Crosstown ladies sing that song. Do Dah, Do dah!!

I am absolutely positive that I have the lyrics wrong. So I am making up my own song. "Crosstown ladies sing the song, Do Dah, Do Dah! Crosstown trail is 5 miles long, Oh do dah day." Nate and I celebrated the anniversary of our engagement by going snowshoeing on Monday. We went back to the Crosstown trail where he proposed, right behind Government Camp. This is a picture from last year, because we forgot the camera this year. I have a fabulous husband whom I love a lot! I don't think I've mentioned that before on the blog. I whined for a couple miles about how sore I was and convinced Nate that we should go eat lunch. I wish I had a camera for the pancake I ate was bigger than my head! It was huge! I don't know how they flip pancakes that big!

Nate Plays at the Grotto this Saturday Night

I wish I new how to make it look like a movie billboard!
Somewhere floating around our apartment is a yellow piece of paper with the time listed on it. Sadly, I have no idea where it is. I think the flute choir plays around 6pm, but anyone interested in hearing many, many flutes playing Christmas carols, should give Nate a call to confirm the time. To clarify that sentence people are playing the flutes, they are not simply playing Christmas carols all by themselves.

Nate Vows to Return

Ramona Falls last month with the first snow falling. The weather today reminded me of it.

Nate laughed when he read our latest blog, but turned slightly pale when I shared my plans to turn the background color to a very tasteful pink. He said that he'll blog again soon:)

Mission Accomplished

This be-lated blog is for you Meaghan!
I know this is Nate's blog, but now that we are married he never updates it. I threatened to start my own, but it is easier to just hijack the updating of Nate! :) As soon as I figure out how I will change the title to "Wallace Quilts" (jk). Nate is busy with rehearsals for Christmas concerts both for Flute Choir and Church. You would think that since Christmas music is all basically the same every year that musicians would have it memorized and not require so much rehearsing. (Really, I'm just kidding!) I love Christmas Music and try and start listening to it in September.
It's been a crazy year. Less than a year ago we got engaged, then married, moved to a new state (Vancouver, WA). Yes, I know it's just a suburb of Portland but they have different license plates here and let you do U-turns! Okay maybe "let" isn't the word I am looking for.
Okay now for what I am really excited about I/we finished 4 quilts this year! Kim's was finished in August, only 13 months late. Beth and Cam's quilt was finished in September - only 4 months late. Sean and Amy's was finished on time, with matching pillowcases! and Autumn and Dan's was only a little over 2 months late. (They got a little skipped to finish Amy and Sean's - which was Nate and I's first combined effort quilt!) My husband, Quilter extraordinaire. I guess he decided to join the insanity rather than fight it;). And to full the craziness of quilting we found a place that has excellent coffee and crepes in downtown Vancouver called MonAmi. They put foam art on my coffee! And didn't charge extra for soy!

Beth and Cam's quilt. They were married 5/5/07



















Sean and Amy's quilt. They were married 10/27/07.

















Autumn and Dan's quilt. They were married 9/8/07


While with Nate's help, I've accomplished the goal I set for myself, please, don't anyone else get married this year!











(Quick addendum to this post. Also found in the post entitled "Yet Another Frozen Lake)

I thought I'd add one random picture to this post: this is the quilt that Andrea and I made for my parents for Christmas. I think it's the biggest and brightest quilt she's ever made. That made five total quilts on the year! My wife is a rock star!!

Quilt Redemption

The emotional impact of seeing something I made damaged became a reality a couple weeks ago. My sister's dog, Lily, is a 10 month old Lab Australian shepherd mix. She lives exuberantly, with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, and with a tail that wags ferociously. She likes to lounge full sprawl on my parents couch. The same couch on which I left a quilt that I made as a wedding gift for my friend Kim. She wasn't able to pick it up the day that it was finished and I should have moved it to a safer place. But I didn't. A few days later, I walked in the door of Mom's house and Sarah was in the living room looking at it. "Who's this quilt for?" she asked. Kim's wedding present I told her. "Lily kind of chewed a hole in it, do you think you can fix it?" When I went over to look at it I was filled with despair, I couldn't help but cry. Lily had chewed through the quilt top, the batting, and the back fabric. The hole was probably only 3" x 4" but it looked like a gigantic gaping wound. When I looked at Lily she had batting (Batting is the stuff in the middle of the quilt) hanging out of the side of her mouth. We had to wait until Mom got home to figure out if it could be fixed. Mom is amazing. She ripped out my quilting and the 6"x 6" block with the hole in it. I made a new block and fitted a piece of batting into the hole. She was able to piece the new block in through the back of the quilt. We sewed the new batting into place and put a patch on the backing. We covered the patch with a label saying who the quilt was given to and who made it. I was able to re-quilt it and the quilt was saved...
I guess it's like Jesus blood patches the sin in my life. God made me and how he must sorrow that sin has eaten holes in my life. But Jesus redeems me, kinda like how mom was able to redeem the wedding quilt. Very cool.

