jump, jump!

today we took our kayaks into the gulf and the dolphins played with us.

then we rented a boat and a jet ski for a couple hours right before sunset and the dolphins came to play with us again.


in a soon-to-be seen video, i was yelling at them, 'Jump, jump!!" that got them going.

ps you can now post COMMENTS for free,
you don't have to be anybody special (especially not a googler anymore),
sorry about that inconvenience before. we'd love to hear from you!

....to Coast

We finally made it...back to the East Coast- or, should I say, the Gulf (of Mexico)! For many a day we will be repeating our routine of waking up to the sound of water lapping the boats on the dock, have a lazy breakfast, head to the beach for a few hours, watch some dolphins jump and play, bring the kayak over to try and chase them, eat lunch, take a nap, read at the pool, play Settlers of Catan, eat dinner, watch a movie, and watch the moonlight dance on the ceiling as we fall asleep. No, this isn't the norm, and we can't complain. We'll check in later when we wake up from the dream!

Merry Lights

Merry Christmas tomorrow! Tim's working today until 4 and then we will celebrate Christmas at his family's house before heading to Florida at 8am tomorrow! A full Christmas day of flying...oh well. We each have our books of choice, Kite Runner for me since I haven't read it, and The Idiot for Tim (not intentionally!).

Saturday night we took Joanie and Josh (who is in town from Canada) to Zoo Lights, a Christmas tradition. Here are some shots:The glowing pink treeeeeee! (with an improved, non-cardboard Josh)

The new narrows bridge with Mt Rainier behind.

A preview of Florida beauty!!

It's a girl!

Tim's brother Mike and his wife Hillary announced they will be having a baby GIRL in May! This is a semi-rarity and we are very excited to have a niece!

Rudy???

This one's for you, Roxie! (And maybe all those Rudolph fans out there??) Check out those awesome 7up earrings!

Season's Sleepings

Has anyone else not been able to sleep, like, at ALL lately? This is what happens when I get mega projects running through my mind, and lists in my head, never-ending. Camp usually does this to me, and in a minor way for the first time, now does Christmas.

Could it be because I decided to make over 100 Christmas cards this year, or stamp my own wrapping paper, make fudge and cookies and loaves of holiday eggnog-cranberry bread for fun? Or could it be the coordination of getting 100 family members, 10 dozen home-made sugar cookies to frost, and 250+ sorted gifts to tomorrow's REACH Christmas party? Maybe the fact that my sister KATE GOT ENGAGED this week!! Or that I have just today begun to dent the whole shopping affair, or that we join my family in Florida in a week!!!

Probably one of those things is keeping me awake at night.

One last note: I have officially begun to loathe pumpkin anything. I do love those organic vegetables that keep coming, but I have had enough pumpkin. I keep trying to cook different things with it, and nothing satisfactory comes of it in my opinion. Definitely enough.

Good thing I'm sticking to gingerbread cookies for tomorrow's party. Let's hope I get them all baked tonight!

WARNING: Ab-alanche Danger!

Wow, this weekend was a winner!! Tim is only the best husband in the entire world. Friday we saw a movie and went to a special fancy dinner (involving fondue...) and then Saturday we packed our snowshoe gear for a SUNNY trek pretty much straight up a mountainside. We barely survived an avalanche, even though the danger was reportedly low.

We descended together with the sun and then drove to a secret destination for the evening, which was only the most spoily place I've seen! The Salish Lodge and Spa. After my time in the eucalyptus steam room and hot pools and my hot stone massage, I was ready to stay forever. We built a real fire in our room (without setting anything ablaze) and enjoyed a 5 course country breakfast the next morning while it started snowing outside, all above a towering Snoqualmie falls! Very lodge-y and Colorado. Very happy Abby. THANK YOU TIM! He really knows how to make this girl feel special. And he's all mine!!
PS We were celebrating a belated birthday and my finishing all grad school application materials! New season of life, here we come.

going organic?

Thanks to some of our cool new friends Andy and Elisa (our other friends are cool too, don't worry!), Tim and I have decided to try buying our vegetables via an organic food share box weekly from a local farm, Leftfoot organics, in Olympia. We are learning lots of new recipes to cook with kale, turnips, radishes, chard, lots of squash and other stuff we never buy on our own at the store. Each box is like a surprise present. You never know what you're going to get, or what it is supposed to look like.

Sometimes we get really cool vegetables like this one!
It's been a nice experiment, and it's not over, although I'm not sure it's transformed us for life quite yet. We like the idea of supporting local, but finding ways to actually live what you believe, now that's revolutionary...right?

SBUX holiday extravaganza

Tim and I hosted his store holiday party at our house last week. Well, every day is a holiday party at Starbucks these days, admit it! What must it be like to work in a place people come to treat themselves, listen to festive feel-good tunage and relax in a home away from home?

Besides eating what was probably a better meal than any of us have made for Christmas dinner (sorry, parents), the fun and games continued with home-made catch phrase, a gift exchange, and decorating gingerbread men and women to look like each other in real life. Brad, Kara's highlights were amazing! I tried to make Tim's spidey shirt.Everyone's welcome again, and the fun continues daily at your local Starbucks!

Snow Anniversary

Now we have proof - it does snow about once or twice a year year here, and today was one of those days! At least one full hour of it. The first blustery day of December, which also happens to be the anniversary of the first FULL day Tim and I shared together as boyfriend and girlfriend:), just 4 years ago. Nice way to celebrate! Thanks, God!
Here, you can view our backyard for the record.

Thanksgiving Blockbuster

Thanksgiving is all about the act of remembrance. So it seemed appropriate, when Abby and I hosted the Isaacson family for the holiday, that we reenacted the first Thanksgiving. History can be incredibly emotional.



