Let It Snow

Look what I woke up to this morning! Thought it was a good chance to share the views from our new place. Pretty crowded, but the good news is that the house right behind us is empty so we don't feel weird opening the shades. Of course, this being the Pacific Northwest this 1/2 inch or so of snow has closed schools and my Today show time has been overrun by the local traffic reports.

Out the front door


Off the back balcony

Vancouver

Well, it is official, we are completely moved out of Bellingham. Carole worked her last week at Larrabee and cooked her last meal at camp. It was a nice week to see some friends and say good-bye to students who became regulars this fall. Now on to Vancouver! Brandon has been working long days, but guess what...gets paid overtime for those now! Carole is still waiting for a call from the schools here, but is official and signed up and ready to go.

Some things we are enjoying in Vancouver: Saturday morning at Panera Bread Company, Sunday morning griddle breakfasts cooked by Brandon on his cast iron griddle he got for his birthday, walks at the dog park, a grocery store within walking distance, hanging with Jon, Briana, and Kadyn, eating NOT in front of the TV (our new year's resolution), and the privacy of our own place not at camp.Smokey at the Dog ParkBrandon cooking us Sunday breakfast (note the hood up--his mean wife won't turn up the heat)

Some things that will take a little getting used to: Dog ownership in the city (you should see Carole's scraped up knees where Smokey pulled her over in the street on a walk), someone actually living below us (although at least we don't share a water heater with them), and not having anyone who will call Carole and only Carole to sub for them!

Carole used her Christmas money to purchase a long-time wish, a small point-and-shoot camera. We have the big camera of Brandon's but often don't carry it with us and then wish we had it. The pictures in this posting were taken with the new camera, it seems to be working pretty well!

Our New Home

Here are some pictures of our new apartment. We are getting settled, other than our bedroom which is where we shoved everything to take the pictures of the rest of the house :) No, for the most part the boxes are gone and things are feeling like home. We'll have to post some pictures of our neighborhood soon. Right behind our complex is the Vancouver Greenway, which is a great trail system that we have been having fun exploring. Smokey and Carole also found a great dog park today that isn't too far away.
This is the entry way...
The guest bathroom...
Guest bedroom/ office/ junk room!
This is the living room and our balcony out the back.
The kitchen and dining room

Our Christmas Trip

Well, we are back home and off the road. We had a great 3 weeks and used up our travel bug for at least a few months. We flew back into Seattle on the 2nd, only to drive up to Bellingham late that night, sleep about 5 hours, then get up and make the final trek from Bellingham to Vancouver. We spent some of Sunday getting settled, but also took some time to go for a mini-hike with Jon, Kadyn and Kobi so that Smokey could get some of his wiggles out. Brandon started work on Monday and so far has been enjoying it (from what I can tell!) He is adjusting to early mornings, but is training with Jon and really glad to be working with him. It is also nice that he is home earlier in the day. I have just been spending my time getting the apartment in order. I think yesterday is the day that it turned the corner and is feeling livable. We'll get some pictures posted soon but in the meantime here are a few from our trips!
The Wii was a big hit...Connor and Brandon racing...
Grandaddy tried out bowling (after a lot of convincing!)
This is one of the mutant ducks (we decided they are turduckens) from the pond behind Bibi and Grandaddy's house. They freaked Brandon out because they ran AT you when you came by.
Oh, the kitchen! This is pretty much where you can always find Bibi (cooking) or me (eating)
Brandon was inspired to try his hand at cooking, too.
Brandon helped Grandaddy out with a few projects like changing the oil and installing new door handles.
The whole gang!

Then to St. Louis

Although it was technically the Seli's year to be blessed with our presence for Christmas we did get a few days in St. Louis, as well. We were asked to be godparents for our best man John and his wife Pam's new baby, Cailyn. We didn't think we'd be able to afford the trip, but Brandon's aunt and uncle gave us two free tickets on Southwest. So we are in St. Louis for 5 days, well, it would have been 5 days but we spent the whole first day sitting in the airport because of freezing rain in Chicago. Bummer. But all ended well and we made it in, minus our luggage. Luckily the luggage did finally arrive Saturday night in the nick of time for us to dress decently for the baptism. It has been very nice to see everyone and meet Cailyn even though it was a short trip. We'll head back to North Carolina for 3 more days before heading to our new home!

