My sister is a Marble

Here are some pics from my little sister's wedding on June 1. She married into the Marble family, one we've known from our home church for many many years. Now it's crazy all the families that are newly connected because of this union.

Here are Jesse and Kate walking to get more pictures taken at Colorado College's campus where they got married.

Kate's bouquet surrounded by bridesmaids' flowers.

She had an orchid in her hair

Three sisses

Me and the MC!

The next day my parents and aunt and Tim and I went to the top of Pike's Peak (drove).
It was 80 degrees at he bottom and 33 at the top!

You can view more wedding pictures by the photographer on his website.

movingness

I now am semi-twiddling my thumbs with a week off to plan ahead for Boston. Last night Tim and I came up with our task timeline for the rest of the summer. Our tasks consist of:

• Picking a moving method. Movers or Pod-like structures? Today I learned we have 3700 estimated lbs of things we want to take. WHAT!?!? I was thinking maybe 2000....it boils down to approximately 535 cubic feet. A bed, a couch, a couple shelves, keyboard, bike, table, chairs....maybe some of those things won't be going as planned. Moving units are about 250-350 cubic feet each. That means we might have to rent 2 instead of one...all my budgeting is flying out the window!! There has to be a way. We may just take only what fits!

• Selling our cars strategically so we have at least one through the first week in August. Anyone want a bmw or jeep?
  

• Buying a new apple laptop

• Changing bills and banking info

• Locating my immunization records and sending them officially to BU - today UPS saved my life in that area! All I may need is meningitis vaccine. ick.
  

• Finding an apartment in either Jamaica Plan, South End, or Cambridge areas of Boston if possible. Already ones we found available August 1 that we requested to see in July are already rented. Yikes.
  

• Taking care of final medical needs and getting recommendations for Boston
  

• Preparing for REACH camp - helping recruit volunteers and talk program planning with the leaders since we won't be there
  

• Throwing ourselves a party
  

• Oh yeah, and going to China next Friday, Boston a couple weeks later, Backpacking the weekend after that, New Mexico the weekend after that, and the beach the weekend after that!!!

So even though I don't immediately feel like I have a ton to do, I feel like I should be doing something. And I sort of have awhile to do it. At least I'm trying to bike absolutely everywhere I go.

We have lots of our stuff displaced around the house to sell tomorrow at a joint garage sale with the Shrivers. I have a niece to visit whenever I can, and a world food crisis to research about. And a husband to love and friends we will soon miss. Life is strange yet good.

isabella isabeauty

here are some pictures of little Bella. I think she is looking more and more like her daddy.

sweet sleep

waking up

wide awake

kisses from dad

already saying her prayers

her cool nursery with wall art hillary made

she's well on her way to a loved life! she already told us we are her favorite aunt and uncle. sorry Joanie.

p.s.

AND, to one of the very faithful blog readers of all-time (Anna), congratulations on being engaged to Noah Chang!! We will soon be visiting Beijing in person, and for that we are excited.

When I was telling some UPS friends about the engagement (after it happened), they asked to whom Noah was going to be married. I said Anna Yoder. They didn't quite hear me in the hustle and bustle of the Parkway Pub where we were, and they said, "Banana Yogurt?"

Noah and Banana, congratulations.

New brother and niece

Last weekend I gained a new brother and a new niece! My sister Kate married Jesse Marble on June 1 in Colorado. Here's the brother (and Kate):

Tim's brother Mike and his wife Hillary had their baby, Isabella, on May 30. Here she is:



WOW! I still haven't met Isabella except via photos since I was already in Colorado when she was born. She looks adorable! And of course the wedding was outstanding and beautiful. I will post pictures after the couple returns from Mexico. Love you, Jesse and Bella!

How to Reclaim Your Abandoned Child

Tim and I are spending more and more time with Joanie and Tim's family, especially since the GB has returned for a third time and Joanie is now back getting treatments for a final round. Get away, bad antibodies!!

So we watched one of our all-time favorite movies together Friday night, Finding Nemo. Yes we are almost 30 years old.

Lately, we like to make lists of what we can learn from movies when we watch them. This list is entitled, How to Reclaim Your Abandoned Child.

