Fall 09

Gabe and I have been so busy this fall that I have a lot of bloggalicious updates to share with you.  I wish there was an automatic way to share life's snapshots.  God has blessed us in so many ways this fall that I don't know where to start.  In mid August I went back to work (I am teaching Kindergarten now) and our garden was in full bloom.  We grew tomatoes, potatoes, jalapenos, spring mix, cilantro, zucchini, pumpkins...the list goes on and on.  Gabe and I decided to can a bunch of salsa and pasta sauce for fun.  It was a lot of work, and we have already eaten given away a lot of what we made this year.  ;)

Just for fun this fall I got to go to Leavenworth with some girlfriends and celebrate Oktoberfest.  Leavenworth is a Bavarian themed mountain town about 2 hours away.  Everyone was dressed up in traditional German clothes and we consumed bratwurst, Rubens, sauerkraut, horseradish and beer while watching people polka.  Feeling blue is not an option while listening to polka while watching grown men dance around in lederhosen.

Then this month we have enjoyed all things fall and LOTS of house guests.  We had back-to-back visits from Trinity, Katherine, Bob and Greg.  We don't have any family in the area so it was refreshing to have so many people come and spend time with us.  We got to catch up with each other's lives and go out to some wonderful restaurants, some of which included the Black Bottle in Seattle; Mamma Melina's in the U-District; Machiavelli's in Capital Hill and Doc's Marina Grill on Mercer Island--all of which you must try if you can!  There is so much wonderful food to experience here...I never thought that Gabe and I would become foodies...but Seattle does strange things to a person.

For Halloween I had a class Harvest Party, then after school on Friday we had a schoolwide Halloween Happenin' with costumes and a truly spooky haunted hospital.  Yesterday Gabe, Buffy(complete with little orange and black bows in her hair) and I stayed at home and passed out candy to all of the neighborhood kids.  We lit our jack-o-lanterns and had so many visitors that we almost ran out of candy.  I feel like we were more festive than we have ever been this year.  Now we are ready to gear up for Thanksgiving.  I hope you all are happy and healthy this fall season.  Stay warm!  XOXO

Two Months + a Little Love

Hi :) I am finally finished with school as of yesterday so today I finally have some time to catch you guys up on our whereabouts. In June Jeremy and Cami came to visit us from Austin and it was wonderful to see them. They hung out in Seattle for a few days and then went up to Whistler and Victoria for the rest of the week. We always enjoy their company.

This month has been pretty crazy for me. I just found out that I am being moved to Kindergarten next year so I had to change classrooms and start gearing up for the transition. Kindergarten sounds like fun, but I know the first couple of months will be difficult because it is many of the kids' first school experience. So, now I get to rest for about four weeks before I have to start working again.

Gabe has been busy too. He is working on two games right now. This month he got to fly down to L.A. for E3 (a video game conference) with a friend of his. They got to see what all of the big game companies are working on and find out what they have planned for this year.

We are looking forward to having a break in July. Gabe gets one more week of vacation this summer and he can't wait to just relax for awhile. We were planning on going to Colorado, but I canceled our trip because he needs to use that time to stop and regroup. The pace of life in Seattle can feel like a whirlwind at times. He is looking forward to sleeping in and having some homemade meals.

I attached a movie with pictures from our garden. It has grown a lot in the past two months!
We love you guys and hope that everyone is doing well. XOXOXO

Gardens and Gamers

So spring is officially here in Washington, and we have been kicking off another growing season. Last week my parents came to stay with me for about five days and they decided to bless my house with a huge vegetable garden. When we bought our house last year, it came with a 500 square foot garden, which was basically a huge pile of weeds and a few vegetables. There was a big hill of dirt in the back of the garden which they said was their "compost pile", but it just looked like a hill of weeds to me. Gabe and I had NO idea what was a weed and what was a plant so we let them grow just so we could learn what we really had growing in this space.

After last growing season we found out that we had a bunch of potatoes, oregano, strawberries, chives and raspberries, but the rest was just weeds. So my parents drove here from Montana with their big tiller and completely fixed up my soil and landscaped my garden beds...what would I do without them! This weekend Gabe put in a trellis and a fence, (so Buffy will quit digging up our vegetables) and now we can just wait for our plants to start to grow. I will post more pictures as my beds develop. It just looks like dirt now, but things will start to come up in the next couple of weeks.

