Mr. Niikkonen and his family were flood victims at Marriott Residence Inn while escaping the water damage getting fixed at their home

Marriott Residence Inn, Redmond Towncenter

Redmond News Stories
Local news for Redmond, WA – updated from at least one source occasionally

Mr. Niikkonen  and his family were flood victims at Marriott Residence Inn while escaping the water damage getting fixed at their home

On Tuesday, Mr. Niikkonen had relocated himself and his dog to the Marriott Residence Inn in Redmond Town Center (RTC), also including the rest of the family and the cat. The family had escaped to the hotel while the mess from water damage is getting fixed at their home. The damage was caused by a leaking refrigerator pipe carrying water for the ice maker. The family was staying (or actually packed) in a small two bedroom suite during they stay in RTC. Apparently, during their first night, Mr. Niikkonen woke up around 4:00am for some reason, and noticed their dog behaving strangely. He got up starting to search and look around what might be causing the dog’s behavior. He soon discovered that the whole carpet in their room was soaking wet. They had a serious leak in their room from above, possibly caused by the heavy rain on the previous evening and during the night. “Well, I can’t believe this is happening to us again”, Mr. Niikkonen had noted but he was not available to further comment on the incident. After taking their children to school he and his wife had to relocate their belongings again but this time luckily only to a different room in the same hotel. The new room is significantly larger than the first one so there was a bit of good luck in this stressful event. Also, to relief their stress, the hotel property coordinator had left a kind note apologizing the inconvenience the Niikkonen’s had to experience, a gift basket (including treats for the dog and the cat), and a gift certificate for a free stay at the hotel on any weekend. Editor’s note: Rumor is, Mr. Niikkonen had earlier joked to his wife about having leek in the kitchen but her having not to worry, since he was going to put it in the soup he was making. The superstitious might say both incidents might have been result from making that joke.

Naïve Art – Paintings by Kimmo Niikkonen

These are paintings created by my cousin Kimmo Niikkonen in 2001-2003. They are classified as naïve art style and they describe the wilderness and culture of Finnish Lapland.

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Happy Holidays

Friends, family & good food.

 

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October 2011 Fright Fest

Mia wanted to have a birthday with her friends at the Wild Waves October Fright Fest. Donna & I took them them over there on Saturday evening Oct 1st. While they were having fun on the rides Donna and I strolled around in the park & I took some pictures. The park looks pretty empty but we were there quite early & almost no one was there. Later on it got more crowded. They have the park set up pretty nice now with all the landscaping etc, and now of course with Halloween decorations & props. Donna was dancing with the Zombies learning the thriller dance.

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Trip to Los Angeles, CA

Thank you everyone. We had a good time in LA July 27 – August 9 meeting family & celebrating my mother in law’s 80th bday & two newborns in the family, and my bday. My buddies flew there from Seattle & had setup a surprise party for me in Santa Monica. It was a huge surprise, I had no idea. I thought I’m going out to dinner with my brother in law & nephews. We had a great dinner in Japanese restaurant & went to see great blues gig afterwards. The performer was a guitar legend Guitar Shorty. Good times!

We visited quite a few places in the LA area including, Chino Hills, Whittier, San Dimas, Ontario, Torrance, Palos Verdes and Santa Monica.

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Skiing Mt. Crystal & White Pass

Mia and Andrei were off the school last week. I took Thursday and Friday off from work as well and we went skiing to both Mt. Crystal and White Pass.

Thursday we went to Mt. Crystal. Actually we were planning on going to White Pass first and since I have not been there I put the destination into my GPS, TomTom. I did not check the resulting route carefully enough. It wanted to take us via Highway 123 and part of it is closed during the winter months which I’m surprised it did not know about. So we arrive at the gate but luckily it is the same route that goes to Crystal so we made a left turn and went to Crystal instead. This particular route was a little different from what I’ve used to got to Crystal before. It used Hwy 169 and then couple of shortcuts to get to Hwy 410. There was almost no traffic so we got there in less than two hours, 1 hour and 40 minutes. Usually it has taken me two hours or little more. It was snowing almost all the time and the snow was great. Mostly flat light so the visiblity was poor but occasionally sun peaked out and visibility was great at those times. Despite the warm weather, I think it was about 32 Fahrenheit degrees or so, the snow was dry and powdery and there was lots of it. Up to your waist at times depending on where you were, lots of fun (and tiring on my legs).

Andrei met his friend when we were on break and they went skiing together for the rest of he day. Mia and I skied together. At some point we had a bite at the Campbell Basin Lodge. You can see from some the pictures we took from inside that there is lots of snow outside the lodge.

On Friday, we then finally made it to White Pass. The weather was great, sunny most of the time. It was pretty cold, about -4 Fahrenheit which is about -20 Celsius degrees. The snow was absolutely great but there was not as much of it compared to Crystal. All the slopes were groomed but you got about a foot of powder on a hard packed snow if you went off the groomed ones a bit. awesome skiing.

The drive there is a bit long, over three hours from Redmond but it was worth it. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainier from there but that day there were clouds between White Pass and Rainier. We did get a little peek of it though when the clouds were moving.

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