*If the film is choppy look for it on youtube under http://www.youtube.com/goluckyfilms

Birthday!

Birthdays and Black Friday are a dangerous mix! I have never scaled the malls on this horrific day and I wasn't about to break the tradition after 27 years. What I DID do was wait until Seattle was lit up with Christmas lights, and entered only one store downtown, a favorite: Anthropologie. Wow is it hard to make an economical decision in that place! But I did it and came out spoiled with a victorian style, beige, 3/4 length, cute coat! Followed by a Mediterranean dinner and friend's concert.

Before that, since Tim had to work, Cyrus and Abbie took me with their visiting parents for a nice sunny walk at a nearby state park. Thanks, guys! It was a beautiful day!




Started out kind of nippy though...







I had to throw some rocks in the sound and they made a cool ripple.

Scenes from Part II

Here are a few other shots from the first Thanksgiving we've ever hosted (including cooking the turkey). Part of the centerpiece on a new Indian tablecloth from Meag

Place settings for everyone with funky table cards, each one different with his/her Dinner Theatre character on the inside

The Isaacson gang before the show. We whittled it down to 13 people instead of 15, then cousin Jacob joined us after dinner to make it 14. I guess if you count Hillary and Mike's coming little one in utero, then we're back up to where we started. Not bad!

Everyone could hardly contain their anticipation for the performance (They had no idea what excitement was in store!)

Joanie's bear-chested boyfriend, Josh, could only join us in cardboard form. We love you Josh! Especially with those hunky muscles (and buckles)!


Caveman Tim ?!?!!
The Director getting his energy intake before the task ahead...stay tuned...

Thanksgiving Part I

Turkey day has begun. We're talking parades. Pilgrims. Indians. Bloody turkey juice (sorry, but there is a lot of that nasty stuff and it leaked all over the inside of the fridge earlier this week, before we had to get a totally new fridge on Tuesday!). And long walks in the sun and cold air, and family. Stay posted for the Historic Reenactment of the First Thanksgiving. Until later, here's a preview. Yep, Kevin Costner himself, joining us for this thankful day.

HE's arrived!

So the quilt arrival preceded BABY MANGRUM's arrival yesterday! My college roommate, Julie, and her husband Ben had their first baby yesterday named Owen. He's really cool! Congratulations friends! Tonight we get to bring over dinner and play with him! (Ok, watch him sleep).

It's Arrived!

The mighty Tim-Abby-Story-Quilt has reached its home! Kudos to Susan, who has deeply invested in this labor of love!! The love story starts at the top with inter-twined O's and I's and T's and covers everything from Starbucks to toes that fell in love with each other to green eyes, sunsets, snowshoes, fall leaves and dancing elephants. WOW. Here are a few highlights:

My favorite snowy mountaintop....

Where Tim gave me THIS!

And can't miss the 3D aspects

and the Llewellyn's door where it all began....

Perfect Fall Day

This weekend was a perfect one to be outside. Tim and I took our friends Geoff and Marcia from Longbeach to Nisqually Wildlife refuge, AND we saw two bald eagles. Then we headed to the pumpkin patch for some more fun. Here are some of our favorite moments:

aww, how cute...
not for long!
The pumpkin brothers

And in-between

Juel??
Tim and I had a ton of fun trying to find a costume for Clay and Juel's Vita Celebration party. Unfortunately we didn't have to look very hard:

"How about a game, lovey?

"Service!"

"I thought this was a doubles match!"

Prayer update and weekend plans

Keep praying for Nathanael and Roxie - turns out during his seizure due to lack of sodium in his body due to dehydration from a severe vomiting reaction to antibiotics, he fractured his back. Now he is stir crazy and mostly bed-ridden and needing to sleep and rest a lot, which is difficult with high levels of pain. Pray for their whole family and Roxie as she balances caring for him, her own health, and working a new job. Pray also for parents Johnny, Hillary and Franco as they take turns flying to Santa Fe and helping as needed. God is our Healer!

In the meantime I've been making a diaper baby for my friend Julie's shower tomorrow. Sarah is flying in from Colorado to spend the weekend with us in the rainy Northwest. (It snowed in CO last week! Jealous!!!). My diaper baby looks more like an alien. I'm off to REI to see what I can do about that!

Here's the 'nakie' diaper baby, before the makeover.
Here's him after. Wasn't able to find baby shades to help with the alien feel.
Here's a pic from Pike's Place when we took Sarah up for some yummy stuff.
We ended our weekend at the new sculpture garden!

SQUASHED.

well, adding on to our Sunday night dinner group story so aptly described by Abbie Brown on her blog, we squashed it tonight.
Erik Swanson almost made it down from Shaw Island to join us, but others must have had the same idea since the ferry was too booked. Dang. Swanny, good luck on the interview tomorrow. We missed you! You missed..squash.

And, Jacob and Cyrus eventually made it after installing a new french door in the Moody's house. I got to absorb a little of baby Micah (and his spit-up, yumm!) until his mom made it from work. Prayers for mom on Micah's first day at day care tomorrow!

So it's a good group. One of these days we'll post a pic of all of us. And if you are in town on Sunday night and need a place to eat, come on over. To one of our houses - we rotate. And if you live here, join us once in awhile! The more the merrier. You just might have to put up with some experimental vegetarian dishes, like THIS! More to come...

Fall 'n

The leaves are changing, Fall is here. That is, until the rain strips all the trees bare. We basically have just a few short weeks to enjoy the beautiful colors ON the trees before they become mushy mush under our car tires and feet and mud into the ground. There still may be more vibrancy to spring forth! I mean fall down. The leaves above are from the parking lot outside my office.

These are on the path where I ride my bike to work.

and...a swirly twirly land of leaves!