What a trip!

Well, we are back here in Dampville, OR. It was a crazy roller coaster of a vacation, but we loved every minute of it. Our families are incredible and we wish we could have spent more time with them. We saw very few of our friends, but cherished every moment. We got into town on the 21st and spent the first 4 days with Brandon's side of the family--2 grandmas, mom and dad, 3 brothers, 1 sister-in-law, 2 nieces, 1 nephew, 1 girlfriend, and two cats. Needless to say the house was bursting at the seams. There was never a dull moment and the earliest Brandon got to bed was at 2:30...much later than our normal bedtime (9:30)!!! We also attended Phil's wedding (one of Brandon's best friends). It was a beautiful ceremony and gave us a chance to connect with some other best friends. At noon on Christmas day, we made the trek down to my parent's house in Monument. There we were greeted by 3 brothers, mom and dad, 3 dogs, a TJ, and a random house guest. My family was glad to see us and had the next 4 days jam packed with things to do such as seeing the girls I used to nanny for, driving through a snow storm to see my brother, and shopping at the outlet mall. We did have several miracles such as surviving an almost deadly car accident (if you're curious, you can ask us about it later) and Brandon finding his lost wedding ring in the snow. I think the highlight, though, was just being able to have coffee with my mom and relax for a minute:)
It was a great getaway and we were sad to say goodbye, but it's good to be "home" again (even though we arrived 2 hours later than planned and sick from the worst turbulence ever).
Appropriatly, the rain was here to welcome us home along with our foreign cab driver who made us listen to ricky martin on the drive home. we have spent the past few days cleaning out the suitcases, enjoying the quiet of our little apartment, and looking forward to the next trip home.

this is Brandon being "santa" on Christmas morning--handing out the gifts for his family...he did a great job of keeping everyone on schedule so we were able to leave for the next house on time:)

these are the cherry pies that my mom made on Christmas day....i decorated them:)

our attempt at the annual family picture. (brandon's side of the family is coming soon)

these next three pictures are of my girls. i miss them so much and it was so good to hang out with them. and for Christmas they got me a scarf, two coffee mugs (which they decorated themselves) and a starbucks card...i think they know what i like:)

Blessings of all kinds...

...and here are a few. Right now Brandon is feeling the relief of finishing his first semester at seminary! Praise God! This last week was filled with lots of papers and final exams. He did an amazing job balancing class, work and me for the past 5 months. I am so proud of him!

So, we are now sitting in a local coffee shop a couple of miles from our house and while Brandon is sipping his coffee acutally reading a book he wants to read, Screwtape Letters, and I am enjoying this beautiful latte! What a work of art:)


This may look like a boring freezer to most of you, but to us it is an amazing blessing. A meat company in Portland has been donating boxes of meat to needy seminary students at Christmas time for many years. It was 25 lbs. of beef, pork, steaks, chicken, etc. We were lucky enough to be one of those families. There are no words to express our thankfulness to this family-owned company.


This morning we were able to be the blessing! Our church teamed up with Angel Tree ministries to buy, wrap, and deliver presents to kids whose parents are in prison. So we met at the church, divided up gifts, and found our way around town...playing Santa:) We were able to give presents to 73 kids! AWESOME!









And, as you know, this upcoming week will be my last with Adeline. I thought I would take a couple of pictures to show y'all how much she's grown. I love this little girl very much and am sad to say goodbye, but this job was a huge blessing and even though the opportunity is ending We praise God for the time I was able to be there.

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!!

We're really excited about our tiny Xmas tree, especially compared to last year. This is what you can afford when you are flying home. Plus what do you want to spend money on when you won't be there the whole time. I hope you enjoy our fun with the tree. We can't wait to see you all soon!

too good...

