Breaking Things

Things break easily. Nothing lasts forever. Things break when you drop them. Things break if you don't maintain them. Things break because they where down.

Things also break when you swing hammers at them. Sometimes they break when you kick them too. Or when you pull at them with a wonder bar. Breaking things is easy.

That's what I learned this week as construction got under way in our basement. Ruth's Dad is here for an undetermined amount of time, remodeling the downstairs into a sweet little suite. I'm going to have to post some new pictures almost immediately since the work is going so fast, a lot of things have changed since these pictures were taken.




But it's a serious business; construction. You can't mess around with reciprocating saws lying around, and nails all over the floor. Safety comes first, and that means no horsing around...





My Dad and Mom also came down for the weekend with Joanne too. Unfortunately, and fortunately, construction continued downstairs while we visited upstairs, so it was a little hectic but still fun. My parents got to see the house for the first time and I think they liked it. I promise it won't be so noisy next time, Mom.

We decided to hit some of the Seattle sites that they haven't seen yet, like the Library and Columbia Tower. We took my Mom to a baseball game at Safeco but I totally forgot my camera. d'oh!






Oh ya, Mom got a new camera. It's got a nice big LCD.



Sorry it was kind of a hectic week for everyone. We still enjoyed all of your company and hard work.

Come back soon!

Spring is Sprung...

...the grass is ris. So much so that Royden got to use his new lawnmower for the first time today. Lucky him. I've been on a bit of a feminist bent since we bought this house together. I've noticed that since we have become homeowners the majority of our new mail comes addressed to Royden only, even though my name does happen to appear on the title. Things like new utility bills, coupons to the grocery store etc. This perturbs me greatly and I have complained loudly about it to him and to the various bank and utility companies I have called to get this situation rectified. I have had varying degrees of success with this endeavor, even after adopting Royden's brilliant strategy of being nice as opposed to annoyed on the phone:). So you would think that this feminist ideology of joint ownership and responsibility would continue right through the whole of our life together. You would be wrong. The lawn and mower are his. I did however provoke him to anger when offering my opinion (read insistance) about which brand of mower to get.



Royden has some new talents that I had yet to discover in the past 10+ years of knowing him. Note in the above photograph his close proximity to an open tool box. I know you too are amazed. So my lovely husband used those tools (in fact he has used various tools in the last six hours that I hardly imagined he knew existed) to install our new hose reel. I guess I'll help water the lawn.



Royden, as impressed with his handiwork as I. Dads be proud! However you will notice in this picture what is still clutched in is left hand. Nope that's not a power tool you're seeing. A true artist at work. An artist AND a handyman...now that's what I call sexy!



So I got ahold of the camera today in an attempt to live up to my better half's photograpy skills. I thought this shot was very creative...Royden thought it was funny. He did like the rest though, so here's a little sampling of what else I shot today.

This fat bee has been buzzing around this bush all week!

This is a blossom from the ugly apple tree in our front yard...I had a feeling the tortured looking thing would produce beautiful blossoms which would prevent me from chopping it down. The season here is about a month ahead of home, all these flowers were in bloom at our wedding and our anniversary is still a month away.

Happy SPRING!

That's all Volks!

Ruth's parents came to visit this weekend. They came to see our new digs in Bothell, as well as save us from the depths of dish washing despair. Having a dish washer is a social status symbol you know. I feel like I can look people in the eye again. Ruth and I suffered for an entire week, bonding with each other at the kitchen sink as we washed dishes by hand. By hand! It was horrific. Thanks Dad.
The other reason they came was of course for the Spring Volkswagen meet in Puyallup. The meet consists of two distinct attractions. The swap meet, which mostly looks like this;


But then there's the show cars. And the show cars go like this;



Definitely a lot of fun. I've been to the show enough times now that I'm starting recognize faces. For those of you who haven't heard the story, when I asked for Eric for Ruth's hand in marriage I basically asked him what he'd like me to change in my life before I proposed, since I already knew that he wanted me to marry Ruth. He thought it over for a while before he asked me to sell my BMW and buy a volkswagen. I've driven a Jetta GLI ever since.



