Happy Days!

YAY!!! TIMMY'S DONE! AFTER TWO YEARS, HE'S FINALLY DONE!! HALLELUJAH!!

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest, I'll show tell ya how we celebrated! Golfing! Tim's been subtly guilting me into playing golf with him forever, so what better way to celebrate his big day. We have two amazing courses about ten minutes from our house, run by the city. We opted to play the less well-known course, since I haven't played in probably two years.

Tim's Victory Pose/Waiting to start

Self-Portrait - had to get myself in these pictures somehow, because I am SO not posting pictures of me trying to hit the ball!

He drove the green on a par 4 - very impressive!

Tallying the final score (and waiting for the party behind us, who carried Tim's lost head cover for five holes...)

Tim: 94
Arianna: 90+four smiley faces :-)

Timmy wins! An all day sweep!!

What happens now?
Tim is going to be "in the office" for some time working in some sort of quality assessment. He will eventually go down to the USS Abr.aha.m Lin.coln to join the other new STEs, but for now he gets to learn some new skills and explore a part of his job he hasn't gotten to see much of since joining the shipyard. As for Japan, he will be officially volunteering to go soon (since he just became an official STE) and it's more than likely that it will only be for around two months, rather than the original four. That is all that we know right now and when we find out more, you will find out more.

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Our Anniversary: Part II

I am on a roll...two days in a row, can you believe it!?

Today's post is a back-track to our anniversary. Unfortunately I had to work, so our celebrations were a bit belated. In a kind-of honor of our rehearsal dinner, we had our anniversary dinner at An.thony's on the Bremerton waterfront. It was quite the deja vu experience, considering the seasonal menu choices were eerily similar to last year's! No matter, it was delicious and we had a great time celebrating!

The next morning we headed to the ferry to make our way to the Saf.co Field for the afternoon Mar.iner's game.


Waterfront park by the terminal/shipyard



View from our seats



"ICHI.RO! IC.HIRO!"



The FINAL score! WE WIN!!

Following the game, and this was a CRAZY decision, we walked the 200 miles to downtown from the stadiums. It was a beautiful day, but we were POOPED by the time we got back to the ferry...

He was asleep for 45 of the 60 minutes...totally passed out.

Now this is a little flashback to our first year as a married couple. There is a picture from a random highlight of every month of our marriage:



We are astonished at how quickly it has all FLOWN by and we are looking forward to what this year holds!

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Parading around the Peninsula

Many things have happened since my last update, so I think I'll take you on a little journey back in time to before our anniversary. This is from even before my birthday! Wow...time flies!

ALL the way back on August 2, Tim and I tried out a new church and then took a tour of the Kit.sap peninsula's Par.ade of Homes.

About the church:
The church has a pretty "progressive/contemporary" message and we are totally drawn to the youthfulness of the community (i.e. we are NOT the youngest couple there!). The church is very large, with three services, the latter two are accompanied by a praise band instead of the traditional organ/hymn combo. We're going to try it for awhile and oddly enough, they will get an interim pastor starting in September (just like A-town!). Their pastor of 20+ years up and quit about a month ago. We luckily had the chance to see him preach today, it was a very good sermon, but he'll only be around for two more weeks before he moves to Costa Rica.

The Parad.e of Hom.es:
There were six homes open to the public in the county, ranging as far north as Port Ludlow, to as far south as Gig Harbor. We made it to all but one of those homes (we skipped the Port Ludlow because of distance). The best parts were the views from each of the homes. The majority of the places were owned and submitted by the contracting companies after the owners had already moved in, so it was kind of awkward browsing homes where it's intrusive to look at closets and what-not. I'm including a few pictures of our favorites.

Our favorite house:

This was in Poulsbo, right on Hood Canal. This was probably the most well-prepared for touring, but because of that we couldn't see quite a bit of it. There was an entire second living space behind a secret door they had roped off! :-( But this was the closest to a "Str.eet of D.ream.s" home in the group.

Our favorite view:

We took about a million pictures and none of them did the view from this second house justice! This was in Seabeck, also right on the Canal. The contractor told us that there had been a fire the day before across the water and so it was a bit hazier than usual...obviously that contributed to picture quality. This land is not yet developed, but they are splitting it into 5 acre parcels at about $350,000 a piece. Very tempting (if that wasn't totally out of our budget at the moment and it wasn't WAY out in the boondocks)!


