A Portly Post of Predominantly Pictures

Well hello, didn't see you there! Actually, that's a lie... I knew very well who *cough* parents *cough* have been breathing down my neck for a new blog :) not that I blame them, quite a lot has happened with very little communication which, so I've learned in my relationships, can be quite detrimental? Yes, I believe so. So much has happened since we spoke last that I'm finally starting to realize why little blogs of seemingly little events is the way to go. Thankfully I took pictures over the last few weeks and they have jogged my memory about fun little outings and events that I've had with my wonderful fiance, my family, and others! But first, a quick update about life in general...

Well we're about five weeks (I think... it's about this time I lost all dimension of time last year) into the school year and, even with it's ups and downs, this year is a VAST improvement on last year. I have a lot more students/bigger class sizes and some interesting characters to say the least, but I am legitimately beginning to love what I'm doing! Don't get me wrong, I could really use a break from pubescent teenagers (especially with this past week being Homecoming Week... basically all my students were stir crazy because one dance per semester equals all the drama involved being crammed into one week. Oh, and add onto that funny costumes each day... but I felt pretty good on Superhero day with my cape, wrist cuffs and goggles; they called me Super Casebolt) and our administration are cramming meaningless tasks onto our plates with unreasonable timetables and I'm working later nights than I did last year (shockingly, but this time it's WITH students and to refine the stuff I already did last year for better learning/rigor)... but all in all it's been amazing :) over the summer, some good spiritual and emotional R & R inspired some mental growth on my part and my mindset has completely changed. Likewise, this means my attitude and outlook on my work has completely changed, making life so much easier, more enjoyable and comfortably out of my hands. If you would like specifics, I would love to share! But otherwise, I won't risk boring the masses :)

I have three honors classes, all pretty large (one is 35 kids... and they're loud... but they're really great kids, kind, funny, and HOLY NERDS! I call them my nerd herd) and two general classes. It's been fun! Also I've been in charge of my PLC's efficiency, been helping out a new student teacher (can't wait until I can have my own... the conversations about pedagogy and why we do what we do are phenomenal, and sadly often lost upon the veterans in my district), and have already been asked to do drama by some students... we shall see, the plate is fairly full. OH! And in case you're wondering how the biology state testing went for your kids last year, the results are in... two years ago our pass rate was 54% and this past year our pass rate was *drumroll please* 76%! I'm so proud of our improvement, we bumped from one of the lowest schools to being the 3rd in the state for science. Not too shabby! In general though, the year has gone well :) maybe to the point where I may want to stay here?! We shall see...

Okay, I've not delivered a very "portly" post so far so I promise I'll try to make this brief before tomatoes come at me through my computer screen... choir has been aMAZing as well! It's been wonderful getting back into a group of girls and working to create something great :) I wanted to let you know that we have two concerts each year and the dates for them are as follows (no pressure):

Christmas Concert: December 8 & 9 (we think...)
Musical Theatre Concert (he's made me Maria from Sound of Music... I'm no Julie Andrews, but hey, you know me!): February 16

And now on to the pictures! See attached captions to truly drink in the eventful goodness that has been my wonderfully blessed life these past few weeks!

 Thought I'd start us off with a nice dead animal carcass hanging in our neighbor's back yard and a lovely sunrise on the way into school.

 Richard and I took the gondola up Crystal Mountain one Friday evening and had a picnic dinner :) it was beatiful and somewhat comical; he's afraid of heights but wanted to go, so I neglected to tell him how high the gondola really went. Quite the ride!

 Happy Birthday Grandma! Love you more than words can say!

Rich and I also took a different afternoon to enjoy Mowich Lake with our books and lawn chairs :)

The Puyallup Fair was clastrophobic as always but too fun! And obviously included invisible sheep (as seen by the sign)... for some reason, Richard didn't want me to post this one...

The weekend after the fair was the state's free museum day; Rich read in an article that you can sign up to attend any museum in the state for free, so he took the day off and planned a full-on day date for us. And, like the good little frugal man I love, he of course tried to find the most expensive museum to visit so we got good bang for our buck. So this is a gorgeous piece of Christ asking for water from the Samaritan woman at the Seattle Art Museum!

