My First Ten on Ten

I've always admired the photos posted by friends who participate in Ten on Ten, but it's never come together for me to actually take ten photos on day ten of a month.  Well today was a first.  I took just a few minutes out of my day to capture some images and find the beauty in the everyday.

Usually I use Facebook for most of my updates and staying current with friends and family, but we have a number of people in our lives who aren't on Facebook (and others who are, but would still enjoy a blog).  Well, for all of you, here's a glimpse into my life today, December 10:

My desk at work

A rodent skull found by students down the trail

The Enviroscape, almost finished with some much-needed TLC

Salal outside my office door

Reindeer bathing in light on the mantle when I stopped by home at lunch

A friend on the office porch

Driving to the orthodontist

Headed home

Christmas Countdown

Santa wanted to play while we were babysitting tonight

Happy Easter!

This year Dave and I dyed our own Easter eggs.  Life was too crazy to make our own the last couple years, so it was really nice for us to take an hour together to have fun embracing an Easter tradition we both grew up with, and hope to continue.

Since it's just the two of us, we made 8 eggs (Dave likes hard boiled eggs a lot, but I couldn't justify more than 8).  In an interesting accidental twist (AKA my mistake), we experimented with how egg dyeing works on brown eggs.  The results were way better than I ever hoped for!  The colors have a depth and still-festive-but-less-pastel feeling that we love.

Here they are...

 I made this one for Dave

 Dave patiently created this tri-color egg, which is remarkably similar to Pacifico's coloring (we've decided this is his Easter egg - we're very nice people who make our fish an Easter egg).

 And two more...because we saw the snail sticker and decided to make two eggs in honor of our favorite twins.  The purple one is clearly for "Snailee," and the turtle made me think of Ethan.

Here's the other side.  We decided they earned the use of our "Brother" and "Sister" stickers.

Wishing you all a wonderful Easter, full of love, family, bunnies, and eggs!

Saying goodbye to Christmas

Dave and I have had a wonderful Christmas...

it started the weekend after Thanksgiving when we made our gingerbread house and decorated the condo,

I enjoyed a festive book club with friends (and received a book about knitting),

we celebrated Danielle's birthday on the Santa Train,

I went to the traditional Women's Christmas Dessert,

I exchanged gifts with some of my closest friends,

we celebrated my mom's birthday with dinner and The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever,

family Christmas festivities began in Brinnon, continued in Covington and Newcastle, and came to a close in Seattle,

Dave and I exchanged stockings for each other (including awesome items such as a zombie t-shirt, Yaktrax, ghost chile chocolates, and the Twilight movies),

and somewhere in there I finished a paper, graded finals, taught a camp I wrote, and bought and wrapped many gifts for family and friends. :)

Christmas while in school is always a little stressful and overwhelming, but we enjoyed taking some time to visit with everyone we love!  Thank you for being a part of our lives.

Christmas decorations

Yesterday Dave and I got our tree, and decorated our house for Christmas...

 Table runner from Carol, mugs from Grandma

 Plates from Dana, napkins and napkin rings from Danielle

 Nativity set from Grandma

Our tree!

 I had a hard time getting a shot of our "honeymoon" ornament, but you get the idea...

 My mom has had a copy of this "Night Before Christmas" book since she was little.  I tracked down a copy last year.  No one else seems to like my little Santa, but I love him anyway.

 Our gingerbread house

 Cookies for Santa plate from my Grandma

 We discovered the gel gems will stick to our fridge

 And our wreath, made by Brianne

Happy Holidays!

A festive fall

I've been busy - and therefore we've been busy.  I suppose that's technically an understatement, but I'm mostly busy with good things.  Things like school (which I do enjoy), TA responsibilities (which I also enjoy, though challenging), other teaching responsibilities, family and friends (and cute babies!), and some fun (mostly Harry Potter-related).

I thought I'd take a minute before Thanksgiving and the switch to Christmas excitement to show off some of our fall decorations - especially since I get to show off the house as MOSTLY clean...a far too rare occurrence lately.

You see, back in June my friends and family helped me celebrated mine and Dave's upcoming wedding with a shower.  And it was a holiday-themed shower, so I was honored to receive amazing decorations and treats for throughout the year. I couldn't let fall slip by entirely without showing my appreciation!

 Technically this isn't a new wreath, but I just love this fall wreath - the first of 3 I've commissioned Brianne to make for me (thanks, friend!). :)

 Carol gave us the adorable fall pumpkin signs, and these 4 pumpkins were grown in our garden!

Dave and I have collected quite the array of decorative squashes this fall.  We bought some when we returned to Craven Farm for pumpkin patch fun in October, and received more in our new CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box.

Carol gave us this gorgeous soup tureen.

Aunt Jean C (my side) gave us this darling  turkey, filled with napkins from Grandma Nancy and on top of a table runner from Carol.

