A wonderful Valentines Day adventure out to the glacier. Last Saturday was a beautiful day here in Juneau. Brian and I got outside and hiked across the lake to Mendenhall Glacier. It was awesome!


Here is a close up of some ice!



Here is our 30 minute hike across the lake.

Northern Lights...Finally.

Okay, 10 degrees out on the lake next to the glacier is not the warmest of places to stand and take pictures of the Northern Lights, but since it's only the second time I've seen them, I had to. They weren't quite as dramatic as they were last March when I saw them for the first time. They were a little fainter in the sky, but pretty fun to watch anyway. The pics actually turned out okay too. Enjoy! Maybe click on them to make each picture bigger to get the full effect!

Wedding websites

Wow, there are so many wedding websites one can register on. It is phenomenal. And slightly overwhelming. I am having fun with it. Gives me things to do since work is slow and Brian is in class more now.
First up: check out (if you are bored) http://owensandfelix.weddings.com
That will take you to some times/locations of our wedding and a few places we have registered at so far.
Second: http://www.travelersjoy.com/members/owensandfelix/
This one is another website about our honeymoon and another type of registry.
ANyway, wedding plans are definitely going now. Ceremony and reception locations have been finalized, I just have to pay the bills so we can officially use them. The ceremony will be at Cone Chapel on the Willamette University and then a reception to follow at Mission Mill Museum, right across the road! So convenient. God is providing, I just needed to be patient. His timing always, not my own.

Oregon for Christmas

How nice it was to be home for Christmas. Here is the first group shot of my sister and her family with my dad, his wife, and Brian and I. It took a lot to get us all smiling at the same time and still, Isaac (the one on my sister's lap) would not open his eyes. Stubborn, but cute!!

Monty on Christmas morning. My mom, Brian and I after opening our presents. Very fun!



Isaac at the Salem Carousel, we all went to see Santa and ride the carousel. Last, the picture below is my sister's youngest, Gwyndolyn Tallulah. She is definitely growing up too fast!! I haven't been around her at all!

Engagement Pictures!

My good friend Amanda Slagle took some awesome pictures for Brian and I. It was a nasty, wet day out, but we braved the NW weather and did it outside. Thanks a ton Amanda, these pictures couldn't be better.

Ice Storm in Oregon

While some parts of the Willamette Valley got snow, we at my mom's house near Turner, Oregon had some freezing rain on the Sunday before Christmas. It was amazing to wake up in the morning and find thick ice covering everything outside!!


It was truly an amazing sight that day. Even just standing outside listening was pretty cool. Every few minutes you could hear another tree limb or ice or whole tree falling in the area. My mom's property is a disaster.

This picture looks pretty bad for both vehicles, but luckily my mom's truck only had some damage to the canopy. But wow, what a mess to clean up. Thanks to our neighbor who came with his chain saw we could get the truck out later that evening.

Unfortunately for us...some tree limbs became way too heavy and decided to fall on my old car, the "silver bullet" as my friend Sarah and I used to call it. It served us well on many road trips. How sad to see it out of service now.

Tacky Christmas Party

Okay, so it has been a busy month and this party was a long time ago. But, I've been busy with a proposal and Christmas and travelling!! Anyway, this was a fun party. We had some fun making graham cracker houses, definitely a wide variety of what people decided to make.

Here is Christine, Karla, Miriah and Michelle with their awesome mansion of a home.

Wow!!! This is a nice looking fiance isn't it?? The beginnings of our future wedding have started!

How fun it is to be proposed to! It sure was the talk in the hospital. Probably a good thing it happened there, because I might have been slower at telling my co-workers. Hope everyone has had fun watching the video. It is easy to find on YouTube now, just search "Brian's proposal to Wendy" and it comes right up. I'm glad everyone gets to see it!

I think we are aiming at getting married in Oregon during the first week or so in May. More details to come!!

Operation Proposal

Here is the link to the website for an awesome video of what happened on December 6, 2008.
http://gallery.me.com/davidgnash
Once you get to the web page, go to the video named Brian's Proposal.
Or check out YouTube and search for this exactly: Brian's Proposal-Large.m4v
and you will find what you need to watch!!