...to keep to ourselves. let me explain. about a month ago brandon and i had to take our one-and-only car into the shop to get the brakes fixed. while repairing the brakes, the mechanic (recomended to us by one of brandon's professors) said our transmission was leaking VERY bad and wanted to fix it. well, we needed our car at that point and so we said we would bring it in within the next week or so. obviously we were thrilled for another pocket-emptying trip to the mechanic so we got it in yesterday. here comes the good part. the mechanic called us a few hours after bringing it in and said THERE WAS NO LEAK!!! when brandon relayed the message to me, i yelled "God fixed our car!!!". we dont know why He chose to bless us that way, but we are so thankful as the holiday season is upon us and our budget is tight. we serve an amazing and caring God. Jehovah Jireh.
also, here are pictures from my second day at work with Mo.




ps...newborn babies smell SO good:)

well, it snowed in portland this weekend. not the stick-to-the-ground kind we get in colorado, but i still saw flakes falling from the sky. and for those of you who read Emi's blog (link to the right) just know that i was not as excited as she was. :)
besides the fact that i froze this weekend, we had a lot of fun. on saturday we volunteered with our chuch for the prison ministry. brandon and i went shopping with another couple for presents for kids whose fathers are in prison. we also got to help with the wrapping team after that! this ministry is close to our hearts and we were ecstatic to participate.
brandon worked on homework all weekend and is beginning to feel the crunch before the end of the semester. i sat on my rear end and watched him:) i mean, i kept him on task...riiiight. we are both soooo ready for our Christmas break and for a chance to go home for vacation.
it's also about time that i shared about my job change. God works in mysterious and sometime unexpected and confusing ways sometime...ok, most of the time. this was one of them. i was not looking for a new job or looking to work for a new family, but starting in january i will be watching a little 2 month old boy for a family in the northeast part of town(much closer to us) instead of keeping adeline. it has been a hard thing to understand and to accept, but we are trusting that God sees the big picture much better than we do. it's actually a huge blessing, as well, because it's a pay raise with many benefits. so there you go!
thanks for everyone who continues to pray for us. we definitely feel your prayers and God continues to bless our socks off everytime we turn around!

people lied

so, i faintly remember people assuring me "it doesn't get that cold in portland". well, today it is a chilly 37 degrees and it's reminding me a little too much of the frigid colorado winters. not to mention that it is a "wet" cold. i thought i was done with that! but i guess after the sunniest fall anyone has ever seen here in portland, it would only make sense to have the coldest winter:) ....just for the record, i'm not whining. just expressing my feelings...

wow

so, we realized that we haven't blogged in forever. that is partly due to our crazy, topsy, turvy life and partly due to laziness. i was going to blog a couple of weeks ago about my joy over the reappearance of the red cups at starbucks. we even made a special trip the day i found out they were back and we rejoiced over the christmas season.

and then i became distracted and never did...

then I was going to blog about the ever-changing details of our life, but i think i might wait until everything settles down a bit before i explain. (let's just say i think i am going through an unexpected job change)



after that i thought about telling everyone about an unexpected but enjoyed conversation with a very old man that i sat next to. we had a lovely visit as he told me all about his life as a missionary in equador and other adventures. i'm usually not too fond of visiting with strangers, but this was so fun. (the man in the huge picture is not the man i talked to, but similar)

and today brandon and i are planning on venturing downtown to see the annual lighting of the huge christmas tree in portland. i am super excited about that. pictures for that will come later...

i hope that helped just a little. sorry for the scattered and random post...but some of you were getting anxious:)

"It's the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." (Mother Teresa)

an eventful day.

Thursdays are pretty eventful for Addy and me. We go to the library for 'Book Babies' and then head to our nanny play group.


This picture is of the boys...not too interested in posing. Their names are Ben, Jake, and Jack--(all 1 to 1 1/2 years old)

Addy loves play group.

observing all the babies. they also blow bubbles...Addy's favorite!














wow, I'm so proud :)

tons o' pictures

here are some pictures from our adventures the last couple of weeks. the first are from apple/pepper/tomato picking at a local farm. yum yum yum!!! the second set are from our night of gutting our pumpkins:)

It's Time!

