Puzzling

So we have been acting like an old retired couple lately and have been putting together puzzles. It's actually pretty relaxing and mind stimulating at the same time!

It actually all started while we were up at my parents' cabin a weekend or two before Thanksgiving. Tim, my sister Tori and I got up there before my parents and my brother, Brandon, so we decided to work on the puzzle that my mom and Tori had already started before. I was hooked!

We left before we were able to finish the puzzle but we made a lot of progress! On the way home, Tim and I stopped at Fred Meyer to pick up a few for our house.

Here are pictures of the ones that we have done so far:

We did this one the week after Thanksgiving. Turkey anyone?
Turkey Puzzle

Hollywood Land

A Day at the Beach

We borrowed this one from my sister Dani's boyfriend's parents. This was a hard one!
Match Puzzle

If you look close on each one, you might notice that we don't have any of the pieces for any of the puzzles so far! The first 3 were ones that were brand new and we opened right then and there! Oh well!

I'm working on another one right now and will post pictures when it's done.

Love, Michaela

A Night at Waldo's

Last night we went down to Waldo's Bar & Grill in Kirkland to see my dad's band play. He plays the drums in The About Face Band.

Some pictures from the show:

These ones are during my dad's solo:

Some of our friends joined us down there too!

Dave & Rebekah
Rebekah, Jess & Holly
Steve & Ian

Jamie and Rhys were also there but I didn't get them in any pictures.

I was also able to get some video of the show, although my videography isn't the best....

They have another show this coming Friday at The Raging River Club & Cafe in Fall City. Not sure yet if we're going to go or not. But it was fun last night!

Love, Michaela

Our Last Christmas Before We're Married!

So this Christmas was a busy one for us! Tim's parents came up from San Diego for their first Christmas up here in Seattle!

Tim's dad, Herb, came in on Wednesday night, the 19th and Tim's mom, Kitti, came in on Christmas Eve since she had to work (she's a florist).

Christmas morning the 4 of us got up early to open presents amongst ourselves. Santa sure was good to us this year!

Our Christmas Tree overflowing with presents!

Stockings hanging over the fireplace

Tim gave me some great gifts! He gave me a pair of Ugg boots! YAY! And he also gave me a heart necklace from Tiffany's and diamond studded earrings!!! I also got a hair dryer that straightens and the newest Harry Potter movie, Tim gives me one each year! He also gave me a gift card to Victoria's Secret so that I can buy some clothes online. (He's afraid to buy clothes for me haha!)
I got a bunch of different cookie cutters from Tim's parents too.

I gave Tim some really nice North Face black snow/hiking boots, a silver iPod Nano (the 2nd generation one), a pair of Lucky Brand jeans and a ton of other little things. (I tend to go a bit overboard at Christmas time!)

After we had our presents, we headed up to my parents cabin at Snoqualmie Pass at Alpental. It was a full house up there with lots of snow!

This was everyone up there: Tim, myself, Tim' parents - Herb & Kitti, my parents - Brad & Dana, my siblings - Dani, Brandon & Tori, my aunt (my dad's sister) - Deborah, my sister Dani's boyfriend - Tyler, my sister Dani's friend - Nadine and of course my parents' dog Calvin.

We opened presents from each other and from Santa. Santa was especially good to us up here too! I got a rolling case full of scrapbooking tools and supplies, a digital photo frame that is huge and a bunch of new clothes for work. Tim got a new sleeping bag made for cold weather for when he goes camping and he got a tent that attaches to the back of his jeep.

The best part was when Tim opened his present from my brother and my brother opened his present from us. We kind of played a little trick on my brother with his present. We got a big box and filled it with a bunch of newspaper and put a bottle of Bacon Salt in there. We did this because the present we really got him was so hyped up by everyone for over a month before that we wanted to see what his reaction would be to something so small and mediocre.

Here's a picture of my brother opening the Bacon Salt.

The real present we gave my brother was a signed football by the 2006 Seattle Seahawks team. He was really surprised!

Here are the pictures of Tim opening his present from Brandon.

A HUGE Red Bull drink cooler! HAHA!

After presents we had a great omlette breakfast made by my parents.

My parents cooking the omlettes.

Clockwise from left: Nadine, Tyler, Kitti, Herb, Tim and me eating breakfast.