While we were busy landscaping, Gabe was busy meeting his development team in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was such an amazing opportunity for him to get to see a different part of the world, but shocking too. He got to see beautiful museums, buildings, churches, etc. but he said that outside of the downtown tourist attractions, the country looked like a war zone from the 1940s. He had lots of meetings at their offices, which are a few blocks away from the fancy part of town, and when they went to the office buildings he said it looked like they were in a time of war. The streets were dark and they still had lots of rubble everywhere. Just to get inside his office building, they had to walk past piles of rubble from parts of buildings that had been destroyed and not repaired since the war. The consequences of war is just not something that we are faced with in the U.S.A, so I am glad that Gabe got to experience another part of the world, and see the conditions that his development team is living in right now.

I am so thankful to have Gabe home! Our house is way too quiet without him.
By the way, Gabe's first game ships next week, so if you see a game called Paradise Quest in stores or online, you will personally know the man responsible! We love you guys!

Whitney and Gabe

I've Been Elfed!

My friend Beth made this for me and I thought I would share it with you...Tyne, Caleb, Sage and Jeff are in it too. :)

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/iwEKfDahmq7YxIdG

Blog Makeover!!!

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It's Snowing!!!

Yesterday our weather forecasters started warning everyone about a large snow storm that was going to hit the Seattle area. Most of the local school districts saw the forecast and shut down the schools for the day, but it turned out that there was no snow. :) We were all just waiting and waiting for the big storm to hit, but every couple of hours the forecast changed and the time line got moved back some more. So I when I woke up this morning and I still didn't see any snow outside I just assumed that we would have school today. I started brewing some coffee and decided that I should just check to make sure that we had school today, and to my surprise it was canceled again. About ten minutes later it started snowing at our house and hasn't stopped. All day I have been able to listen to the little kids next door squealing with delight as they sled down their driveways in huge colorful snowsuits. Even Buffy was having a blast--running as fast as she could and leaping into snow banks. It is a good thing that she has a big blue harness because you can barely see her when the ground is the same color as her fur. Gabe and I got to have a fun free day together and we can only guess as to what will happen the rest of this week.

The Other Side

Yay! My report cards have been turned in and life is back to normal. :)

Here are some of the fragments that are going on in our lives...

This weekend I wanted to do a bunch of Christmas shopping, but I think Gabe and I will be snuggled up inside because all of Western Washington is bracing for snow and black ice. It actually did snow in Bellevue, (where I work) but not where we live yet.

If we don't get snow here, then hopefully it will snow when we are in Montana for Christmas! Gabe and I are going to Whitefish this year :) and we get to ski!!! Horray!!! I have been wanting to ski for 3 years now and I can't wait. Gotta love a white Christmas.

We only have 7 more school days left before the break. :) My kids have been counting how many days it will be until Christmas every day during calendar time. It is so fun to be around young kids during the holidays because they get truly excited--I swear you can almost feel electricity when you even just mention the word Christmas in front of my kids.

On Thursday my teacher friends and I went out to celebrate the joyous occassion of being done with our report cards together at Z'Tejas. While we were there one of my friends told me a story about a little boy that I had in my room last year. He is adorable. Picture a little boy with a big round face, big brown eyes, a happy-go-lucky/laid back personality that speaks with a lisp because he is missing his two front teeth. He is the same child that, when writing a note to his new 2nd grade teacher at the end of last year wrote:
"Dear Mrs. _______,
i Want You to Know that I am SMort."
She told me this little boy walked into the room in the morning and said,
"Mrs. _____, I have changed my name to Porkchop." She said, "Why Porkchop?" And he said, "Because my new name is Porkchop."
Then I guess he wanted to start writing it at the top of all of his papers, and she said that would be fine as long as he wrote his real name too. So she looked at one of his papers and he had started writing:
------, PORT CHOP on all of his papers. (I never said he was great at spelling.)

We miss you guys and hope you are all having a happy holiday season. :)
Talk to you soon.