The house from the road (a.k.a. the windows facing the amazing view).

Finally, Tim's favorite based on sustainability:

This was a "green" house. It had a lot of asian influence and it was fun to tour. In case you're not aware, Tim is borderline obsessed with building a green house. :-)

That was our Kitsap adventure. I will try to get this up-to-date this week, so I'm not posting about things from waaaayyyy back in the day! :-)

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Can you believe it!?!?

Happy 1 Year to us! In celebration of our anniversary, here's a little reminder of the big day!
Thank you to everyone who sent us cards and wished us a good day!
**Click on the picture to see it BIGGER**

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23 Years

Yesterday was my birthday! Yay! I'm 23! Do I feel older...not really. Do I feel more mature...nah. Do I look any older...I doubt it. Am I going to enjoy this year...you bet!!

I surprised Tim last week by declaring that I wanted to have a BBQ at home with family this year, rather than going to my FAVORITE restaurant in Seat.ttle. This is a pretty big deal, because I look forward to eating at Wil.d Gi.nger on my birthday the entire year. For some reason though, it just wasn't resonating with me in the same way this year. So, being the awesome husband that he is, he complied with my crazy idea. Honestly, he was probably ecstatic that the house would have to be cleaned. Let's just say that HE didn't make the bowl sparkly white...if ya know what I mean.

Everything was working out perfectly. We were going to have our new BBQ on Thursday, clean and set-up for the party over the weekend and finalize everything monday and tuesday. Right. RIGHT?!?! Nope. BBQ never showed up, in fact, it didn't even ship until yesterday, so while I was at work, Tim headed to Co.stco and re-evaluated the situation. We ended up with baked salmon, which couldn't have turned out more perfectly.

I also decided that I wanted to forgo the traditional birthday cake and made Dirt instead. That was a BIG hit. Tim and I are definitely also enjoying all the leftovers!

In addition to all the love I got from family and friends, our car dealership, where we got the Rogue, called a wished me a happy birthday and the dentist office (Tim and I both had appointments that day) gave me balloons and gift card for Holly.wood Vid.eo. Evidently we've picked some good places to share our business. :-)

A photo rundown:


My stash of presents and me, the night before the big day!


Dirt with 23 candles, in the shape of of 23.


My cousin/clothing twin with our matching shoes, which are AMAZING.


Ghiradel.li chocolate-covered raisins from San Franc.isco = heaven in chocolate form.


Go Cougs!


The card and envelope were Bedazzled and the chandelier lit up...love it!


Cr.anium is SO fun! I think Tim and I fell in ::like:: playing this game 5 years ago, before we even started dating.

Thank you to everyone who came and everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday!! I had a GREAT day!

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Hot, Hot, Hot! v. 2.0

Wow, what beautiful weather we have had in the NW! I love it! I have to say though, I think I'm in the minority. I have recently discovered, it is much more comfortable to sit on the floor then the couch, there's better air flow for sure! We have been super busy since Arizona, which should have meant more posts, but you know how it goes...
I will, however, do a bit of filling in with some of the things going on in our lives.
Be Warned: This is text heavy!

We have had lots of fun doing our usual summertime things. We've enjoyed quite a few movies, including
The Hangover, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Proposal, Transformers 2, Angels & Demons, and many more. That has to be one of my favorite things about summer, the big blockbusters. I just love them!

We've also taken advantage of some water in our area. We have a pool in our condo complex, so you can bet that we've spent some time down there cooling off in the 100+ degree weather we've had. We also went to the lake with some of Tim's friends from work, had a BBQ, and taught them how to play "Toss and Cuss." They really enjoyed learning the game and, once they got the hang of tossing the balls, really got in it. In case you're not sure what this game is, it's a mixture of golf and horseshoes. I've also heard it called "Horseballs" or "Golfshoes." There are two three-rung ladders set up about 20 feet from each other and two people/teams toss golf balls, connected with rope, at the ladders. The goal is to get the golf balls wrapped around one of the rungs. Usually the golf balls hit the rung, or swing around them and fall off, and that's when the cussing part comes in. :-)

About a two weeks ago, I decided Tim needed an escape from Bremerton, so we travelled North and instead of spending one day, ended up staying the entire three-day weekend. I unfortunately had to drive back home Friday night for my Saturday shift, but I drove right back after work. My only demand was S'mores when I got there and they DEFINITELY complied. While I still consider myself an original S'mores fan (i.e. graham, mallow, chocolate), Tim has become more of a Reeses S'mores fan (i.e. graham, reeses' peanut butter cup, mallow). There were also Chips Ahoy involved at some point. It was pretty crazy.

