when she should be growing by leaps and bounds. Luckily, our vet was able to detect the problems and Tokul's now eating more than she probably should be, nearly 2.5 cups of dry food a day!

We can tell she's feeling much better because she's entered her teething phase where she tries to chew on everything and everyone. Her current favorite is a bright orange squeezy ball that squeaks on both deflation and inflation. Nothing so loud has ever been in our house. Gee, thanks Nicole.

We picked up Tokul around noon on Saturday the 20th. We spent about an hour at the breeders' house playing with Tokul and dealing with the paperwork that was required. After saying a final goodbye to Keith and Janice and Amber, Tokul's mother, we jumped in the truck and headed toward home.

Tokul was anxious at first, but once we got on the freeway she settled down and fell asleep. We stopped at Starbucks (of course) for a snack and to allow Tokul to stretch her legs. Thus began John's introduction to the amazing world of "oh how cute" in which complete strangers will approach to say hello to a tiny puppy regardless of how scary looking her owner.

We continued home, stopping for gas, and puppy chow which garnered more attention and the chance to see a pair of 10 week old yellow labs which, although only two weeks older than Tokul, appeared to be at least twice her size. Wow.

Once we got Tokul home she had a chance to rumble around the house and explore the yard. Sure, there were a couple of accidents, but she's a puppy and most of them occurred in the kitchen where the cleanup was easy.

Amy's parents and sister came over that first afternoon for dinner and to visit the puppy, if not us. Tokul got quite the workout running from one to the next and playing with her new ball, a gift from Amy's sister, Nicole. Jenn and Dan also swung by briefly to say hello since they live only a quick float down the river from us.

That night we rigged up our laundry basket next to the bed and tethered Tokul in. She woke six times that night and quickly woke both of us. I (John) took her out to use the facilities each time and, as a result, got a whopping three hours of sleep. By 5:30am she'd had enough of sleeping so I moved into the living room with her to let Amy try to get some rest.

My mother and sister came by Sunday afternoon for dinner and, again, to visit the puppy. (How come nobody ever comes to visit US anymore? Huh?) Many more pictures were taken, of course, but the night was cut short when my eye began swelling for no good reason. Jenn came over to puppysit and Amy and I trundled off to the emergency room (false call, but we're cautious) and returned to Jenn and Tokul.

That night, since Amy was going to work Monday morning and I wasn't, I slept in the living room with Tokul in the laundry basket while Amy slept in the bedroom. Tokul got up only three times the second night which was quite a relief.

Monday was laregly uneventful with Amy at work and Tokul and me lounging about the house. Tokul started taking the leash a bit and is definitely more comfortable around the house.

Tokul also began her crate training exercises in which she was introduced to and spent some time in her kennel. I don't need to tell anyone that has ever crate trained a puppy that it's not easy, but by evening she was comfortable enough with the crate to settle in for the night with a minimum of whining. More importantly, though, she spent nearly the entire night in the crate without a need to go out. From 10:30pm until 5am she was happy to sleep quietly. She only got up at five because I had to go to the bathroom. She was even able to go back to sleep in the crate after her trip outside.

So now it's day four and she's snoozing at my feet as I get my morning fix of the net. More info will appear here when it occurs.

Matt Pressnall, another engineer, was absent all week vacationing in the San Juan islands. Needless to say, this left the remaining engineers bitter in spite of the sudden and newfound quiet in engineering.

Pretty quickly they hit on the idea, sparked by a photo floating around the net, of transforming Pressnall's cube into a collection of packing peanuts, cardboard, and shredded paper.