 We've moved our containers to our "balconette" as I lovingly call it.  We're hoping if they are closer to home we can cover them as needed and get them through the winter.

While not specifically "fall," we just love the hand-carved plate Uncle David B gave us.  It looks wonderful on the mantle next to Danielle's felt trees (technically a Christmas decoration, but I love them too much to put them away).

And I had to show off the stemless wine glasses Kaity etched for us!  We've been using them to sip wine by the far lately...delightful.

Fall has truly flown by, but we enjoyed it - our first season of marriage!

Sickalopes

What do you call a sick jackalope?  A sickalope.  Yeah, that's about the extent of my cleverness right now...

Dave and I have been sick.  First it got to me, and a few days later he started feeling it, too.  It's some kind of sniffly, sore throat, tired eyes, knock-you-down cold.

I guess it was good timing to get sick if it was going to happen, but I'm definitely sad that I don't have a little more time before starting back to class.  And my class schedule is all messed up...grr...

But, to cheer me up, I thought I'd share a few pictures from Christmas.  First, a couple taken at my mom's house on Christmas Eve:

And some from a hike in Brinnon with my dad and Cathy on the Sunday after Christmas:

It was a great holiday!

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays, family and friends!

As you've heard, it's been a busy time for Dave and I.

I'm happy to say that I completed my first quarter of grad school.  Midterms and finals melded into one solid month of stress, but overall I think it went well.  I absolutely love my Education classes, and I'm excited about my new position in Admissions.  It will be sad to leave the park, but this position will help me pay for school and allow me to spend more time on campus.  I don't know what I'll be doing spring quarter yet, but I'm confident things will work out.

After taking a quarter off from wedding planning to focus on school, I'm enjoying thinking about it again.  More to come on those things soon...

Dave's been keeping busy, too.  Besides taking care of me during this stressful time, he created a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner at his parents' house.  Rick, Dave, and Jonathan were in charge of the "feast," and managed to serve vegetarians and turkey-lovers alike.  Lately he's been doing a lot of programming, and taking some time outs for gaming with the guys.

We've also been enjoying the holiday season.  Our friends posted some great photos: girls' sleepover, getting the Christmas tree, a cookie exchange, and making an amazing Christmas ornament.

The presents are almost all wrapped, Dave's stocking is filled (and he says mine will be soon, too), the advent house's doors are being opened, and we can't wait to see our families for a several day extravaganza of festiveness.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's been a long time

Time is a funny thing. The way my schedule is right now, sometimes I feel like I have a lot of time, and other times I feel so rushed. In general, though, I feel so happy with the right now and the soon to come.

So, the updates. What have we been doing since the Kirkland Triathlon I told you about way back when?

Well, with the start of October came my first day of grad school in the College of Education at UW. So far I'm absolutely loving it. This quarter I'm learning about science educational methods, historical writing of teaching and curriculum theory, and the role of nonprofits in youth education. Next quarter I will have courses on reading comprehension, multilingual socialization and learning, and business strategy for the natural environment (through Program on the Environment, my old program).

As most of you know, when I started grad school I went to half time at my job. That's been hard, as I've worked to build a program over the last two years, and now I have to let go of things. I was stretched to the limit trying to get everything done, including a sea level rise display I organized for 350.org's International Day of Climate Action. Now things are calming down a bit.

But, the big news. I've accepted a graduate student appointee position at school. Being a GSA is the way to go for grad school, since I'll be paid a salary and receive free tuition and health insurance. I'm really excited - I'll be reviewing applications for undergraduate admissions.

There have been a lot of ups and downs this month, but, luckily, we also had some fun in October and early November. We:
- Took engagement pictures!
- Had a great day trip to Dave's family cabin north of Seattle. They have been working really hard to fix things up, and rediscovering a relaxing family retreat. While there, Dave and I walked over to use the neighbors' rope swing. Here's my favorite pic of the day:
- Saw "Where the Wild Things Are" and got a really awesome crown.
- Whiled away a few weekend mornings at one of our local coffee shops sipping lattes, reading, and playing Scrabble.
- Did some manual labor! The sea level rise display faced some of our heavy fall storms, so I spent a good bit of time pounding stakes into the beach. I also enjoyed a work party at the park, and Dave spent another day at the cabin with his family.
- Visited Craven Farm on a lovely, rainy Sunday afternoon to partake in their Halloween festivities. We grew a ton of pumpkins ourselves, but Dave let me buy one very darling little pumpkin, and we enjoyed some delicious cider and a pumpkin cookie. It's fun to see our wedding venue in different seasons! Hopefully it won't be quite so muddy in August...
- Saw a great performance of "Waterlines" by Stokles Towles at Noodleworks by Uwajimaya. Stokley is part of a panel I am helping to organize that features artists from the Water Calling Series.
- Watched a lot of The Tudors and Lost. Netflix instant streaming to XBox is dangerous.
- Returned to E.E. Robbins to look at wedding bands. I think we've picked mine - it involved sapphires. Tehehe.