We can't thank you guys enough for taking a trip up here to work on our house. I can wield a pencil but I sure can't maneuver that reciprocating saw like Dad can. You are a clear blessing, and we thank God for you both. Ok, next set of parents; you're up!

Last weekend on the Ranch

Isn't it funny to think that we humans don't know what we need, and very often don't even know what we want. We think we want something until we get it, or we tell God what is that we think we need but we never really know. I think He laughs. Like a Father who laughs at a kid for declaring the ability to live off a strict diet of ice cream.



So if it's true that we don't have the ability to plan our own paradise, it must also be true that we have no clue as to what heaven holds. In fact I think it's biblical. I'm trying to let go of my idea of heaven, and realize that my eternal life has already begun.

I really enjoyed the rain this weekend. There are my deep thoughts for this post.

Ruth and I also really enjoyed kicking it with Birthday girl Annie!



Annie turned an undetermined age this passed Thursday, and we helped her welcome her new year with a party Saturday night. It was probably the coolest party in Fremont. Everyone who was anyone was there. Except Brenda. Brenda's somebody and she missed it. Josh Taylor is also a somebody and he missed it too. There were probably a few important people who had other plans...is also possible there were cooler party's going on in Fremont.

But I doubt it.



Ruth and I also started packing this weekend. Some people say your home seems most empty when you remove pictures from the walls. I say it feels most empty when you remove notes, magnets, pictures, and comic strips from the fridge door. A stark white fridge is terrifying. So this is the last picture taken before the chaos of packing boxes. We're going to miss this little place where we started this journey together. God taught us many things within the walls of this apartment.

Inspection day...

This Sunday marked the end of a long four months that Ruth and I have endured.

And Henry. Henry endured it too.
And so did Chelsea. They're our realtors.

The housing market in Puget Sound area is a raging bull. As the market begins to soften around the rest of the country, Seattle-lites continue to try and outbid each other for the race to escape renting. People are make "site unseen" offers, waving inspections, and expecting property to sell well above asking price.

Ruth and I had our offer accepted this Sunday on a beautiful house in Bothell. Today was the inspection and the results are undisclosed, but I can tell you that it was exciting to walk around our first home, and by far the biggest purchase we've ever made.

This is a milestone in our lives. Well it feels like it anyway. I'm sure we'll buy many homes in our lifetime but we will always remember this, our first.

Many thanks to Henry and Chelsea (and Tams) for all their hard work, and to Warren for doing an excellent inspection today, and Uncle Curtis who's working out our mortgage, and all of our friends and family who stopped at 9:ooam Sunday morning and said a little prayer for us as we filled out the offer. It is only by the grace of God that we got this place. It's more than we deserve. It's Him who gave us not only the ability to buy, but the availability of this place.

I'm making this sound like an award show acceptance speech. I guess it was Ruth who vented her frustration last month by saying "it seems like you can't buy a house around here, you have to win it!"







Ya you might not want to scale the chimney, I'm sure there aren't any deal breakers up there.



Let's close the door on this deal and move in!

Birthday in the Millerhouse

That's right. Josh got old. And I'm late posting this, becasue these are from a week ago last Friday. Josh and Brenda regularly host our eastside community group. So we all piled in to Claim Jumpers and piled food into our mouths. Happy Birthday Josh!

Liebich & Lepp

Me and Ruth's wedding produced more than just a pair of sleepy, indecisive Canadians who consider the thought of a heaven without lattes to be a challenge to our faith. There was one girl who was a friend of Ruth's who rededicated her life to God after attending our 10 hour marital marathon that we called a reception. That is a very special thought to me. The other thing we'll try to take credit for is the meeting of David Liebich, one of me and Ruth's close friends from high school, and Kristy Lepp, one of my cousins. Apparently the sparklers that were lit during our first introduction weren't the only things causing sparks. David and Kristy were married a little over a year ago and are now expecting their first child. That's right; someone who met at our wedding is married and having babies before us. Blame it on that indecisiveness I was talking about.




David and Kristy came down for the weekend, and we showed them around Pike Place Market, as well as downtown Seattle and the inside of an empty cup of coffee. It went like this, "There's the flying fish over there, see the space needle over there, now watch..this is what an addiction to caffeine looks like..."
*-Slurp-*



Thanks for coming down guys. Please come back soon.