thomas washington

Two-Mountain-Drive (St Helens / Rainier)

2009-09-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

shoulder injury - acromioclavicular separatiom

2009-08-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

At Nick's bachelor party my shoulder got jacked playing ultimate frisbee. I had surgery last Tuesday and am recovering well. I looking at 3 months recovery : (

Youth Trip to Eastern, WA - last week of July

2009-08-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

Family Visit in July

2009-08-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

2009-06-23T12:37:00.001-07:00

My sister Andrea came to visit this past weekend from Maryland. We had a great time! We whale-watched, went to Hurricane Ridge, took a ferry to Whidbey Island, went through Deception Pass, walked around Seattle, and then chilled in Olympia for a few days. I'd never been whale watching, on a ferry around here, or at Deception Pass, so those were good times.

These are a couple of the orcas we saw. There were four or five swimming around - under the water for the most part. We didn't get any fancy breaching or swimming tricks. Bummer. After seeing about 4 orcas, we grabbed lunch in Friday Harbor:
Above the clouds on the way up to Hurricane Ridge:
No line on the horizon of the Puget Sound / Pacific Ocean:

At Hurricane Ridge: Deception Pass Bridge - Whidbey Island, WA Important Reminder:

Eagle Peak Trail

2009-06-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

On Friday Matt, his friend Mateo, and I tried to hike to Eagle Peak, which is on the edge of Mt. Rainier Nat'l Park. It was overcast and cold, and the snow kept us from getting very far... so that was a bit disappointing. But we still had a fun time away from town and wandering around the woods. This is another hike that I'll have to try again when it's actually hiking season.

Another go at Rainier...

2009-05-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get in a couple trips to the snow before it's all gone. On Saturday Annemarie, Kristin, Richard, and I headed out with our snowshoes to the Paradise side of Mt. Rainier for some sun, some views, and a little bit of elevation gain. We stopped at Panorama Point for lunch, then Richard and I headed up a bit further. It was a sweeeet time.

back to the snow

2009-05-09T09:01:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, my buddy Scott and I spent the day snowshoeing at Mt. Rainier. I have not been out nearly as often as I should be. It was a beautiful day.

Scottie:

Me and the Mountain (above)

At Panorama Point (above)

This is the furthest up toward the mountain that I have been - probably a few hundred feet above Panorama Point:

Easter

2009-04-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

I got to design the stage decorations for our Easter services this year. I was really pleased with how it turned out! I cut three sheets of semi-stretch fabric into different sized trapezoids and pinned them to the back wall and floor. Each sheet was illuminated with a 50 watt halogen flood lamp. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out a way to hide the light source, but in the big picture the bulbs themselves weren't too noticeable. Shoot... I like that glow! The three pieces of material represent the Trinity.

From the front row:

The whole stage view from the back of the sanctuary:
Easter services went great! The worship team led very well, and it seemed like a great time of celebration.

Leavenworth, WA

2009-03-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

Rented a cabin in Leavenworth, WA (north central wa) with some friends last weekend. Leavenworth is this little Bavarian mountain-side town in the middle of nowhere. There're some little shops, restaurants, and wine-tasting. Very european feeling. We blazed up there Friday and had a sweet time. I drove the 3-hour ride back alone Saturday night since I had to be home for church in the morning. It was great to get out of town, even if only for a day and a half...

Happy U-Tuesday

2009-03-03T11:42:00.001-08:00

U2's NO LINE ON THE HORIZON is out today!

Go buy it! It is good.

Very good.

Mountain-Climb-Monday

2009-02-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my friend Sam and I, and his brother Ted, snow-climbed Mt. Ellinor. I think this might have been my 6th time reaching the summit, but my first time with snow gear. Because snow blocked the roadway, we were not even able to get Ted's truck up to the lower trailhead, which made a 4-mile roundtrip hike into 9 miles. We climbed about 4,000 ft in elevation from the truck to the top.

In this picture you can see the 'chute' that we climbed to reach the summit - the steep path of snow in the center:

Our lunch break... and also the birds':
Sam and Ted ascending the chute:
Rainier, a couple hundred miles away:
This is a look down from the top of the chute. After reaching the summit, we slid down on our tails... since there was plenty of snow we slid down the entire chute. It had a bit of a rollercoaster feel to it - height, steepness, speed, trees and rocks that you definitely did not want to crash into...
The false-summit. We had to kick into some pretty slippery ice with each step. We didn't actually end up using snowshoes... and we didn't use crampons... just ice axes.
A clear view of Seattle. If you expand the picture you can probably see the Space Needle... it's the tiny little white tower on the left side that is much smaller than all the sky-scrapers.
South from the Summit:
North from the Summit:

Friday in Westport, WA

2009-01-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Friday was cold and cloudy in Olympia and cold and sunny on the coast.

