Knocked this one out a couple days ago.  It was absolutely remarkable.  


Is this what life is like when you're not a student?  You get to read national bestsellers and enjoy them?


I told T what an epically huge mistake it was to start reading novels over Christmas break.  Now even the "good" textbooks I have for school this last term make me want to vomit.  Kick me in the face, non-fiction.  

Christmastime in Seattle

Our first year spending Christmas away from our families has been such a mix over the thrill of forming new traditions and the sadness of missing old ones.  While our decision to stay in Seattle this Christmas was definitely made in part for financial reasons, T and I also wanted to try at least one Christmas out here for several reasons.  We wanted to see what kind of family traditions we would hold onto as part of our newly-formed little family, we wanted to see if Christmas might be a little more restful without hopping around all over the great state of North Carolina (and Virginia!), and we wanted to share at least one Christmas with our Sabbath community since we may not be in Seattle for any more Christmases.  There have been many unexpected surprises along the way: realizing that Christmastime is likely to be a little chaotic no matter where you are or who you're with, the sadness of not being with our families, the ambivalence of being "those people" that show up to church twice a year: for Easter and for Christmas, delighting in how much our community here in Seattle often feels like family.  Who knows what we'll do this upcoming year with all of the experiments we tried this Christmas season and the (often) unexpected results we received.  

For now, some photos of our holidays...

The week before Christmas we began shopping and making gifts.  We made homemade apple butter for some of our friends and family (and for ourselves) and listened to none other than the Charlie Brown Christmas album - because it's the best.  We also had an ugly sweater/White elephant Christmas party with our Sabbath community, which turned out more to be just tacky outfit night.

You may or may not have heard about our little Christmas tree disaster.  Apparently, our tree stand comes with an oh-so-subtle "FILL LINE" marking that lets us know how much water to dump in.  Even if we had noticed the tiny warning sign, it's marked on the outside of a completely opaque plastic stand, one in which we cannot see how much water is in there.  So, naturally, out of concern for our already-dead tree, I overfilled the stand.  How did we realize this?  One afternoon I noticed that some of the wrapping paper on our gifts was wet, but thought nothing of it because I'm not a particularly graceful waterer.  Later that evening, I noticed LOTS of the gifts were wet, as was our lovely tree skirt. And not only were they wet, they were drenched.  So we took out all the gifts, undid the tree skirt, and realized the entire tree stand was soaked - and so was the carpet underneath.  So we had every towel that we own working to soak up all of the water, praying to sweet baby Jesus that we hadn't done serious water damage to the floor.  To our knowledge, everything turned out ok - it must have been due to T taking a blow dryer to the carpet for half an hour.

Christmas Eve was unlike any other we'd had.  We did a whole lot of nothing during the day, except nap and take a nice stroll in the 50-degree weather by the water.  Then we stopped by our Sabbath community's Christmas Eve sleepover party before going to a 10:30pm church service (that lasted TWO HOURS!).  You better believe that was a struggle.

Christmas morning was so fun!  And still a little crazy.  We opened gifts from our families on videotape so that we could share the gift-experience with them since we weren't there in person.  (Still gotta send those videos out).  We talked on the phone to our families and got to Skype with my Dad, Pat, and Thomas!  Then as we were mixing up the best pancake recipe EVER to make for our epic Christmas-morning breakfast, our power went out!  Oh yes - too hilarious.  I was on the phone with Mom when it happened, and she couldn't stop laughing (I secretly think she was laughing because she believed it was God's way of getting revenge on T and I for spending Christmas in Seattle - no offense, Mom, but seriously).  So we took showers (QUICKLY) by candlelight, packed up all of the ingredients to make our food for Christmas dinner, and went to our friends' apartment to cook and watch Christmas movies.  Thankfully, some of my Christmas traditions stayed intact: Christmas Vacation and Mimi's famous sweet potato casserole.


We spent Christmas night at another friend's apartment with the members of our Sabbath group that stayed in town.  We shared a Christmas FEAST together and all managed to fit around one table!  We had a Secret Santa gift exchange that was so fun because we all seemed to give such thoughtful gifts to each other.