Well, as you all know yesterday was November 1st. According to Brandon, that day officially marked the beginning of his tolerance for Christmas music. To celebrate the occasion, he went out and bought the Josh Groban Christmas CD for me. It's amazing. I love my husband:)

Opposites

This weekend was a time of opposites. I was extremely excited about how Saturday started off with me finally beating Callie at tennis! What a day! I told Callie that if I won I was definitely going to blog about it and tell the whole world. But, my glory was short lived because later that Sat. evening Callie somehow managed to beat me at Cribbage. How does that happen? Some might say it was God's way of humbling me. But I attribute it to sure luck. In case you are trying to connect the dots and attribute my tennis match win to sure luck, you are wrong, that was pure skill. :)

The other things that happened this weekend that were opposites were the Wyoming Cowboys played extremely bad (normal) but they won! How does that happen? I mean explain this to me: Wyoming's first game was a win over Virginia who is now ranked in the top 15! The Red Sox won (opposite of what I would have liked to have seen). And both the NY Giants and Eagles won. Callie and I also only went to 1 church service! And I also got my homework done throughout the week so I didn't have to cram tons of homework into the weekend.

The things that were rays of hope for me were that the Redskins got destroyed by the Patriots (bummer Jacky). The Oregon Ducks seem to go on winning, beating USC!!!! My bud Alex also came out to visit some colleges in Oregon and N. California, so he and his dad came over for dinner last night. It is always fun to see Colorado friends out here in Oregon. They said they were overwhelmed by the drive along the Oregon Coast, the leaves changing, and beautiful-huge trees. hint: all things you could see if you came and visited us

Well, that is about it for us for the weekend. This week is going to be a busy week. I have my first big test, I am volunteering at a Compassion Event, I am taking the car in for a brake inspection, I am flying to and from Spokane in one day, plus working and doing the regular homework routine. It should make for an interesting time. I better get to it!

Blogger Problems

We made a special trip to the coffee shop down the street today, just to post some stuff from last week. As luck would have it, it refuses to let me post any pictures. All of this to say--pictures are coming:) sorry for the delay. Have a great day and remember to thank God for the little things...aka...being able to post pictures.

Catch up

I guess it's time to catch everybody up on what's going on here in the "rainy city". Last weekend we tried to go out and capture the beauty of autumn in the NW. Unfortunately, I think we were a little late. These pictures don't do justice to the beautiful colors that we've seen all around us everyday. I've never, in my life, seen ivy turn such a fiery red and orange color as it does here. And somehow, the foggy mornings, with mist hanging on the tops of hills, only seem to accentuate the striking colors as the sun rays stream through the clouds. Who knew I enjoyed fall?!

This past week was a little busy for us. Work has been super crazy for Brandon as he planned a preview day for Western on Monday and then flew down to So Cal on Thursday to represent the seminary at a few college fairs. I continue to love my job with Addy and get so excited when I see her grow and accomplish new things...I can't imagine how much more exciting it will be when I have a baby of my own!!

Saturday morning Brandon and I got up and made a trip up to Seattle to visit friends. Emily lives there, but Sarah flew up from Colorado to see two of her kids from Sierra Leone. And we even got to hang out with them! It was so precious to see her with them and made us understand her love for that country even more. We also did some toursit-y things while we were there. It was great to see them again!

Beautiful, isn't it?!
Having some coffee at the Pike Market

We miss you, hoochie:)

GEEZ, it rained a lot!

Besides all of that fun stuff, there's not much else going on. It has been EXTREMELY rainy/foggy/drizzly/chilly. I am trying not to dwell on the "dampness" but am focusing on the postive. I will soon be making a fun new purchase--rain boots:) my only requirement: they must be goofy enough to make me smile as I wade through the streets.

good times

On Friday Brandon and I went out on the town...dinner at the Olive Garden:) At the end of the meal they bring you that little treat that you barely have room for because you have stuffed yourself on those breadsticks. Yes, those yummy little chocolate mints. Everytime we see one of these we can't help but think of our friend Hannah McBrayer and how she LOVES these. We even hoarded them one time at the restaurant in order to suprise her. It made us miss her and Landon and all the sweet times we spent together. Hannah, we love y'all and are praying for you both in this sweet time of life.