New Songs

2009-01-13T09:40:00.001-08:00

I posted two new songs on myspace (www.myspace.com/tomdykstra)

I'm fairly satisfied with how All Over the World turned out.

I rushed Because of the Cross a little bit, so I'll probably re-mix it and get a better version up there soon.

Both songs are revisited tracks that I'd recorded 7 or 8 months ago. Since I'm still not able to play guitar, I used all the original guitar tracks & some of the drum tracks, redid most of the vocals, and added a few other layers.

Home for Christmas...

2009-01-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

I caught a flight at midnight on Christmas Eve (after our service) to head home to Florida for Christmas and New Years. It was great to be back home and warm for a few days.

After spending three days in Lake Worth at home with the fam, we took off for the gulf-side of Florida to spend some time with our grandparents, uncle Jerry, and Aunt Marsha. We stayed a nice little 4th-floor condo on the beach with a nice beach/gulf view:

One of our afternoons there I went mopeding with my sister Andrea. Ann had to wear a ridiculously large helmet:But so did I... and mine was ridiculously larger:Gramps and Grandma:Beautiful sunsets every night:I didn't do any swimming, but we did rent a couple of wave-runners on New Years Eve... Perhaps I'll throw a few of those pics up here when I get them.

2008-12-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to Christmas radio for the last week or so. Mmm.

But what would this Christmas season be without a little U2 cheer? Check out U2's brand new Christmas song video: 'I Believe in Father Christmas' - (a Greg Lake cover). It's typical U2 song: ambiguously spiritual... but so are 1/2 of the Christmas songs out there.

See the video here: http://www.u2.com/highlights/?hid=507

Does this get anyone else excited about the new album?

2nd snowshoeing of the season

2008-12-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

There was a lot of hype about a snow storm hitting the area this past weekend - and we did get a little snow in Olympia yesterday and this morning... But Friday night's storm didn't keep me from hitting the trails. Saturday, my friend Beth and I packed up our snowshoeing gear and headed back to Mt Rainier. I had just been there five days earlier, and it was certainly a different place with the new snow. The last few miles of the road were closed, so we started hiking just a few miles into the park.

We chose the Eagle Peak trail - which the ranger said would be the hardest of the handful of options... so naturally we went for it. The summit was up 3,000 ft and 3.6 miles ahead. We hiked in for almost three hours before the cold started getting to my feet. We made it about 2 miles in and 2,000 feet up, one of the more aggressive altitude gains I've done in the snow.

My pictures aren't too diverse since we never made it above the tree line.

Here's a few shots from the trail...

We turned around because my feet were getting soaked and reeaally cold... maybe in the early stages of frostbite. Thankfully there were a couple other hikers who gifted me with an extra pair of warm wool socks for the trip down... my first x-mas gift of the year.

Lesson learned: don't go out there without all the right gear!

the 1st snowshoeing of the season...

2008-12-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

Monday I had the day off, so I headed to Mt. Rainier to have a go at the snow. This was my first time snowshoeing since April or early May, and I was jonesing to be outdoors...

Why do I enjoy snowshoeing so much?
It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's good exercise. It's beautiful. It's away. It's a different world.

There were 10 inches of fresh snow on the mountain when I arrived, but the roads were cleared pretty well all the way up to Paradise.
The sun wanted to shine,,,,The sky began to clear, and my hopes of a nice mountain view increased:These whisps of cloud were pretty neat when the fog finally lifted:It's christmas for like 6 months on this mountain...How cool is this? The clouds spreading off the southeast side of the mountain, covering the valley below: The mounatin and me:The clouds re-covered the mountain as I began my decent... The snow covering everything is incredibly beautiful, I think. The path down:
I listened to all-Christmas radio the whole way back to Olympia. It was a great day.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was incredible. We went to Matt & Amanda's new house and made a day of it:

12:00 - made appetizers
1:00 - ate appetizers
1:30 - relaxed
2:00 - played a game
2:30 - the kitchen table caught on fire
3:00 - relaxed
3:30 - thanksgiving meal
4:30 - nap
5:00 - ate some food
5:30 - played some catch phrase
6:30 - relaxed
7:00 - played pictionary
8:00 - ate some more food
9:00 - ate some desert
10:00 - went home

The spread:Matt, Amanda's mom Janet, Amanda, Nicole, Nick, & me:

We tried to learn a game called Aquire, but failed. We mostly played catch phrase & pictionary guys vs girls. Guys rule!