Some Sites to See

September is usually a busy month for me, and the one is no exception. I've started to get caught up on work though, which makes life easier, and I'm not nearly as burned out as I was last year. Just one more six day week ahead, and it's back to normal for the next eleven months!

Lately, I've gotten really excited about some websites. I stumbled upon this radio program called Way of the Master Radio. This took me to the Way of the Master website. Of course, the radio program has it's own website too. I've put the links on my side bar.
(Yes, this is Kirk Cameron witnessing to gang members!)

These sites lead me to several others: Adventures in Christianity is a blogging site for people to share their witnessing encounters. Even audio clips of these adventures are posted, so you can hear the conversations yourself! It's incredible. And encouraging.



Another one is called Pyromaniacs. They're on blogger too. They have taken a stand for truth in a rather radical way (and when I say 'radical', think back to the context of the '80's ;). While we at Good Shepherd get to see many positive aspects of the emerging church, there are many others out there being poisoned by the postmodern version of the emergant movement. The Pyromaniacs counter this with boldness and humor. Check them out!!




Lastly, sermanjams.com. Listen to John Piper, Allasteir Bagg and others preach with music running in the background. My explanation doesn't do it justice. It's really really well done and tasteful. Just try it. I think you'll like what these guys have put together.

Check these out!!

The Growth of Tomatoes (or The Birth of a WOTM Head)

So I (Andrea) wanted Nate to write about our beautiful and delicious tomatoes that are ripening on our deck. The best part of late summer really - vine ripened tomates - YUM! They are doing really well considering they live in small pots. But Nate is not as crazy about tomatoes as I am and wants every one to know about the cool podcast he's been listening to - "Way of the Master" (WOTM). He has been listening to it for about a month, one because he enjoys it, and two because then he doesn't listen to AM radio all day at work. His favorite part of WOTM is when they go up to people on the street and witness to them. He's played some clips for me and it is pretty amazing. Especially when the guy that does this (I don't know his name) nails down what they say they believe and it's as if you can hear them squirm across the radio. (Technically it's a ipod mini, but it sounds better if I say radio.) Below is the picture of one of the people as he was presented with the Gospel.
I've decided that blogging is a lot of work. There are way too many punctuation and spelling choices, but Nate is in the busy rental season at work and hasn't had time to post. So I am helping ! :) That is usually what I tell him right before I break some project we are working on together.

September 7, 2007
Please pray that God would save Mike the Gardner.

The Streets of San Francisco

We just took our first vacation together! Our official honeymoon that we had been planning for a few months now. It started out in hurry. We planned to head down to San Francisco early to see a baseball game on Sunday, but I still had to work on Saturday till 5:00! So off we went. We drove to Redding and got there about 1:00am. Then, we got up about 7:00 and raced down to San Francisco and got there in plenty of time to see the game. It was great. The rest of our time there was exciting too. Take a look:

Day 1: Giants vs. Dodgers

It was a great day to watch a baseball game. AT&T Park is one of a most beautiful parks in the country. There were lots of fans for both teams there. The Dodgers won 5-3.









































After the game, we decided to ride the cable car up the hill. Here's Andrea taking her first cable car ride.

























Day 2: Golden Gate Park

Monday was kind of a free day. We were supposed to check into our official hotel today (we stayed at a different hotel in Pacifica on Sunday), so we had an extra day to play. Andrea wanted to see Golden Gate Park, so we walked around checking out the sights:

Stopping to smell the roses at the Rose Garden.



























Here's the Horticultural Center.






















The wonders of the Arboretum










































After getting done at the park, we went and checked into our hotel. Mom and Dad have had a time share here since I was little. Here's a view from the window of our room.















Next, we hopped onto another cable car and went down to Fisherman's Warf and Ghirardelli Square to get some chocolate. Here's Andrea standing on the running boards for the first time.















Here we are with the loot.

















Well, that's all I have time to show you today. There's lots more from San Francisco, and then we'll head to Lake Tahoe and beyond! Stay tuned!

The War of the Roses

I discovered aphids crawling on the roses the other day! This upset me. Aphids are bad. I don't know how they ended up on a second story deck far from any flowers. I think they came in with some other flowers we were given. I discovered them on the double delight, and soon they were found on the other two bushes as well.

In the words of the great philosopher, Bugs Bunny, "This, means war."

More Walupt

Time for the annual Walupt Lake camping trip. This year, like the last, was not without adventure. We had two additions to our traveling party this year. Andrea's cousins, Kate and Michaela (8 and 12 respectively) were in town from Upper Michigan, and we invited them to come along. It was cool to show them the mountains of the Northwest. There was only one disappointment that later turned into a blessing.

Andrea and I love going through Trout Lake on our way to the lake. It's a great place to stop and eat and pick up anything to do with huckleberries! Last winter though, was devastating to the roads in the mountains. In particular, it was devastating to the road that we use to get from Trout Lake to Walupt Lake. This was a big bummer. It meant that we would be driving the boring way up I-5 to US 12. With two young girls in the car from out of town, that was not a pleasant option.

