MBR III (2013)

Every year (for third year in a row) Seth and his friends from The Master's College get together for the weekend (in alternating cities). Usually this takes place in March, but because Rachel and I are both due mid March, we moved the reunion up to January. This year's MBR (March Basketball Reunion or Multi Baby Retreat) was held in Winnemucca, NV.

At the airport!

Reading the in-flight magazine.

Dragging his luggage behind him.

Helpful dude.

Re-meeting Jesse.

Snow!

Playing in the snow with Daddy.

Swinging!

Passed out.

New snow hat.

Performing "Party in the U-Haul".

Performing "The Star Spangled Banner".

Watching us play Uno.

Playing Uno.

Enjoying Jesse's toys.

Reading!

Eating mashed potatoes.

Yummy, yummy!

Mmm.

Kaleb, Praus, T.J., Kristina, Jesse, Eric, Rachel, Jude, Seth, Autumn, Isaac and Ezra.

Hanging out at the tub.

Bath time!

Our "mascot" for the weekend: the satsuma.

Game one!

Game two!

Bowling.

Eating mac 'n cheese.

Mia!

Napping in the big bed.

19 degrees outside.

Sophomore year of college "family" portrait.

Riding in the car.

Enjoying sitting front-facing in Nevada!

Sleeping artist.

Enjoying the rides at the mall!

Riding the escalator.

Riding on their Daddy's shoulders.

Hanging out in the mall.

The guys.

Resting.

Boys and moms.

Plane ride home.

Friday Update #2 (1/11/13)

We of course watched the Seahawks game on Sunday. As the winners of the NFC wildcard, they played at the Washington Redskins. Down 14-0, the Hawks rallied for a 24-14 victory; their first road win since 1983!

We watched the game at the Seerden's house and Ezra spent most of the game running around with seven year old Noah. It's fun to watch Ezra start to play with other children, particularly as he is starting to learn to share better.

I started teaching piano lessons again, after the long and relaxing winter break, reviewing our "second semester" goals for lessons with each student.

Tuesday, after a long day of lessons, Dad and Mom took Ezra to the South Hill Mall so that Seth and I could head home to pack for our trip to Nevada. When we dropped him off, they insisted that they not only watch him for a few hours that evening, as originally planned, but through the night too, so that we could have Wednesday morning for any last minute errands!

And my goodness, it was so easy to pull out the clothes and toys we needed to pack and clean the house without my little shadow following my every move. Seth caught up on paperwork and packed our bags and we even super cleaned the house. Woo hoo!

Then Wednesday we slept in a bit and headed over to my parent's to do lessons with Drew and Darya and then drove up the airport!

Ezra did great on the plane - much better than I even hoped, and we had a great time in Winnemucca with Seth's friends, as I wrote about in our Winnemucca-specific blog post.

Proposal!

Three years ago today, on January 8th, 2010, Seth asked me to marry him and I said yes.

We didn't celebrate today other than to acknowledge that it was the anniversary of his proposal (how would you celebrate something like that? maybe it's just a good excuse for a date).

The ring (that night). 

The spot he proposed (along Ruston Way).

I went and found the story I wrote (several years ago) about his proposal on our wedding website:

Seth and I had been talking throughout the fall about getting married Summer 2010, and about getting engaged after the New Year, so I knew a proposal was coming sometime soon. 

On Friday (January 8th) Seth picked me up and we went to the Northwest Reading Room at the Tacoma Public Library to research for a few hours. I love going there, which is a good thing since that's where I practically lived throughout grad school, researching for my thesis, and I love it when he comes with me (especially to help me figure out Census numbers, ugh... it's fabulous having a one-time math major/really good with numbers guy around). 

We worked at the library for a few hours, then went and got teriyaki chicken and took it down to the water. We were going to eat it outside, on the rocks, at Jack Hyde Park, but after walking to the rocks the drizzle turned into pouring rain. So, we drove down to the end of the waterfront, by the tunnel going into Ruston, where there was no one else around (except the arsenic residue from the ASARCO Smelter), and ate in the car, with the rain pouring down on the car. 