 Ahh the Seattle Aquarium! Don't remember ever going, so we just HAD to :)

And my boyo was, quite literally, the only adult basically jumping into the tide pool... not surprising

 

 A b-e-a-UTIful Seattle sunset to cap off the perfect day on the town :)

 :)

Thought you would like to see the inner workings of a high schooler's mind... I had my kids create mnemonic devices to remember the order of "kingdom phylum class order family genus species" in organism taxonomy. Got some interesting ones in there... made a fun classroom competition though! Got donuts for the student who won "best device" in each class, even though I had to sneak them past admin (we aren't allowed to give treats to our kiddos).

I got a video of my classroom so that you all can see it... I feel truly accomplished in how I've made it home and my own. Took a while and some "borrowing" from abandoned rooms, but I absolutely love the outcome :) welcome to my second home! Sometimes it feels like my first though...

My first staff badge! I didn't get one last year because (honestly) I didn't shower on picture day. But now I'm all staffed up!

 

Some pretty flowers from my honey :) I think I've got a future in arranging! Not really... but not shabby.

And finally, my Lily of the day is actually a video. We've discovered over the past few months that the absolute BEST toy we have ever and can ever get our fur baby is actually not really a toy at all... you know those rings from milk gallons? Those and the lids are hours of limitless entertainment for both her and for us. So enjoy!

 

Love you guys, hopefully it won't be so long before an update :)

Chels

An Eastern Adventure

Hi again! So, don't mean to toot my own horn... but I'm actually blogging after our trip like I said I would! HA! To all you blog doubters *cough* mom *cough* I say "checkmate" :) Just kidding!

We got back yesterday from our 9 day trip to Priest River, Idaho and it was WONDERFUL! We got to spend a huge amount of quality time with all of his family members, moreso than I have before, and it was a huge blessing :) his family is so wonderful and I get along with them VERY well, but haven't truly had the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with individuals of his family... until now! I spent an especially large amount of time with Richard's mom, Kathi, and lover her even more now :) she is a very special, kind and understanding woman and I'm so glad we got to cultivate a closer relationship this week. Probably the best part of this trip, besides quality time with Rich's mom, was seeing how happy Richard was. I know he misses his family desperately and cherishes time with them; to see him and how peaceful/content he was is by far the best part of the trip :)

Anyway, on to the events! We decided to take a new trail over to the Eastside because, well, after four years of Snoqualmie Pass I wanted a new path... we've driven around Enumclaw and seen signs for Chinook Pass before so we said, "what the hey?!" and went for it. The views were INCREDible through the pass, probably one of my favorite drives in a long time... uuuuuupppp until the other side of the pass when it turned into desert Yakima yuck. But up until that, pure awesomeness!

Here's one of the many views of Rainier that kicked tuckus.



Once we met up again with I-90, it was the same-old same-old. Thankfully, we're pretty good at busying ourselves by chatting, singing obnoxiously loudly, and making some scenic stops:

Why hello, Vantage, you bustling metropolis you!



When we arrived to Priest River, we met up with Richard's cousin and Best Man Andrew who was able to get leave from the Army for the annual family camping trip. We then headed over to the traditional Priest Lake campground where Richard's parents, brother, and sister Michelle and her husband and son had already set up camp. Over the next few days, we swam at Priest Lake, ate heartily, and enjoyed a lot of good family time. Didn't get pictures because we had a "no phone" rule and my camera's batteries died, but I guarantee you that it was good times :)
When we got back into town, we (first) showered and relaxed and rehydrated. Then we took Richard's little brother Scott to Silverwood and enjoyed being pummeled by waves at Boulder Beach and obsessively riding the white water rafting ride until closing. It was tons of fun :) after that, we spend the day with Richard's biological half-sister Katie and her husband and three little boys and had some wonderful conversations... and then the day after THAT we went over to Richard's sister Britta's house for a barbeque she was holding in our honor!

Holy nephew invasion! It was so fun to spend time with them, but oh my little boys everywhere! As of now, the nephew count is up to 5... phew.