Merry Christmas

This year finds us in North Carolina celebrating the holidays with Carole's Mom's family. It has been fun to share some childhood memories with Brandon, and for him to experience the South! He has enjoyed sausage biscuits and lots of chocolate, and gotten chased by some mutant ducks at the pond. We also took a day to hike in the state park Carole's mom used to work at about 30 years ago.

Our Felon of a Child

So, Smokey is now a jail-bird! He and his friend Everest made a break for it and unfortunately timed their run to coincide with the Humane Society coming out to pick up a problem dog in the neighborhood. Great! So, our Saturday afternoon was rudely interrupted by them bringing them back. Awesome! Living in the city should be really fun....

Our Apartment, Kind of

Well, this is what it currently looks like, hopefully this is not what it will always look like!

Happy Thanksgiving

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving evening!

Kadyn with her first turkey
Connor does the carving
Almost stuffed

Correction

I was recently informed that I forgot to tell you all that Brandon will be working with Jon at the same company in Portland. Sorry, Jon!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope you all have a great day.

We are especially thankful that we are about done with the moving process! We spent today unloading the truck with the strong backs and willing spirits of Mom and Dad Seli and our friends Jon and Briana. Everything made it into the new place, and that is about it for now. We'll post pictures one of these days, right now it looks, well, a lot like the moving out pictures...big piles of boxes and furniture.
We are looking forward to a day of relaxation and food tomorrow. Hope you are all happy and healthy.

I Hate Moving!!!!

NOW I remember! Moving sucks! Thankfully our friend Nichol has been helping out a lot because Brandon is better at avoiding packing than I am. We have made huge progress in week 1, week 2 is going to revolve going through our storage and hopefully purging a LOT. Smokey has decided to start stressing out and acting "clingy," he is back to following us into the bathroom! Brandon has been busy getting things wrapped up in the office, but my work is slow because the next couple weeks have several teacher in-service days and half-days due to parent-teacher conferences. Really slows down the sub calls. I guess I am staying busy enough packing and getting ready for the move.

A bit of a change....

OK, so many of you who keep up on this already have heard, but we are making a life change and moving away from camp! This weekend we went down to Portland and Brandon interviewed and was offered a job as a low-voltage electrical apprentice. He accepted and starts the beginning of January. We are excited to be close to some friends and family and have a new start. While we were making decisions we also found an apartment and reserved it, we'll move our stuff in while in Portland for Thanksgiving with family and then live with the bare necessities at camp for the last couple weeks before we leave on Christmas vacation. That seemed simplest, when we come back from Christmas break we will be coming back to a new home and new jobs.

Take a look at our apartment complex, we are excited because they take large dogs, have washers and dryers (hey, it is the little things!), and it is close to a walking trail and parks. We'll have a 2 bed, 2 bath. Here are a few pictures that I found, one of the middle of the complex, our unit is facing the outside of the complex rather than the pool.
and our kitchen (but it doesn't have red walls, they are "Relaxed Khaki")
and our living room. With fireplace, like we are living in the country!
I guess that means you are updated. We are excited for the changes, although not so excited about packing up all our stuff! Wish Carole luck as she tries to get lined up with some subbing in Vancouver, where our apartment is. And wish Smokey luck as he has no idea how much his life is about to change!

Life as Usual

Greetings from Washington! We were feeling like we should at least share a hello with those of you who keep up with us this way. Things are going well and we have actually been getting to enjoy some time together!

Carole is staying about 1/2 busy subbing, and picking up a few hours on the challenge course here at camp as well. She isn't doing the cooking here, the schedule with the other cook just wasn't working out. We'll see how things go and maybe find another part time job for the weekends if that seems to be needed! She is having a great time on the days she does sub, a lot of those days have been at Larrabee Elementary, the school she interned at, so it is comfortable and fun!

Brandon continues to stay pretty busy with work, but this year is nice in that Carole can take a day off with him during the week. We have been doing some hiking, stuff around the house, and sleeping in! His latest project has been trying to speed up the internet in our apartment so that he can MarioKart online. This has been hampered somewhat by the rain that has once again started. It would seem that this is not the year of sunshine and warmth here in Bellingham. He continues to think a bit about what he might like to do if/when he leaves camp, but things aren't going too badly as far as camp goes. They continue to say things like "right now we have the money to pay you through December" which is more than a little stress-inducing!

