The Girls

Emilie~ A Fun Babysitter!

Mike and I went to Seattle last night to see A Celtic Christmas concert at the Benaroya Hall. Fabulous! We had such a great time. I LOVE downtowns, especially at Christmas. We shopped, (I shopped; Mike found a coffee shop and read a newspaper he bought from a new homeless friend, see picture).

Ms. Claws (aka Sabina) entertaining us with her new hair-do.

Jule Fest in Poulsbo

Okay, so I'm the one who had the best time. What's new? I drug the kids (and Mike) to Poulsbo on Saturday for the JuleFest (Norwegian Christmas Festival). The best part was the traditional dancing around the Christmas tree singing Norwegian carols. They wove in the Swedish celebration of St. Lucia riding in on a boat and being escorted to the bonfire by Viking men with huge torches. St. Lucia was a Christian who was martyred. After the head Viking made a declaration, the bonfire was lit.
It's great to have this little bit of Norwegian fun this close to home!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving brought many new friends for dinner and more for dessert. As usual, the Karaoke Queens stole the show.

Amy Grant

Wow! Talk about feeling old. My son turns 19 this week and Mike and I went to an Amy Grant concert last week that was her 20year reunion tour of Lead Me On. And yes, we were there 20 years ago at the original Lead Me On Tour! I know her name brings up exciting discussions but she still has an amazing voice and you have to believe in God's grace... Oh but for the grace of God go I.

Spent the weekend with my friend, Kim, in Vancouver, BC. We met in Norway and never thought we'd be living this close to each other~ what a gift!
The boxes are slowly being unpacked and at least we now have the living/dining area painted and the furniture in its' place. We bought an electric fireplace to somehow make up for the ones we left in Ohio!

We are slowly moving through the boxes and someday will be able to say we're settled in Washington. Here are a few pics of our house; we are the 2nd from the end. Don't you love our nameplate?? (Hytte is Norwegian for cabin) As a joke, we kept telling the girls we were going to have "Holy Husfelts" on our house; they were appalled that when they came home yesterday, it really was on there!
And isn't God good to give us neighbors who fly their Seminole flag daily??
The girls are adjusting to their schools and activities. Not too surprisingly, Mallory came home yesterday as the student of the month. She doesn't waste time making a good impression. Lydia was selected for student council. Emilie is finally getting her knee back in shape and getting involved with cycling and sports med, and Britain has emerged as our new little soccer player.
I am off to Vancouver, BC, to see my CD, my great friend, Kim, from Norway, this weekend. It will be a much needed reprieve from unpacking boxes.

Back to School

The girls started back to school last week. Pretty amazing that we are in a carpool with 7 families, 15 kids and 5 different schools! Lydia was anticipating going to high school this fall but here, she is in Jr High another year. Mallory, who was in middle school last year, has been "demoted" back to intermediate school here so she gets to spend another year in school with Britain!
The week before school started, the youth group had a "messy games" night. Thus, the picture of Mallory and Lydia getting in the shower with everything from ketchup to peanut butter to oatmeal to SQUID from head to toe. It's a good thing we didn't have to pay the water bill after that shower. But, our car smelled like throw up for a few days!

Seattle

Seattle

We went to Seattle on Saturday for the first time. I had SO MUCH FUN! The girls made fun of me because every few minutes I would comment on HOW MUCH FUN I was having! The Pike Place market was a blast. The whole place smelled so great because of all of the flowers. (Except when we were over by the Fish market; that smell reminded me of Norway, of course. Not my favorite smell but for old time's sake, I enjoyed it.) Reminded me of the market I used to go to in St Neots (England) just a much larger scale here.
I loved watching all of the people; the weirdos, the trendy kids, the old people, etc.
Went to the original Starbucks; standing room only but lots of fun.

Mt Ranier

Whew... we finally made it! We drove into McChord AFB last Tuesday night; the welcome was complete with rain and coldness.
Because we must live on base, we have a choice of 2 houses. One is nice and available now, but the other one is a bit bigger so we think we will wait for that house, which means temp lodging for TWO months. (1 bathroom and 2 bedrooms; YIKES!) It is a historical brick house and is within walking distance of most everything on base. The neighbors seem very nice (5 units connected, close neighbors like stairwell housing overseas).
The sun was out Sunday so we decided we shouldn't waste it. We headed up towards Mt Ranier National Park and hiked our first 3 mile hike to Comet Falls. Very rugged terrain but the girls were real troopers and we made it. Definitely worth it!
On a side note, two things we learned coming through Oregon. It is illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon and we never knew that the potato company, Ore-Ida, is named so because it is on the border of Oregon and Idaho! Who knew??

mi amiga!

Our Air Force Academy Cadets

Colorado

We have had an amazing time in Colorado! It started with an unplanned stop to see our friends, Jan and Glenn, who were stationed with us at our first assignment at Shaw AFB. We had a great time catching up. We then "just happened" to go to the academy at just about the time the cadets were marching back from field training at Jack's Valley. We had no idea this was happening and "just happened " to talk to Austin's mom who told us this was taking place and where to go. We got there in plenty of time and out of all of the cadets, who all are dressed alike and all look alike, we found Austin and Kurt, two of our adopted sons from Centerville!! We were so thrilled! We yelled and cheered for them and I found myself transported back to standing on the sidelines of the track and cross country fields last year cheering Kurt and Eli on in their races. It was SO cool!! In the pictures, you can see that Austin is trying real hard not to laugh; I must have looked quite silly running beside him taking pictures!
We got to Denver and attended Greg and Sharon's 25th Wedding/Renewing of Vows Celebration. What a great time we had catching up with them and their family; we have vacationed with all of them, even Sharon's parents ,in the past and it was good to see so many of our Mexican amigos.
We are heading towards Washington tomorrow, taking 2-3 days to travel.
God is so good and we have been so blessed thus far; we can only anticipate the exciting things He has for us in Washington. Stay tuned...

Go GOD!