permacation Oscars

it sort of feels like i'm on permanent vacation.
granted, i've only been one day on a new job playing with a sweet little guy...
(here he is ready to go out for a walk)
but i'm liking this new season so far!

Owen, almost 4 months:)

just waiting now to hear back from UW and BU. i feel like :?>:<(;^+]} inside (that was supposed to be all the keyboard emotional faces put together) but hope to hear where my life is headed soon! in the meantime, check out scenes from my trip home to colorado, which was definitely worth it! Pike's Peak
(no one brought their cameras skiing north at keystone, but it was gorgeous flying down the Rockies! thanks again Paul!)

goooooin' to the chapel...(Kate's getting married june 1!)

the betrothed
(Kate and Jesse)

the (formerly) ignored....Gracie chillin' on her bed

And now, a speech for all the great moments of the past week:

"First, I'd like to thank the Academy - the Air Force Academy - for allowing my sister to have her reception there so I could come all the way to CO to see it...and I'd like to recognize my mom, dad, and siblings for always being there and supporting my decision to come home and letting me sleep in on a nice water bed. Thanks to Paul for graciously accompanying me to the top of keystone with squished pb&j sandwiches, and to Ryan and Jaya for helping me overcome my altitude sickness along the side of I-70. Thanks Noah for sharing your engagement story and treasure map, and to all the housemate guys who put up with my Lost questions and let me crash on their couch. Thanks to the moon for eclipsing and giving me some extra joy in the King Soopers parking lot. I couldn't have had the same experience without the support of the Marble family and their friends and party food, including the excitement of Lindsey and Brittney's protruding bellies, soon-to-be children. Thanks Bekah for sharing your pop tart friend story with me, Diane for wearing the hippest jacket I've seen, and Erin for your smiles, polka-dot sweater and assurance that Jesse will be visiting soon! Thanks Amy and Sarah for keeping my laughing, and especially dad for finding that surprise in the hot tub that had us laughing all day. Finally thanks to my selfless husband and all his supportive friends and all who made it possible for me to be back today!! I hear the music starting so if I've forgotten anyone, please forgive me! See you in a few months!"

there you have it. i'll keep everyone posted when i hear about school (and the blog won't be your first notice, hopefully). now tonight i'm prepping to talk food planning with friends for another weekend away, at Archcape (OR coast). life is good! and glory to God, who has blessed it.

from the hood

canal, that is. the Hood Canal, from which we've just returned, having relaxed and recreated ourselves happily. waterfalls, beaches, snowshoeing, scrabble, scattergories and suspension bridges filled our weekend (so did a couple movies i probably wouldn't recommend.)

the waterfall sounded like it was rushing over my head


oyster eyes

heading toward mt. ellinor

good thing we took the jeep because we got stuck a couple times going up to these high places! even in nearly 50 degree weather, we had trouble. we still had fun though just shoeing on the road rather than the official trail, which we couldn't reach.


that's the shadow of the suspension bridge we were standing on

a field of some crazy old trees

i have plenty of new ideas of places to go once the snow melts - olympic wonderland! dosewallips, duckabush, hamma hamma, and staircase are next on the spring agenda:) say that 5 times fast!

shoes and solutions

today i'm self-employed. that means i've been taking pictures of my shoes for my amiga Roxie, getting to know baby Lincoln (and Owen), and biking to Bartell's Drugs to buy some candy. quite the change from full-time work so far. i'm 'transitioning' from employee to student.
that's it!

one of my happy moments this week was an arrival of a Christmas gift (thanks Joanie!), new earth shoes:)

earlier, my other shoes from Nordstrom just weren't cutting it in comfort so they took them back and gave me cash to buy these comfy Clarks:)

another breakthrough this week is my purchase of a southwest airlines ticket to fly home to COLORADO!!!! next week! the blues have been subdued! and will be most likely replaced with a much nicer pair of blues, the eyes of this here 1 year old who i get to play with for the next few months.

self-employment is grrrrreat!
of course it comes with responsibility...
which will come after Tim and i return from 3 nights at a cabin on the Hood Canal. we're leaving tonight! reporting to come!

open to suggestions

so i've just discovered i have an unexpected week of vacation conveniently positioned between my last day at REACH and my first day with the babies (thanks Bosh grandma!). i feel like asking for the highest bidder of all my long-distance friends...who wants me?? just kidding. i am tempted to search for wacko crazy good travel deals though, much to Tim's sha-grin ('what?? you'd leave me??'). most likely i'll look forward to fun day trips into the snow with abbie before her birthday, visiting another class at UW, and...well that's only 2 days already. see how i think about these things! i'll pretty much have a half day 'free' for the next 6 months, so that looks like plenty of time to catch up on local happenings here. so i should get away, right?