Smokey is doing well, he has been liking the hikes we get to do, and is back to chasing the geese off the water front. He is also busy training us in our parental skills, the other night he started retching and Carole sat straight up and yelled "your dog is going to puke!" while simultaneously Brandon went bounding out of bed and ran Smokey outside. We laughed afterwards that if we have a real baby we'll have to relearn the appropriate response and not throw them out on the porch!

Our only big news lately is that we are going to be godparents, Cailyn asked us via video chat and of course we said yes! We are definitely going to be the coolest godparents ever, we have already found an awesome Christmas present :)

I guess that is about it, hope you are all well and having a wonderful Fall!

One Baby Girl

"I did decide that if we ever have a baby girl it wouldn't be the end of the world." That is the quote that pretty much sums up our mini-vacation from last week. We headed down to Portland to visit Jon, Briana, and Kadyn and Brandon ended up a bit smitten with Kadyn. Despite one minor spit-up incident he decided she was pretty darn cute. We enjoyed some down time just relaxing with Mama and Daddy, too. It was very nice just to take it easy, eat on the patio, go to the bakery in the morning, take walks and go to the Arboretum, plus a trip to the new Portland Ikea! We also had a nice lunch with Connor before heading home. While it was a quick trip it was wonderful to get away from camp for a few days.

It's Official

I'm a teacher! Got my certificate today...now if only someone wanted me to use it...

4 Years!

We celebrated our 4th anniversary in style, and cheaply :) We headed up to Mount Baker and went for a great hike. Originally we thought we'd do a 4 mile in and out to a lake, but when we got in we were feeling cool (and had met a lot of people we thought we should be able to outhike) so we decided to try the whole loop (7.5-9 miles depending on the map you look at!) We finished in a solid 4 1/2 hours, and other than the last mile and a half which was literally stairs felt pretty good. Mt Shuksan from Picture Lake

Nooksack Falls

Family Pic in front of Mount Baker, from the high point of our hike

The boys

Mom's Visit

As we left the Scheers at the In-gate of the airport we walked downstairs and picked up Carole's Mom at baggage claim. It has been a nice visit with her as well, less Mario-Kart, but good! We have done some shopping and a little bit of hiking. We also went out to the islands again in an attempt to see whales one more time, but had no luck. The weather was much nicer, and it was a great day even without whales. Smokey got to go along this time as well, and had a great time digging in the sand at the beach.

A Week To Go

We can not believe it but there is only one week of camp left! It has been a crazy summer, but a good one. For those of you who have not heard Carole still is unemployed and feeling a little off balance with nothing really to do! After dropping Stan and Karen at the airport we picked up Carole's Mom, so they have been hanging out and watching the Olympics.

Since nothing came through for Carole the current plan is to hang at Lutherwood for another season. Could be that we are getting a message on where we are supposed to be this year, but a little gentler message would have been nice! Lutherwood has hired an interim executive director and Brandon is excited to see where that leads. Although he is tired from an understaffed summer there is some anticipation of changes that will hopefully make things work a little more smoothly here. Carole will be substituting in a couple districts near camp and helping out with "hospitality" (that is cooking and cleaning to the layperson) around camp. There is something to be said for a lighter load after the intensity of the last year of school. She is also hoping to begin learning Spanish on the side.

We hope you are all doing great, give us a call if you'd like to come visit beautiful Northwest Washington!

The Fun Continues

The last several days of vacation have been pretty awesome. On the way to take Mel to the airport we took in some Seattle sites. The Market, Queen Anne Hill, and Golden Gardens Park. It was a fun day to spend together.

Then on Friday evening we spent some time at the good old casino. Brandon was the big winner at the craps table, turning his $20 into $200!! He had a lot of fun, and after the rest of us gave up on the slots we enjoyed watching and trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

Saturday saw us headed out to San Juan Island. It was a kind of nasty day, but turned out to be worth it. We drove over to American Camp National Park with the intention of a hike down to the beach, but as we geared up it started POURING. We made the call to head back into town and do some shopping and whatnot and see if the rain broke. We went to the whale museum and when we came out the sun was peaking out. So, we decided to take advantage of the break in weather and try the hike again. As we came down to the cove Carole said "Wow, look at all those boats, my friend Erica says that if you are looking for whales just look for all the boats. THERE'S A WHALE!!"
We got to spend the next hour and a half watching whales cruise by us and play a little. It was a pretty amazing thing to catch. About the time the whales faded out the rain started and we headed back to town. What perfect timing!!!

We also caught a great sunset to finish the night out.