The day after Christmas, T and I finally got to make our much-anticipated breakfast WITH electricity: sour cream, blueberry pancakes with maple-pecan syrup, bacon, scrambled eggs, and mimosas.  

I think that T and I both realized how grateful we were for both our family and our friends this year.  It was difficult not to see our loved ones in North Carolina, but we also feel so, so lucky to have a Seattle "family" that loves and cares for us.  

Can't put it down.

Gonna see it as soon as it comes out.

East Coast Surprise

This past weekend with the help of my lovely stepmother, I was able to fly home to surprise some of my family for Christmas AND see my AMAZING sister receive her Masters.  It was a whirlwind of a trip: Seattle, to Charlotte, to Auburn, back to Charlotte, back to Seattle.  I'm so glad I was able to go and spend a little bit of time with my family during Christmastime, but especially to be part of Blaire's special day.  

 Surprise, Dad!

 I love, love, love my nieces and nephew.

 I also LOVE making silly faces with little bro and big sis.

 Alum!

So regal

Merry Christmas to the Johnson's

Mr. and Mrs. Johnson IV celebrated our Christmas early this year with tickets to Seattle's Deck the Hall Ball: a concert featuring six bands and seven hours of music.  Whoa mama.  It was madness, but lots and lots of fun.  Definitely the biggest concert I've been to in a while since we mostly see smaller (read: cheaper) shows.  But, hey, it's Christmas, and let's be honest: Mumford & Sons is totally worth (almost) any ticket price.  Mumford was the big draw for us, and they were also the last band to play - starting at 10pm!  You better believe it was a struggle for me to make it till then.  It was amazing, though, to feel the energy of the room shift as soon as they started - they brought the crowd back to life!

My gosh, that was one of the longest terms of my graduate school career thus far.


AND. IT'S. DONE.


And, good heavens, I only have one more.


What's happening?

It's almost midnight.  I just finished making a children's book to turn in for a class that I took on domestic violence.  And by "I" I mean "we."  T literally sewed the thick, thick, thick pages of my book together.


Sewed.  


This has gone too far.

Thanksgiving in The Keys

For Thanksgiving, T and I had the pleasure of going to the Florida Keys to spend the holiday with T's family!  T's sister, Marie, and her husband, Tyler, moved to the Keys this past year for Marie to work as a dolphin trainer at the Dolphin Research Center - lucky for us!  The weather was, yes, beautiful and a much desired break from wet and cold Seattle.  It was also great to spend the holiday with family.  Here are some photos from the trip:

 A trip to No-Name Pub - known for its walls covered in

$1.00 bills.  It's estimated that there are between 65 and

70,000 bills on those walls!

T and I pointing to the dollar that we stapled onto the wall:

"Seattle....The Keys"

Tyler took us fishing

 The expert at work

 T's catch (which was really caught by Tyler

who then handed the rod to T to reel in)

Thanksgiving morning: swimming with dolphins!!! 

We were a little excited

The Dolphin Research Center was closed to the public on Thanksgiving, so we got special access to the dolphins when Marie took us that day.  I felt so lucky to get to spend lots of time getting to know some of the dolphins and learning about what Marie does.  The dolphins were truly fascinating and amazing creatures; I could tell that everyone that works at DRC loves these animals, too.

 Being pulled by Gypsy and Luna - loving every second!

 Joy

Shaking fins

Happy holidays!

One of Tyler and Marie's friends, Pete, took us on a 

sunset boat ride through some of the Key Colony canals 

Thanks to our wonderful hosts, The Blantons!

What a great few days to get to see where Tyler and Marie lived, meet some of their friends and coworkers, and spend time with our family.  They seem to have a really loving community who have taken them in, and certainly were extra-hospitable to all of us.  I'm so grateful to their friends for welcoming us to their home for Thanksgiving, to Tyler and Marie for showing us around their town, and to the Johnson's for allowing T and I to spend such a wonderful time with our family.  This Thanksgiving was definitely one to remember!