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!