Tori and Brandon at breakfast.

Tori and me at breakfast.

Tim and me at breakfast.

After breakfast my Uncle Marc (my dad's oldest brother) and his daughter, my cousin, Jennifer, came up to the cabin. They were planning on staying for dinner but it started to snow and everyone headed down the mountain except my parents, my sister Tori, my brother Brandon and my Aunt Deb.

A picture of the Bean girl cousins!
Tori, me, Dani and Jen

On our way down the mountain it snowed pretty much the whole way home! Snow on Christmas!!!! How exciting that was for us! Especially for Tim's parents who had never had a white Christmas before!

We got home an rested for awhile before we headed over to Tim's sister's house for Christmas dinner. Tim's sister, Renee, lives 4 houses behind us!

Renee's boyfriend, Dirk had his mom, Linda, stepdad, Gary and brothers, Rhys and Ian over. Linda, Gary and Ian live in Australia and Rhys lives in England. Talk about an international family!

We had a nice turkey dinner with them and then opened even more presents! (Sorry I didn't get any pictures during this part of our day)

I had made stockings for all of them and had put in those metal puzzles in each one where you try to separate pieces. Well they turned out to be the hit of the night! We spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out those funny little puzzles!

All in all it was a VERY busy and full day but it was great! What a happy Christmas for us!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day as well!

Love, Michaela

When it rains, it POURS!

Ok so I haven't been posting as much as I would like to. Mostly because (pull out your violins and cheese) everytime I think about it, I'm at work but my camera is at home. Not to mention, I'm really forgetful when it comes to taking pictures of things that we do, even though I have my camera with me.

Enough whining and on to what I really wanted to post about...

This last Monday, we had a nasty wind and rain storm that hit us here in the Northwest. Most of the wind hit the coast with gusts measured at over 100 mph!! (That's hurricane strength winds!)

The Saturday before, it snowed about 4 inches in the area. (I again forgot to get some good pictures, I'll post the few that I got of one of the dogs.) The snow fall turned to rain by Sunday and didn't stop until Tuesday. Needless to say, the snow all melted away and the constant rain coming down made for a bunch of water with nowhere to go.

Small streams and creeks became roaring rivers, parking lots became large lakes and houses became islands in several feet of water.

This picture is from The Seattle Times, it shows just how badly everything flooded in Western Washington.

Doesn't it just remind you of pictures from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

Luckily where we live didn't flood, thank goodness for living on a hill! Most of the flooding was in Lewis county, which is South of Tacoma.

They even had to close down a 20 mile section of Interstate 5 in Lewis County because there was about 10 feet of water covering it!

This picture is also from The Seattle Times and shows how badly flooded the freeway was. I think it looks more like a river than anything!

Tim has some friends that live down where it flooded and luckily they were all safe! They were nice enough to keep everyone updated and even sent pictures that they took.

On the news station that Tim and I watch, we saw on Tuesday that they were going to be in the parking lot of Ikea in Renton to take donations for all the flood victims. I really felt strongly about helping out.

They said they would be there from 6 AM to 11 PM on Wednesday. So we sent out emails to friends and families in the area asking for donations (food, blankets, socks, gift cards, pretty much anything) and we would take it all down there at 8 PM.

By the time we got home from work at 6 PM on Wednesday, the news was saying that they weren't accepting any more donations of "stuff" but only cash, checks and gift cards. It was probably a good thing that we didn't gather a ton of stuff throughout the day (even though it was kind of disappointing that we only heard back from a small handful of people to help.)

We decided that we should still take something down there. So we stopped at a grocery store and picked up a couple of giftcards to take down there. (Yay for grocery stores carrying an array of giftcards these days!) We got one for Home Depot, one for QFC and a MasterCard giftcard. Tim also had a giftcard to a gas station that isn't in our area, so we decided to donate that one as well.

The goal for the news station was to fill one semi truck full of stuff....well they got 7 trucks worth out of it! They also got $50,000 in cash and $5,000 in giftcards! I can honestly say that I am VERY impressed with the turnout!

Everyone affected by the flooding are in my thoughts and I can't even imagine a thing like this happening, especially during this time of year! They definately won't be having a normal Christmas!

Go to this website if you want to find out more about the floods and the donations that were made: http://www.komotv.com/

Love, Michaela