2008-11-24T18:39:00.001-08:00

I'll blame my absence from the blogging world on having taken no pictures.... and I still haven't. Instead, I should blame it on not feeling like it.

I might be feeling like it more now.

I also joined facebook today.

Vacation

2008-10-16T12:28:00.000-07:00

I spent the first week of October in Florida - a few days with fam and friends in Lake Worth and a few days with brother Jeff in Orlando. It was a great time! I didn't take too many pictures, but I did do a couple 15 mile bike rides - one was to the Palm Beach beach before sunrise and I took a few pics:

Mt. St. Helens

2008-09-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is Mt. St. Helens: (picture taken last fall)

On Monday, Matt, Nick and I climbed it. Easily one of, if not the highlight of my summer. This was my third trip to a volcano's edge -- and I think my first summit of a "glacierous peak." The pics are below...

Most of the trail was climbing/scrambling on boulders. This is looking down where we came from:

A photo-op with these two boulders was just an excuse to rest up a bit. We gained almost 5,000 ft. elevation over something like 5 or 6 miles.
Mount Adams to the East:

The final ascent was trudging through ash. Here's the last piece before the summit:
Me and Mount Adams:
Success (me, Nick, Matt):Matt and Nick having lunch on the crater's edge:
Crater edge w/ the future summit, growing from the middle of the crater since the eruption: We hiked around the rim to the highest point, on the right side of photo:
This is my favorite picture from the day, Matt on the edge of the rim w/ a sizeable drop below:The growing dome:We spent about an hour-and-a-half at the top. It was pretty windy and we got a few face-fulls of sand/ash while we chilled.

Ellinor

2008-08-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

Friday was the yearly trip to Mt. Ellinor, this time with Matt, Matt, and Matt's brother Steven. It was a beautiful day, really warm with record-highs, and a great view. The Ellinor hike is short and quick, but it's extremely steep and my legs took a bit of a beating.

The hardest leg of the hike in my opinion is an open meadow full of wildflowers: The steep go of it is well worth it when you see the summit view:
We scrambled around at the summit for about an hour.
On the return trip we chose a harder way down than the trail:

2008-08-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

My sister Andrea was out to visit (from Maryland) a couple weeks ago. My friend gave me a couple great tickets to a Mariners game - 18 rows up, right behind home plate. Here was our view:
We kicked it around Olympia Friday, Saturday, and Sunday because the weather wasn't so great... but Monday we made a day trip to Oregon to Cannon Beach (which is an incredible place) and Portland in the evening. A long day, but lots of good times.
Low clouds rolling over the rocky coast:

The same day:

It was fun to take a slightly longer trip than usual. Cannon Beach is a little over 3 hours away. Thanks for coming Ann!

a few big weeks...

2008-08-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Updates...

Monday through Thursday I took our Junior High Youth Group to the Mt. Hood area in Oregon for a week of ropes challenges, rock climbing, white water rafting, and camping.

The road to Mt. Hood:

Well, I didn't reach the summit of Mt. Hood or anything, but I did make it up this little rock face a couple of times...

I was glad when I reached the top: Wednesday, we rafted the Deschuttes River - basically in the deserts of Oregon. This is the river valley (the river is below the hill in the foreground).
Joe, Kristin, and I brought 11 students from our church. It was such a sweet week of hanging out with the kids, spending extra time with them, seeing their personalities come through, seeing them face some challenges, and seeing/hearing them think and talk about their faith. Good growth happened. I think I needed a bit of a boost of motivation for the week-to-week of youth ministry, and I got it. Here is us with the Youth Dynamics staff just before heading home on Thursday:
A few weeks ago (July 14 - 20) we did our 2nd Music and Drama Camp at Olympia CRC. It was another one of the big weeks on my calendar, with months of preparations... It went really great though. We had 50 kids in the church Monday - Friday and for our performance of a play on Sunday during the services. Basically we spend Monday - Friday playing games, doing skits, singing to high-energy worship songs, learning lines, learning blocking, practicing for the play... and then Sunday we perform it for the church, friends and family. It was a ton of work and pretty exhausting, but we had so many volunteers who made it a lot easier on me.