Hello to our dear wonderful family!
We just wanted to write you and let you know how we are doing. We are enjoying the weather here even when it does rain. We are also enjoying the amazing luxury of having a washer/dryer and dishwasher in our apartment. I still can't believe how wonderful it is--it's going to be somewhat hard returning to our old apartment in Provo (but we can certainly make the transition).
It's really cool here because on the first Thursday of every month, a lot of museums are free in the downtown Seattle area. So this past Thursday we went to what is called "Experience Music Project" where they had different eras of music (hip hop, Disney, alternative, rock-and-roll, a Jimi Hendrix memorial, etc.). It was pretty cool; I especially enjoyed the Disney section and seeing the jacket Dick Van Dyke wore in Mary Poppins and the original piano score/music written for Aladdin's "A Whole New World". They also had a Science Fiction section separate from the EMP that was really cool! (I think apart from the Disney Exhibit, we enjoyed the Science Fiction Museum more - Trevor) We saw the outfit and actual rocket worn in the movie "The Rocketeer", the gigantic queen mother alien used in the movie "Aliens" (it really was gigantic!), the NASA outfit worn by Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes" and the orangutan costume used by the villain, and various other cool costumes, masks, guns, etc. used in filming sci-fi movies.
Last week we went to the Seattle Art Museum which was a really cool experience for us. They have a lot of different kinds of art: modern, Lamanite/Nephite era, African, Asian, Greek, Crusades, and other types that I can't remember. They also portrayed art through many different mediums such as video presentations, music, sculptures, armor, porcelain, clothing, ceremonial headmasks, etc. One really cool display was 9 actual white ford taurus' suspended in air rotated in different directions simulating a flip of a car. They had these bright beams of light flickering out from it. We kept thinking "Leah Florence would really like this place a lot!"
(Trevor here...) In the past two weeks I feel like I've gotten a better grasp of what I'm working on at work, because of this I'm enjoying my job more and feel like I'm able to get more done. One thing interesting about the group I work with is that we have a few things that we do periodically. Every Wednesday we have have a "Team Lunch" and go somewhere as a team to get lunch. We've been to American, Greek and Chinese places all within walking distance of our office! Downtown Seattle is really diverse and interesting. Everyday around 3 or 4 we play a couple games of foosball ( a.k.a. table tennis), I'm not all that good at it, but I feel like I've been getting better lately. I like the people I work with and everyone is very willing to help me out and help guide me through what I'm working on. When I'm not at work I spend my time doing fun things with Lindsay, reading (on the bus and at home; so far I've read The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, The Magician's Nephew and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Click on the links for some shameless self promotion...), studying for the GRE, and programming a game I'm working on called Koosh (I'm trying to make a Mario-ish game from scratch using Java). I'm really enjoying the chance we have this summer to relax a bit and enjoy Seattle.
I (Lindsay) am really enjoying my internship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center: HIV Vaccine Trials Network. I have learned more about the human immune system in one week than I ever thought possible for me. It has been thrilling for me, though, to work with people who are working to save the lives of so many people to prevent the spread of HIV. I didn't realize that about 60 million people have the virus and 20 million have died from AIDS so far (those numbers are rough estimates and I've heard different numbers from various sources here). What I am currently working on is basically trying to figure out how many people they need for a particular clinical trial to test if it is possible to have a universal vaccine that will work for all the different strains of the HIV virus. Another project I am going to start next week concerns the screening process they go through to find people to participate in the vaccine clinical trials. They want to know basically where do most people get disqualified to participate, what is the best way to recruit people (newspaper, radio, e-mail, etc.), and other demographical information on a site-by-site basis. It's really exciting and I feel so blessed to be working here.
P.S. Here is our view from our balcony (This is where the cruise ships dock on the weekends)
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