Christmas With My Sweetheart

It looks a lot like Christmas around here. :)

And honestly, it's looked that way for some time now. I tried to wait until Thanksgiving to start decorating, but I just couldn't help myself. I'm just SO thankful for Christmas that I have to get that tree up when I start to get the itch.











Since we'll be flying out shortly (in the next 6 hours shortly!), we chose to celebrate Christmas together this last Saturday.







Stockings first! All full of our favorite treats!




I unwrapped my gifts under the tree to find some clues that led me elsewhere...


...to this beautiful shiny red cruiser bicycle. Do you remember that being on my wishlist ever since we went to Long Beach? Wish granted. Thanks babe!




Derek's presents were full of clues, too.


#1 - Something you asked for.
He asked for "a book." I bought him an outdoor survival guide.


#2 - Something you need.
A pocketknife...every man needs a pocketknife.


#3 - Something that will save your life.
A life jacket...he still wasn't quite sure what this was leading up to.


#4 - Something you aren't expecting (ever).
A garage door opener to our neighbors' garage.


So we went to check it out!

Getting excited...


Ta-da! A kayak of your very own!


VERY excited! :)


Merry Christmas love!

Winter Fun with Friends

Oh man, do I love winter festivities! Especially when they involve two of my favorite things: 1) Christmas Lights 2) Friends

In keeping with tradition, we took a little drive down to our local zoo to check out the "Zoolights"...always fun!

A beautiful light display of Mt. Rainier and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge


Jason, Rebekah, Laura, & Drew - we love them!


This year they added a giant octopus on top of the aquarium...legend has it that the world's largest species of octopus lives under the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I will not be checking that out for myself, I'll take their word for it.


Beautiful!







We also got to "oooo" and "aaahhh" over these adorable tiger cubs. They just looks so darn snuggly and cute!


Found our favorite tree!


And had to have our picture in front of it...tradition. :)


It was a fun night! Our friends CR & Tara also met up with us and then we all went out to dinner at one of our favorite places in Tacoma - Joeseppi's - for their all you can eat pasta special...mmmm...

Got to have a wonderful Christmas dinner celebration with these fabulous people!

We love, love, LOVE doing life with Arin, Kristy, Kyle, Terry, & their families. It really is a blessing to serve Jesus here in the Northwest with them & I can't imagine doing it any other way.

We also got the chance to hang out with our friends Mark & Tif at the restaurant on the top of this place...




See that red scarf? I MADE THAT! Seriously...I made it myself. My friend Laura taught me some crocheting basics and I was actually able to produce something cute. Yeah, I am a little proud. :)


Love the 360 degree view of Seattle that you get to experience from this rotating restaurant!


This beautiful tree was all lit up outside and I am a sucker for a photo opportunity. :)






Another fun, wonderful adventure with our friends. We are blessed. :)

The Last Birthday

I have finally arrived.

I think everyone I know who was born before me is this age...the big 2-9!

Because when you get to twenty-nine, you stop counting, right? Well, I am finally there and able to join the "29 & Holding Club."

Nah...I don't need to join the club - I'm not too worried with getting older. Age doesn't freak me out in the sense that I feel old. It is a bit weird to say that I'm twenty-nine. Honestly, I feel like my 20's just started!

And on my birthday, I woke up to this...

SNOW! (and also a day to be off of work, woohoo!)

It was beautiful!




And I also woke up to this...

Breakfast in bed prepared just for me by my sweetheart. :)

And then I found these when I went downstairs, so beautiful.


I also had a few presents which I was so excited to open that I did not get a picture of, but they were great - a red tea kettle, black glitter TOMS, and a gift certificate to my favorite nail salon in town. Perfect.

My friend Kristy made me a delicious raspberry lemon coconut cake...mmm...mmm. It was SO good, trust me.


That night Derek had a little surprise for me and we went to see "Elf the Musical" at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. It's based on the hilarious Christmas movie "Elf" and it did not disappoint...so funny!


After the show we had a delicious dinner at the Cheesecake Factory downtown.



It was a super day! Thanks for a wonderful birthday my love...I'll make sure when you get to twenty-nine that it is just as special. ;)

A Day With Molly :)

Molly is super special for lots of reasons. One of those reasons she is so special to me is because she and Vance (her husband) were one of the very first military couples we met after moving to Washington. We have known them the longest of all of our Washington friends and we love them dearly!

Vance just left on his second deployment, this time to Afghanistan, which means Molly is deploying back home to Arkansas for a bit. When they return, Vance will only have a short time left in the military and then it will be back to Arkansas for good...

Okay...not going to talk about that any more...not one word.

Back to happy thoughts :)

We decided to declare December 8th "Molly Day" and just spend the day celebrating our beautiful friend.

We started out in Olympia at this place...


So much fun! We each picked something really fun to paint and had a blast together.


Love this girl - Molly is the BEST!











Here are our finished pieces of pottery art...we had to leave them for a few days for them to be fired up, but boy were they so pretty when they were all finished!


Then we browsed around downtown Olympia for a bit and enjoyed a really yummy lunch together.


And then those of us without any plans went over to Laura's house so she could teach us (Rebekah, Molly, & myself) how to crochet. :) It was lots of fun but I sure do have a long way to go, ha!


"Molly Day" was great because, well because Molly is great! She's a wonderful friend who we are all missing VERY much. Here's to hoping these next few months fly by so she can hurry back to us!