More recently we spent some time with our friends from school, S & J, who are currently planning their July '10 wedding. We are honored to be a part of their big day and, I especially, have had fun helping with some big things! J and her mom came to Bremerton this past Friday and together we took the ferry to Seattle, where we shopped for her dress! Since this is somewhat of an area of expertise for me, I loved helping her out and sometimes offering an honest opinion! Plus, it was really interesting to compare my shop with some shops in the Seattle/Tacoma area. J actually ended up closing down my store that evening, but found her dream dress! It is absolutely gorgeous and I am so excited to see how the whole wedding comes together now that she has found something.

Right after J came and visited me, we reciprocated and drove to their home town the very next evening to help S celebrate his birthday on Sunday. Their town was being invaded by a motorcycle convention of sorts, so we saw a motorcycle drill team and a little bazaar of fair food, tattoo artists, and leather dealers...a cyclists dream! :-) We ended our stay with a round of mini-golf, I'll give you a hint as to who won: who's not in the pictures?

Finally, here's a late shout-out to my mom who celebrated her birthday on Wednesday! We had a fabulous time celebrating with you on the Seattle Waterfront! Love you madly!

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Hot, Hot, Hot!

Wow. I am really horrible at updating this...I apologize.

We have been somewhat busy with life recently. T is working really hard and trying to finish all this oral board stuff, but there is a certain large boat that keeps getting in the way. He did come home today more excited than usual about going to Japan. He was able to chat with someone who went this past January and he found out that we could spend some time in Beijing. Now that excites me, because I have always wanted to go to China.

So what's with the "hot, hot, hot?" We spent the fourth of July weekend in Arizona!! And it was definitely MUCH hotter than our little corner of the NW. We left Thursday after T came home from work and flew from Seat.tle to Phoe.nix. We had to drive 1.5 hours to the Wo.rl.dma.rk condos in Tucson and we didn't there until probably midnight or later. We did notice how the area is very dark at night. As in, there are no streetlamps and the houses have little to no outside lights. Evidently the area is surrounded by observatories and the city has put several restrictions in place to prevent light pollution. Needless to say that when you have NO IDEA where you're going and it looks like you're in the middle of a residential neighborhood, where you should be approaching a large condominium complex, you start to lose faith in the trusty Ga.rmin. :-)

The next morning we woke up BRIGHT and EARLY to go to the Son.ora Dese.rt Museum. Thankfully we were there early enough to avoid the blazing noon/afternoon sun, but we all got pretty sweaty anyway. The museum is split into different sections, so we saw the different landscapes of Ar.izona, as well as a variety of animals. Probably the only animal I had never seen before was the Javalina. It looks like a very hairy hog, but they are pretty popular in Ariz.ona.
T.W. with a cactus

A Javalina under the bridge - Can you spot it???

P & L at the visitor's area

Following our desert excursion, we headed down to Tu.bac with T's grandparents. There is a cute little shopping area and the town is literally next door to Me.xico. We even went through a border patrol barricade before going back to their house in Tuc.son. Evidently "ille.gal e.ntrants" are pretty common.

The Desert Landscape/Sunset

That night we had dinner in Tu.cson and finished the evening at a casino in the area. I managed to walk away with a $6.84 profit (as long as you disregard the first $20...that was practice)! Luckily, the casino had a VERY large fireworks display that night. We decided to leave before traffic got bad, thinking the finale was happening, when in actuality, we watched the real finale from the street in front of T's grandparent's house.
The craziest thing though was the show nature was putting on; neither T or I had seen so much lightning in our lives. It was amazing, especially with no thunder to be heard. On the way back to the condo that evening, we got stuck in a bit of a monsoon. We barely made it home and when we did get there, the weather channel let us know that there were severe flash flood warnings in the area.

Me and my winnings!

The next day was spent at the pool and BBQing at the condo. T and I had to leave in the mid-afternoon to drive back to Pho.enix and catch a flight home that evening. The flight was great! We had an exit row to ourselves and spent the last half-hour watching fireworks from the window.

Celebrating the 4th in style!

With T's grandpa

The entire group (minus T's grandma who couldn't come to the BBQ)

Overall a great trip!!

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