Britta and Michelle's sons Connor and Bodey are best buddies... they call each other ConCon and BoBo and they are inseperable. They also love cars right now, as any good little boy does, and got a hold of our car on our way out for the night :)



Like I said before, Kathi and I had some girl time throughout the week and I loved it :) the majority of our time was spent looking for decorations for the wedding at yard sales (some scary, some awesome) and an antique show one town over. We found three lanterns for table decorations and it was less than $10 total! Booyah :) also, when we were back at the house, she showed me some baby things of Richard's and this little gem:

D'awws. They took this picture soon after Katie (on the right) and Richard (cutie patootie in front) were adopted. He was about 8 months old and his half-sister was just over 2 years old. Too cute :) he has such a mature little face, it kind of makes me giggle!



It was hard for Richard to leave, but the big kid world beckoned... as did our fur baby! My dad was phenomenal in helping us by checking in on her, so thank you Daddy :) when we got home, she was pretty ticked off and distant, but warmed up really quickly. While trying to unpack, here was my little package :)

Anyway, lots to do to get caught up! I've been working on unpacking everything and getting life ready for, well, life. Two weeks left until I'm back to school and three more until kids are back. Man it went by fast!


Love you guys,
Chels

Busy, Busy July

Well hello again! And you all thought you wouldn't have a blog from me for four more months... FALSE! I'm back, sucka! Just kidding :)
This past July has been pretty busy between what I detailed in my last blog (Trotter's wedding, engagement pictures, Ocean Shores, the lake, King Tut/A+ Cert for Rich, hiking, etc.) and the time since the last blog around two weeks ago... so catch-up time!

First cool happenings was the stocking that Aunt Tanya helped me make! The background story: as most of you know, Grandma Book made stockings for most all of the family over the years that are treasured; it's not Christmas without Grandma's stocking on the fireplace/applicable fireplace substitute :) the stockings are so incredibly meaningful and speak volumes of the love that Grandma had whenever she did anything for her family. Well, I always had hoped that one day either Grandma or Grandma and myself could make Richard a Christmas stocking... almost like an inaguration into the family, you know? But that wasn't able to happen... it was a miniscule, inconcequential part of everything, but we found something so wonderful when going through the basement after Grandma was gone that made my heart leap. We found a cross-stitch stocking that Grandma had started but not finished. I cried I was so happy; it was an incredible find that had Grandma's love in it and I could finish for Richard! Everyone there were unbelievably kind in allowing me to take it and repurpose it; all it needed was a new name and a backing. So, a little over a week ago, I got ahold of master seamstress Aunt Tanya and she helped me make the most AMAZing stocking for him!

Tada! Ain't it beautiful? I am SO grateful for Aunt Tanya; she was such a great teacher and I was able to try all of it myself! It truly was a "teach a man to fish" situation and I am so thankful that she guided me through every step but gave me lisence to do it myself :) But holy cow, there's a LOT of steps that go into those things! Iron, cut, glue fabric, iron, iron, stitch, iron, stitch, stitch, invert, etc., etc., etc... Kinda glad it's made and now can just be enjoyed :) either way, I had so much fun with Aunt Tanya and later with Uncle Bob when he got home from work. Thanks guys!


The day after the stocking assembly, my Grandma Casebolt, cousin McKenna and I finished up our second day of Jam-a-palooza. Exhaustion was had by all, but that was awesome fun too! Our first Jam Day was ALL about the strawberries; this day, it was all about raspberries and apricot pineapple jam. We even got to u-pick and visit fruit stands; kind of broke up the kitchen time which was nice :) either way, the final jam count was 171 jars so we BETTER be set! I can't thank my Grandma and McKenna enough for all their help, I don't even know how! There's no way I could have done it without them and it was a ton of fun :) thanks to you guys too!


Then, the day after Jamming, was the Relay for Life. Aunt Tanya posted a lot of pictures so, again, I don't want to be redundant :) there were emotionally charged parts of it and some parts that weren't, so I'll keep this short and simple. First off, thank you everyone who came to be part of Jodie's Roadies; I know it was a really simple event/plan, but your presence made it really special and I so appreciate your coming. It was a huge gift to be able to just be around family and remember Grandma, even if most of the time it hurt too much to actually say. The support and love was felt without words, and I know Grandma would be proud of us :)

Love you, Grandma, miss you every day...

