The crashing economy finally hit us...

Wednesday, I along with a few others in my branch were laid off. They are consolidating the branch I worked it with another one in South Seattle. :-(

Up until now James and I have not felt the effects of the falling economy. We have been deligently saving just in case and "just in case" happened this week. We are holding strong. We are all still gearing up for out Texas vacation and when we return I will start job hunting full force.

I am really sad for the friends I will not see daily but hope to still see them. Good thing they don't work very far :-)

Time flies when you are - getting ready to visit Texas for two and a half weeks!

Ever since Halloween the time has been flying for us. We spent Thanksgiving together, just the three of us. We decided to go to dinner this year and we had dinner at Claim Jumper. It was awesome and the best thing is there was no clean up! We had some friends over that night for desserts. We are very thankful this year for many things. Mosty my Dad's health. He got another clean report from his doctor for this round of Chemo he has been going through. Amazing! We are so thankful to be blessed with our daughter. She is a joy and makes us smile every minute we are with her. It is true when other parents say they can't remember life before children. I don't want to - I prefer it with her in my life.

Sadly, shortly after Thanksgiving my family was hit with some devestating news. My Aunt Kay, my Mom's oldest sister died suddenly the Saturday after Thanksgiving of a heart attack. We are all still very much in shock but we have all kept each other held up as much as we can. She will be dearly missed.

We are headed home is just one short week. Texas watch out because Hurricane Emma is on the way. We are flying into San Antonio and after a quick stop to visit my parents we are off to Marble Falls for a week with the Tupper family. We will drive back to San Antonio on Christmas Eve and spend the remainder of the time with my side. We will also celebrate Emma's 3rd birthday in San Antonio on 1/2/08, two days before her real birthday. This is the first Christmas we have spent in Texas since Emma was born. The last Christmas we spent in Texas was the year I was pregnant - we all know how that trip turned out (Emma was born 5 weeks early and just a week after we returned from Texas). I don't think anything like that will happen this time. She is really looking forward to it. She talked every day about going on an airplane to see her Nana, Papa, Grandma and Grandpa. We count down the days until we leave and she cannot wait to change the number with Jim every day. This is her first time flying in her own seat so as always it will be an adventure.

We also had our family pictures done for the holidays...here they are!!!!!

Under the Sea!!!

Sorry it had taken awhile to get these Halloween pictures up - we have been sick. Emma brought home a nasty virus that she shared with both of us. I had the flu for a week and Jim is still getting over the last of his.

Anyway - this year Emma decided to be The Little Mermaid. This was the second costume pick. The first one we picked up was a pirate She loved it in the store, brought it home and hated it. She was really interested in the boots but when she found out they were just covers that went over her regular shoes she wanted nothing to do with them. On to costume #2. Little Mermaid was a hit and she is still wearing it around the house.

Since it was a typical Seattle day - cold and rainy, we decided to take Emma to Alderwood Mall for trick or treating. Beforehis she didn't get the "trick or treating" thing buy she was happy to ride around in the little cart they have. She quickly learned that if she smiled, held up her pink Disney Princess bucket and said Trick or Treat she would get candy. She was a natural.

The mall was crazy. It was cool to see all the different costumes and little kids running around. We got there at 6pm and half the stores we out of candy. Apparently they start this at 1pm- who trick or treats 1pm? To our suprise she didn't get much candy and that was just fine with us. Her favorite was a green sucker which she fell in love with (green is her favorite color).

When we were done collecting candy we took Emma to Ruby's for dinner. They have a few electric trains that go around the ceiling that she loves. We all had a great time!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

Saturday, October 18 we all loaded up and drove to Bellingham to visit the Weldons. We were excited to see their new place and visit the same pumpkin patch we visited last year. The drive up was beautiful. The lunch spot they introduced us to was awesome - some of the best pizza and the pumpkins were beautiful. Emma had a great time walking in the patch and checking out the animals. She also got to ride the little train they had made out of 55 gallon barrels. At the end of the day we choose one great pumpkin and headed home. We were all very exhausted. We were so excited to see Shaun and Lindsey and sad to say goodbye. Hopefully we will get to see them for Thanksgiving.

Lions, Tigers and Bears - Oh My

Saturday was our last trip to the Zoo for the year. We went with a few of my co-workers - Katrina, Liz and Krista and their families. We had an awesome time. It started off as a cold morning but as the day went on we warmed up and had a great time. After the zoo (and a well deserved nap for Emma) we headed to the grocery store. Our bill was $220 but by the time we gave him all the coupons we had and other discounts it came down $100!!!!!

Pics from the Zoo

Winter has arrived

Baby it's cold outside. In preparation for visiting the zoo tomorrow (Saturday 10/11/08) we had to buy Emma a new set of hat and gloves. It is only suppose to be a high of 58 so we wanted to make sure her little ears are covered. She hasn't taken it off since. She looks like such a little girl in this picture.

No More Monkeys Jumping On The Bed

Emma's favorite new activity.

The Music of the Night

This past Saturday James and I had one of the most awesome evenings in our relationship. We left Emma with her Aunt Misty (or Neme as she calls her). They had a blast and Misty has the photo shoot to prove it.

James and I had dinner at Palomino in Downtown Seattle



http://www.palomino.com/

It was amazing food, amazing atmosphere and amazing company. After Dinner we walked over to the Paramount Theater and saw the Phantom of the Opera.

It was Amazing!!! We both loved every minute of it. The music was awesome, the costumes were beautiful and the store was heatbreaking. We are now fans of the theater and plan on seeing The Lion King in a few months.

Welcome to our blog

Thanks so much to the Weldon's for showing us the way of the blog world.

Creating a blog is something we have been talking about for awhile. Things just seem to be chaning day by day and the time is flying. We want a place that everyone can visit and catch up.

So many new things are happening in our lives. Emma will be 3 in Januray and we will celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary in April, just to name a few.

I plan on updating alot of the blog this weekend so I hope you check back.