There are a lot of exciting things coming up, too. I'm looking forward to several fun get togethers with friends (a girls' sleepover, a vintage holiday show at Craven). I know Dave can't wait to start cooking up Thanksgiving food (Tofurky - yum!), and we're planning a fun Christmas tree-acquisition outing for later that weekend. Soon enough I'll be through final projects, and we can enjoy the holiday festivities.

Thanks to everyone for their continual support. Have a happy start to the holiday season!

Christmas and New Year

I was waiting for Dave to write a blog, but I have a few minutes and writing seemed relaxing. I'll let him write the next one! :)

Dave and I had a great Christmas, despite the limitations of the snow. We spent Christmas Eve at my mom's, enjoying some Rock Band with my brothers. There was a very nice candlelight service at church. I think Ryan and Josh really liked Catan - I hear that they keep playing it! I got some fun turquoise luggage I wanted, and lots of other nice things, too.


Christmas morning we spent apart - Dave with his family and me with mine. Mid-day Dave picked me up and drove me to Magnolia, where we celebrated with his extended family. We had a delicious dinner and opened some presents. It was really nice to spend time with each other's families and to share our traditions.

The day after Christmas Dave and I went to Salish Lodge, and enjoyed an amazing dinner. In addition to delicious and beautiful displayed food, we had our own private nook with a big window. There was too much fog for a clear view to the falls, but nonetheless it was beautiful.

The next day we tried to go skiing, but it started raining when we were on the way up. After trying one run we decided to go home (we feel very lucky to have season passes, so we didn't miss out on a day's ticket).

Both of us worked between Christmas and New Year, but we went to a very fun 70s party at Shon and Joelle's on New Year's Eve. We had some pretty great outfits! We were glad to have Jonathan come along - he was really feelin' the theme!



We took off January 2nd to allow for another long weekend. That Saturday we were happy to host my mom and Len and Dave's mom and dad for dinner. Dave and I made an apple walnut salad, gorgonzola honey bites, honey mustard chicken (and fake chicken), and molten chocolate lava cakes. It was delicious and I actually had fun cooking!

Since then we've been trying to get back into the groove of work. Last weekend Jonathan and his girlfriend Kaity came over to visit. Dave invested in his own Rock Band set, so we played that with them (and then for several hours on Sunday). Yesterday Dave was dealing with a bug (i.e. computer programming issue) at work, and we were laughing about how every time he says that I think of a living bug (i.e. a beetle). Shows how different our jobs are!

Now it's time for soccer, so I should wrap things up. We're definitely keeping busy, but things are going well for both of us. Chris and Tina are coming soon with the kids, and I can't wait to see all our other family and friends sometime soon.

Holiday season!

Dave and I have been thoroughly enjoying advent this year. It's a very busy time with lots of activities, but we've learned a lot about holiday traditions in each of our families.

Here are some of the events we've enjoyed so far:

- Dave's mom assembled an advent's worth of treats for us in an adorable house. We've been so excited to open a door each day!

- Jackie attended the Women's Christmas Dessert, one of Dana's holiday traditions

- We made yummy cranberry and pistachio biscotti and chocolate peanut clusters (Thanks, Grandma Dorothy!) for the Sugar Exchange at Dana and Blake's

- We bought a Noble fir Christmas tree from a local farm, purchased LED lights, and put up decorations at both of our places. Dave got to keep the Christmas tree. :)

- With Jackie's family we visited the light display at Belleve Botanic Gardens.

- We enjoyed a lovely dinner with Bethany and Nathaniel (Jackie knows Bethany from college).

- We celebrated Jackie's mom's birthday with a great dinner at Lucia in Kirkland and a trip to see The Nutcracker at Meydenbauer in Bellevue.

- After our first snow, we met up with Brianne and Danielle to run the Jingle Bell Run for Danielle's birthday. It was cold, but a lot of fun. Later that day we took a tour of Theo Chocolates in Fremont. I never knew you could have too much chocolate to taste! Sushi at Chiso was delicious.

- Jackie and the girls enjoyed their annual gift exchange at Purple Cafe in Kirkland yesterday.

- Dave is currently at brunch with his family in Magnolia. Happy Birthday to Etienne!

- Tonight we will be attending a White Elephant gift exchange and Christmas Karaoke at Blana's.

As most of you know, there has been a ton of snow in Seattle this week. Only on Wednesday did the snow from last Saturday finally melt, and that same day we were supposed to receive the next round. As it happened, the predictions were off and snow came on Thursday night. My work was closed on Thursday and Dave worked from home. We ended up working from home again on Friday, to be safe.

While it's been a little limiting for all our holiday plans, it's been fun to experience the snow together. I feel very lucky that Dave is comfortable driving in the snow after North Dakota. It feels like we are at Whistler or Snoqualmie!

Here are some photos Dave took the other day:








Happy holidays to all our family and friends!