My surprise for the YEAR!

I am engaged to be married today!!! And I know many of you will want to hear the story! I was in a miserable mood this am while at work; I've got a cold, was sleepy and just plain irritable. Then at about noon, the unit secretary told that the UPS man had delivered a letter for me downstairs. Confused, I wandered down there to find my name hand written on a plain envelop. Not exactly UPS material. Opening it, I found a letter from the "Morrocan Nursing Travel Association" saying they had accepted my application to work in their country and would pay for all the moving costs and such for me to move to Morocco to live and work. Hmmm, curious I said to myself as I climbed the stairs back to my floor. I questioned the secretary and asked her to call downstairs to see who had delivered the envelope because it must be a joke. Then I continued working and gave one of my patients the coffee she had requested prior to the trip downstairs. I walked out of the room and saw three huge, almost waist height boxes wrapped in red wrapping paper with a note on one. I immediately recognized Brian's handwriting, "Hi Wendy you have a surprise under one of these boxes. Pick them up, choose which one."
I laughed at myself and at Brian, thinking he must have left a little note or something under one for me. Picked up the one in the middle, nothing, the one on the left, nothing. Then the last one and there was Brian!!! All a whirlwind, he was on a knee, asking me to marry him. I can't even remember what was said too much, because my brain forgets things. But I was very happy and had a hard time accepting that it was really happening! So, a good day, a lot of people were involved and I really had no clue what was going on. And for once I think my bad mood was a good thing, because I didn't pick up on anything that was said or even these huge boxes in the hallway...it was a complete surprise. I'll post pictures as soon as I get them. About 6 of our good friends came with Brian today and were taking pictures and recording the whole thing. For those of you in Oregon, see you in a few weeks and I'll have a few things to show off to you all!

Happy Halloween!!

This Halloween, Rachel and I were able to find real pumpkins to carve. Last year was a squash year because we couldn't find any pumpkins. Stores were actually giving them away after Halloween this year because they had too many!

For our Halloween, a bunch of us got together for a medieval mystery dinner. It was a ton of fun. We had a full meal, someone was murdered and then revealed later. I was a simple Maid, and Brian was a serf that worked on my lands. A mystery dinner is where everyone has a role assigned to them and each person must follow their script as best they can.

Here is our group. We really had some great costumes!!! Below is Karla and her knight, Dave.


And here is our king for the evening, Larry and a faithful subject in his kingdom, Tim.

Ahh, snow so early!!!

A nght for a wedding and the first snow of the season. Two inches last night!! Wow, it seems so early. And as it was snowing I was quite happy because snow is less wet than rain and much prettier. And I even took a picture of my car with the snow on it to put on my blog...Not knowing that minutes later I would have a squished front end...


Ahh, this is what happens when sliding into a guard rail. :) God took care of me, no one was hurt, wounded, no other cars involved and the guard rail kept us from going into some water. :) Ha, and I was able to drive my car home. Actually, I didn't drive after smashing into the rail, I made Brian drive. Another blessing today, just started dog-sitting and they graciously are letting me drive their cars for the next two weeks until they get back or mine is fixed. And getting things fixed in Juneau could take a long time...

Cabin camping...

Hiking in the rain isn't quite as bad when you get to camp in a dry cabin with a wood stove or propane heat as a back-up!! The Eagle Glacier Cabin is a great cabin with a nice view. Six of us all met at the cabin, due to work schedules Brian and I were the only ones to get to hike the five miles in the daylight. Everyone else came out in the dark. UGH.

Eagle Glacier up close, took extra effort to get there...and a story for later if anyone wants to hear it.

Here is the view from our porch! Really nice! And below, Morgan, Paul and Karla, just before breakfast.


Eagle Glacier Cabin

Finally, a sunny day...

Such a nice day, probably the first blue skies Juneau has seen this whole month. And of course, guess what I did. I spent it hiking with a great group of people.

Brian and I took off up Mt. Roberts with the Ewing family, Brian, Lisa and Nathaniel. Such a nice day!!

Spaghetti Feed

Here are some pics from a week or so ago of some Juneau friends. We had a good meal and great hang out time!