sorry mom and dad, i just barely missed the $89 round trip tickets to Denver. if you find a similar deal i'll reconsider!

one final thing is i lost my purse. if anyone has seen it please notify me:) and say a prayer in the meantime...

i'll let everyone know what's decided with the mystery week off. open to suggestions!

home stretch

weird feeling. i'm on the home stretch at work, with no more repeated last days. today is my last friday. tomorrow my last saturday. monday my last monday. all the way to valentine's day. the past 24 hours have been filled with weird emotions, naturally i suppose. it makes sense to feel kind of attacked toward the end. i start wondering, am i going to get the closure i desire? is God's big enough to get me into school? has my time there been truly valuable?
yes, it was carefully appointed. God is definitely big enough.

Watchman Nee was encouraging as I laid awake at 6 am this morning (early for ME!):

"gradually we learn increasingly to look to Him, having recognized that
everything depends upon Christ, and not upon us. ..
After we learn bit, we receive some understanding as to the necessity of trusting Him:

not in the sense of believing Him to grant us item after item,
but in the sense of trusting Him to do
what we are unable to do by ourselves."

amen.

jjjjaaaaaaannnnnnnnnuuuuuuaaaaaarrrrrryyyy

The past month has flown by and has been filled with exciting, weird, and some normal happenings. We are finally ready to share them with you!!

First, Tim and I went to Urinetown. What kind of horrible place could that be? Well, Urinetown is actually the name of a Broadway musical that spoofs all the other Broadway musicals. You say there must be a mistake! Certainly, it's called "You're in town." That's what we thought too, until we saw the cast marching and singing their triumphant anthem about the right we have to "pee for free." It was a revolution with Les Miserables significance.
Powerful, emotional... urinal?
Anyway, we laughed until we peed our pants.

Then I had the Colorado Blues. Mostly missing family, and the snow that just falls on your house and you wake up to it (more than 1/4 inch!) and you get stranded home and then go outside and build snowmen in the sun which comes out all the time, even the same day as storms. And the quiet, soft sound of a blanketed landscape. mmmm. Makes me want to eat something yummy and warm.

Then, we finally strapped on our sunglasses and got some Sunshine. I thought we'd be elated, when in actuality we were horrified: OK, Sunshine is a movie in which a team of scientists from the year 2050 are trying to save humanity from freezing (the sun is dying and earth is covered completely in snow - would that be so bad??), so they travel toward the sun with the mission of sending a bomb into its center to make it blow up and give more warmth... It turns into a horror film when a 'sunman' gets onto the ship and starts killing everyone! (Sorry if I ruined it for you.) NOT the kind of sunshine I needed!

With some of our weekly organic vegetable share, I made cabbage pie with a mashed potato crust. I forgot to capture the finished product, darn...

Still in recovery mode, we went shopping in downtown Seattle with fam - Mike, Hills, baby-in-utero "I" who is now apparently kicking, and Joanie. We had a great time, and while I was disappointed not to find the Patagonia store OR my much longed-for dim sum (they were closed!!!), I did find joy in 2 new pairs of shoes (don't worry, I'm getting rid of old ones). That helped the recovery process.

And to cap the month off well, we hit the SNOWY slopes at Crystal Mountain today for a ton of fun. This was the biggest impact in turning the CO Blues to another day. I forget to we do live pretty close to tons of snow. Although it may not land regularly on my house, it's within reach:)
We definitely enjoyed the snow - here we are in the jeep window.

oooh! Icicles on the car!

Tim pretending to do a wipe-out in the snow
(since we didn't have the camera on the slopes, this is the parking lot!)

January was the last 'normal' month of our marriage, most likely. What I mean is, we've had the same sort of schedule and life since we were married. From here on out, I finish training my job replacement at REACH after 4 years of working there, start a new job taking care of babies in February, and await the graduate school acceptance letter I'm hoping for from Seattle. Then we look at moving...The year of transition has begun. Stay posted!

break-de-blog

we'll be back in action in february! stay tuned...

happy new year!

This is our last full day in Naples. Tim just put down his book and curled up on the couch, still in his swimsuit from the pool this morning, already asleep. The water still laps the boat dock below us, and the looming clouds across the entire sky have brought colder weather today. Still a great start to a new year, relaxing with family. Yet we feel ready to head back to Starbucks and to finish at REACH and for richness and newness.

We are blessed and strive to keep centered on our Source, who is Christ, our life.

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!