So, off we went at 5:30 on Saturday evening on a drive that was supposed to take close to 4 hours (I had to work that day, so we couldn't leave till then)! Let's just say I managed to get there in a lot less time and set up camp quickly. It was good to see Mom and Dad and Curt and Marie and their friends there. We all have a great time together!

We took the girls for a hike on Sunday and then hung around camp and the lake. It was fun, if uneventful. We hiked to the creek and back, stopping on the other side of the lake. Picture time!

Michaela:













Kate















Kate and Michaela


















Then it was our turn.





















The next day, we headed home a different way. I just have to say that it was a glorious drive! The sun was shining, the temperature was mild, the road was winding. A man cannot ask for anything more!

Too bad the kids weren't more excited. ;)






Kirby actually enjoyed being between the girls, who lavished attention upon him!









We went up to Windy Ridge to see Mt. St. Helens. Along the way, we got a great view of Mt. Rainier.

















Here we are, less than six miles from the crater.














Here's an interesting stump that Andrea got a picture of.



















One more stop in Cougar, and the obligatory shot with the statue of the town's namesake.



















Andrea and I had a great time showing the girls around the mountains. They are really fun to hang out with. I Hope we can do it again! Next time, girls, we won't do so much driving. I promise!

Andrea and Tiffany's Adventure

According to Nate, once we were married the blog became a shared blog. Hence the (s).... so here goes. Nate works Saturdays, while I work a compressed work week at my "real" job and typically quilt customer quilts on Saturdays. Today I took a break and went kayaking for the first time. I went with my friend Tiffany from work and her parents to Lake River. We put in at Ridgefield and went down to where it meets the Columbia River. Time flew by very quickly while we were on the river and I had a tremendously fun time, despite the rain. I never realized that rain bounces when it hits the water. It's really cool looking, if it hadn't been raining nice fat juicy drops I would have taken my camera out to take a picture... Tiffany kept saying things like we never really get rained on and rarely use the rain skirts. We used the rain skirts the entire day... So, the boats going by put out waves that rock the kayaks. When we got near the Columbia she said that they almost never see the barges go by but that they put out a huge wake. Yes, they do - we saw a huge barge going by. Next there was a sign talking about the Blue Herons but she said that she hadn't seen them there before.















We either saw 5 or we chased the same Heron all the way up the river back to Ridgefield...

Roses are...Red?

We stopped at Portland Nursery the other day for an impulse buy. Well, not really. We'd both been wanting more plants for our deck, and now we have our first rose bush. It's called French Perfume. It smells really good. We'd like to have three different kinds (well, it was two until we found this one ;). Our favorite is called Double Delight. Andrea likes the way it looks, and I like the way it smells. Then I'd like to have a simple red variety.
It's funny, the more I work on roses and take care of them, the more I like them. They're relatively easy to care for, and the results are fantastic! I was excited to get this plant. It was kind of a milestone. The apartment is really coming together and starting to feel like home. It's a great feeling.


Here's the crown jewel of the deck thus far.




















The pansies are loving the weather.



















This is part of the view from our deck. It's not vast, but it is most certainly pleasant. We live in a surprisingly quiet complex with million dollar homes behind us. It's a great place to take Kirby for a walk.


































More to come! We're going to Drake's this week to find more roses!

Fort Fun

Last weekend we went up to Tacoma for Special Olympics. Everything went off so well. Thank you all who have prayed so faithfully every year for this event. It always seems like there are so many stresses leading up to it, and then everything works out in the end. I praise God for His faithfulness and his mercy and grace.

I was so blessed to have Andrea with me this year. It was so nice to have company on the drive. It was fun to have Kirby too. He was funny because whenever he saw me on the field, he started whining to go out there with me.





A competition note: Vancouver School for the Deaf won their first gold medal this year! I've been officiating that team for many years, and they always seemed to come up short. This year was different. Way to go guys!! They are the team in green in this picture. That was the first game I did on Saturday morning. I just randomly chose a field to ref a game at, and it turned out to be their game! It was good to talk to them on Sunday after they got their medals. A good friend of mine has a nephew who plays for the team, so I got to talk to her (see last year's post from May 1st for more on that).
































Have I ever mentioned the view?






Of course, this weekend would not have been possible without hundreds of volunteers. The referees are the group that I'm rather partial to. They did a great job as usual! This is such a fun group of people to work with. I look forward to seeing them every year. It's a blessing to have a crew like this who has a passion for the game, and for Special Olympics.


Here you see us talking intently about some rule or something (actually, it's probably about our best BBQ recipe or something ;). From the left: Jon, Bruce, Pam, Paul, me, and Kevin. I love these guys' committment!















Here's me sitting with Cal (front) and John.
















Paul has a passion for Poms!




















Here I am talking to a couple of old friends. The gentleman on the left has an unusual condition: his legs seem to be fused, so his knees don't bend. I'm always afraid his legs are going to snap in half if he gets tackled hard or something. Here's the amazing part: he plays at the top level of Special Olympics soccer!














Thank you to all who have helped so much over the years!!