After we'd finished eating, Seth ran out in the rain to throw away our take-out boxes and then, coming back to the car, grabbed something from the back seat. He came around and handed me a folded up piece of notebook paper and suggested we go out and sit on the rocks to read it. As soon as he handed me the note I had a pretty good idea of what the note would say, but of course I still wanted to read it. 

We sat in the rain and I read the note, which, by the time I'd flipped it over for the second page, was absolutely soaked through. The note said how much he loved me and ended with "will you marry me?" And when I turned to look at him he had the ring out and said "Autumn, I love you. Will you marry me?" And of course I said yes.

Friday Update #1 (1/4/13)

[It's my goal to post an update every Friday, so let's see if this works:]

We rang in the New Year at our annual Evangelical Reformed Church Bunco party. Actually, my mom has organized (and hosted) a Bunco party on New Year's Eve for (what seems to be) most of my life, but once we started attending ERC and as the guest list kept expanding, we started meeting at church.

As part of the evening's festivities, many people make hats out of construction paper and then there's a hat parade and everyone votes on the best hat. This year Seth made Ezra the cutest lion hat. He cut out a mane and even made a tail! I was so impressed with his creativity! Dad also made a "Have a Good Day" hat, which won "Most Original".

And as is also tradition, we went to the Hamlin's for the Rose Bowl and pizza on New Year's day.

Seth turned 27 on the third. FAST Moving already had a job booked for the evening, but then a last minute job in Kirkland came up for him Thursday morning as well. Because it was on such short notice, my dad worked the job with him. Ezra and I rode up in the van with Seth and spent the two hours that Seth and Dad worked hanging out in the car. Ezra did a great job, actually, in such a confined space for such a long time (giving me hope for our upcoming plane trip to Nevada next week).

After the job finished, Dad took Ezra with him to Grandma and Grandpa's (to finish up some wiring on their new office remodel) and then they spent a few hours at the Northgate Mall, playing in the kids play area and window shopping for shoes.

[photo]

Seth and I (on Esther's recommendation) went to lunch at The Beach House, right on Lake Washington. The most time I've spent near Lake Washington is just driving over the bridge, so it was fun to sit and eat and talk and enjoy the view.

Because it was so cold we didn't walk along the water, but we did get ice cream and sat in the car eating it and talking about the ways Seth has celebrated his birthday each year. (Or trying to...) Then we drove to my parent's house where I hung out with Ezra while Seth worked his second job, and then we headed back to our house and had cake and ice cream.

Ezra and His Colors

Ezra's favorite color is green. He often asks to wear green, as you can see from the outfit in the above photo.

He can now usually identify pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white and gray. He loves to point out colors, especially when drawing or folding laundry or playing Duplos, etc. But even if we're not actively doing something with colors, his little voice often pipes up with random colors as he sees a yellow truck when we're driving or a green tree on a walk. Seth and I joke that we never realized the world was so colorful until Ezra started telling us about it. (The same holds true for animal sounds and well, increasingly all objects. Ezra can't seem to help himself from pointing everything out and telling us what it is. He's a chatterbox.)

Sophomore Year of High School

My friend Ali recently found a copy of this photo and posted it to Facebook. It's hard to determine the specific date of this photo, but it was taken sophomore year of high school; probably fall 2001.

After looking at the photo on FB, Seth and I pulled out our yearbooks and went through them, reminiscing and counting up what students went to Covenant what year. Sophomore year there were 28 students!

As always when we talk about high school, we had to laugh about the fact that neither of us really remember each other in high school, but there we are: in the same high school class, 10+ years ago.

Jenny A, Jacob A, Duncan B, Ali C, Taylor C, Autumn D, Diane F, Amber F, Heather G, Ali G, Michael G (not pictured), Kelly H (not pictured), Heather H, Nick H, Hilary J, Brian J, Charissa L (rejoined spring semester; not pictured), Matthew L (joined spring semester; not pictured), Sarah P, Seth P, Darcee P, Rachel R, Elena S, Kathryn S, Erin S, David S, Caleb W