Whistler

Nate and I joined his family for a weekend trip to Whistler. We spent a couple days boarding and enjoying the beautiful weather. We did not have new snow, but the skies were clear and the sun shone brightly. We even shed layers to just sweatshirts because we were so hot.

We have one more week of work and then we are moving away from Olympia. Nate is gone all of this week to MI, so that means I am packing all week. We are leaving for Europe on Feb. 3...it is coming very fast and we have lots to do!

Changes

After vacationing for a couple of weeks, Nate and I returned to an interesting work situation. We both work for a fruit marketing company. Nate is the Director of Food Safety and I am in sales/accounting. The downturn of the economy has lead to cost cutting measures and consolidations. The owners decided to close the Olympia office and do all of their sales through their Michigan office. That means that as of Jan. 31, Nate and I are on the job hunt!

We are very sad to leave Olympia and all the awesome friends we have made here. We were very fortunate to have met some great people our first few weeks here. We will really miss everyone and wish we could stay in this area. However, the blueberry industry is not thriving in Olympia so we will most likely be looking elsewhere.

What this means for us is that on Jan. 31 we are moving out of our apartment in Olympia and storing our earthly belongings in Mt. Vernon. We then will...drum roll please...spend 3 weeks traveling in Europe!!! Nate and I figured this would be a great opportunity to travel. So we used Nate's airline miles and booked 2 flights to Amsterdam. Our itinerary is still to be determined, but we are having fun researching all different places to see. We leave Feb. 3 and return Feb. 24. More details to follow!

Christmas in Sioux Falls

48 hours after arriving home from Hawaii, Nate and I headed off on another trip. However, we spent New Year's Day traveling apart. Nate went to Florida for a roommate's wedding and Lisa went to Sioux Falls to join in her family Christmas. Her sister Sheri had twin boys in the beginning of December so the family decided to gather at their home to celebrate this year. The count is now to 7 for Lisa's nieces and nephews...4 girls and 3 boys with another little one on the way in March.

I loved spending time with my family and meeting Caleb and Joel. They are such good babies and so adorable. Their cousins and sister Kiera loved holding and kissing them, though we had to keep touching to a minimum due to colds. Raya especially loved to kiss and hold the little boys.

It was a shock to go from Hawaii to SD...one morning we awoke to -7 degrees! We mainly stayed home except for a few outings to the store or to have lunch out somewhere. It's always hard to say good-bye to everyone. Those little ones grow up so fast and change quickly. The twins will have lost their goat cries and frog legs when I see them again. It's exciting though to see them grow and be part of their lives.

Christmas in Hawaii

Nate and I had the opportunity to spend Christmas in Hawaii this year. We went with Nate's parents and 4 brothers and sisters. We barely made it out of Seattle due to snow and ice...Seatac airport is not prepared for winter weather. Most airlines ran out of de-icer and had to cancel all their flights. We were fortunate enough to take off only 5 hours after sitting on the plane. So we exchanged coats for swimsuits, boots for flipflops, and blankets for beach towels.

We stayed in condos in Kihei on Maui. We spent our week snorkeling, surfing, playing frisbee/beach volleyball, and sightseeing. It did not quite feel like Christmas in that climate, but we thoroughly enjoyed 80 degree weather in lieu of snow and ice.

On Christmas Day we took the road to Hana, which is a long windy road with hundreds of tight turns and about 50 one way bridges. The views are spectacular and well worth the drive. We hiked to a waterfall at the end of the trip. The hike involved several smaller waterfalls, a bamboo forest, and fun to climb rubber trees.

No trip to Maui would be complete with out watching the sunrise at Haleakala. We all piled into the cars early one morning to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to the 10,000 foot sumit of the crater Haleakala. Our view was slightly affected by a high cloud cover, but the clouds were beautiful. The morning was bitterly cold so we were more than ready to head back and spend our day on the beach!

We arrived back to rain in Seattle around 6 am, but Nate and I headed straight into work that day. We were quite tired and ready for bed that night but were preparing for another trip...one to Sioux Falls and one to Florida.