1. It all starts with 5 little letters: w-o-w
2. Have 400 eggs
3. Get ready to learn to get some knowledge
4. All new explorers must answer a science question
5. Touch the butt (or don't let your child touch it)
6. Choose your friends wisely - remember fish are friends, not FOOD
7. When in denial, use intervention
8. Just think about what you need to do
9. Give the kid a proper reception
10. Remember Sea monkey has your money
11. When life gets you down, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
12. Ask your conscience if you're dead
13. No eating here tonight - you on a di-et
14. Climb Mount Wannahawkalugee to join the fraternal brotherhood of tankdom
15. It's because I like you that I don't want to be with you, it's a complicated emotion
16. Follow the EAC for 3 leagues
17. Go through the trench, not over it
18. Shoo the squishy
19. Something about Tentacles - Got it!
20. You have 4.2 minutes once he grabs the Reader's Digest
21. Focus dude, hey dude
22. Leave them to hatch and then coo-coo-ka-choo
23. When they know, you'll know, you know
24. Think dirty thoughts
25. Take the swirly-twirly vortex of terror
26. Find your exit buddy
27. Bring out the inner whale in you
28. Hop inside my mouth if you want to live
29. We've all got to swim down together!!!

Join us next time for How to be the Nanny of a Lifetime.

dudes and orcas

The past couple weeks have been fun! Matt and Katie are about to have their 03 baby BOY so here are two of the centerpieces - diaper dudes - from their couples' shower I helped put together. Guys competed in team challenges such as sucking pop out of baby bottles the fastest and dressing dolls in full baby outfits while being stuffed with pillow tummies. Very creative.

WARNING: graphic image to follow. We had one diaper dude casualty.

Then, Tim and I headed to Orcas Island in the San Juans to celebrate 3 years of marriage! Wahoo!

A sunset pic from our ferry into the island Friday night.

Here we are without the view behind us from the top of Mount Constitution,
after a day hike up.

Cooling down at Cascade Falls on the way down!

The next day we kayaked in a windy bay before getting in line at the ferry for 4 hours...during which we escaped to explore the island by bike! A great choice!! We also couldn't have asked for better weather, just like 3 years ago:)

Tim's gift to me at the top of the mountain (again, this time driving to watch the sunset )! We were serenaded unexpectedly by 30 church choir members on tour, singing numerous American, folksongs from the summit. Very interesting...

The view from the top with Mount Baker in sight. A fabulous revisit to a great place!

I-have-plaque

I got third place in my age division at the Tacoma City Marathon (10K) on Saturday! Tim and I ran it together and he pushed me pretty dang hard and I ended up placing third in the women's 25-29 age division. I won a little plaque. Nice! Actually the run wasn't that nice, last year was more fun when I ran for fun with Abbie Brown. This time she and her dog Roscoe cheered us on as we TRIED to place in the top 5. I made it though! Tim gave up his half marathon slot since he hurt his back, and he had no problem running 6 miles. He could have left me in the dust (and did sometimes). We kind of like this occasional race thing. Too bad the Boston marathon is a qualifier. So we're recovering and eating lots of whatever we want lately. We'll try to keep it up though, the running that is!

binkie boppy burby boo boo

These are the 'b' names chosen by Isaacson family guests for themselves at Hillary's baby shower last Saturday. At REACH Camp, everyone has to pick a camp name. Well I was in charge of this shower too and everyone had to pick a shower name. We couldn't use normal names for 2+ hours (at least we tried). There were some non-mentionables I intentionally left out...

The girl face cookies I made (there were also feet)

The spread, complete with another alien diaper baby and a fruit carriage that was fun but took awhile to make...

Hillary holding an imaginary Isabella in the softest brown Koala blanket she asked for. 3 more weeks to go! Isabella Isa-comin'!!! Hillary pointed out she'd be willing to wait until June 7 to have Isabella because her birthday could be 06-07-08. Pretty smart!

Mow-town Mania

Be there other mower-stealer-dweller cities besides Tacoma? I mean, I know it is such an attractive place for one to convene and discuss covert operations to strike innocent yard-lovers by stealing their lawn mowers! So easy - just imagine - what a great idea! Hardly any work to unsuspectingly whisk away a motorized vehicle of compact dimension without any noise, clamor or effort...

NOT! Aren't there easier things to steal, that don't require strong men or noticeable pickup trucks?

For some sick reason, we've been victimized by a lawn-mower stealer once again. At our old residence 2 springs ago, someone stole our mower out of our garage. Now last Sunday we came back from church and thought, what long grass! What a sunny day to mow our minuscule lawn! And what did we find? A missing mower. It was definitely there the night before. You can't miss it on the way outside and downstairs to do laundry. It was there. With other stuff of smaller size and weight, which yet remained.

All that effort given by someone I just don't understand - who must have known our church service went into early afternoon? Gimminy. And what's more - the 2 mowers over the years weren't even ours; they belonged to our landlords. Maybe it's a good thing Boston doesn't have yards?

P.S. Any friend of ours is welcome this summer to join us for a picnic in the gorgeous new grasslands of North Tacoma. Meet at our house and we'll go from there.