After Relay, Richard and I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Enumclaw Highland Games. I was really excited to take him there since it was his first Highland Games and it has become such a big part of my family (well, more my dad...). We enjoyed watching the pipe bands, talking with random people (Richard has a way of doing that... it's very sweet :) ), eating, shopping for potential family dogs at the kennel area, eating, looking through some vendors, eating, and... well, yeah. On Sunday, my dad and mom and Aunt Tanya/Uncle Bob joined us and we had a great time with them! I look forward to it every year and am already looking forward to it next year!

THEN, Monday was a relaxed day and I painted a wee bit... but Tuesday was a packed day! Toured some homes with our real estate agent (nothing yet...) and left immediately for Grandma Casebolt's while Richard went to work. I picked her up and McKenna met us at the house so that we could celebrate our jammin' with a day at Pike's Place Market! It had been years, from what Grandma said, since she'd been so we thought we'd break the tradition... it was lots of walking, lots of produce shopping and tons of fun! Probably my favorite part was hearing my Grandma continually say, "wow, this place sure has grown since I've been here last!" :) When we got back and had some supper, I jetted for an audition for a community women's choir. The director is one of my dad's pipe band instructors and a musical genius; apparently he and my dad have been talking for a while about me joining the choir, but it's quite the commute down by Lakewood/Fort Lewis... anyway, I've felt like part of me has been missing and it was time to get back into a choir-type group. So I auditioned and made it in! The practice was immediately following and I feel as though it will be the PERFECT group for me. Everyone there was legitimately kind and encouraging and I fit right in; that's saying something, especially when a lot of times choirs can be secretly competitive for individual attention. There were women of all ages and I was joking around and chatting with them already :) also, the director is incredibly musically gifted AND organized; a very rare trait for the "artsy fartsy" types. AND, what was most exciting to me, the music is apparently becoming more difficult as the choir shows it can handle it. I'm so happy about that! Part of the reason I've always loved choir was the musical challenge; another part of me being nervous about joining a choir is that I (feel awful saying this) didn't want a Sister Act pre-Whoopi situation, you know?! Anyway, I'll post when concerts are on here if you're interested in a musical evening :) I feel complete! Thanks Dad for setting it up for me and thanks a million to Richard for being so supportive of what makes me happy :)

Speaking of Richard, I have really exciting news! He's been applying to computer jobs almost every day since getting his A+ certification (wahooo!) but with the economy the way it is it's been slim pickings... but he is so kind and understanding of his customers at Rite Aid that they always love him. His regulars come to the store asking if he's working and come back when he does because he's so nice! It makes me extremely proud of him and is a huge testament of his kind heart :) but it's actually paying off too! They chat with him and find out that he works on computers and get his business card from him and, two weeks ago, an elderly woman gave him a call and had him work on her computer. She was so excited and thankful for his hard work and low costs, she referred him to local businesses and her family members and he's already gotten other jobs from it! The extra income is nice, but I'm just happy that he has the opportunity to practice his trade and network. I know it makes him happy :) so yay for growing opportunities and skills! And any prayers you could send his way for a computer or IT job would be appreciated more than you know.

Also, a quick Richard update about the accident, we've been attempting to work with the insurance company on a settlement and medical costs and they aren't really playing nice. So, we've got a few more tricks up our sleeve that we heard from legal council and, if they don't play ball, we'll need to seek an attorney. Any thoughts or prayers you can send us for that would be appreciated as well. We just want it to be done!

Anyway, enough gushing... we're leaving tomorrow for Spokane to see the Falk side of the family for the first time in three months and we're really excited! They've been saving their family camping trip and Silverwood trip for us as well as his sister's wedding reception :) It'll be great to see them and spend time with his nephews as well as talk wedding with them a bit... I'll blog about that trip when we come back :) After that it'll be a downhill slide to the beginning of the school year! It's happening waaaaay too soon... oh well, I keep reminding myself how lucky I am to get a vacation like this in the first place. Anyway, I love you guys with all my heart...

Enjoy the crazy cat lady picture :) at least it's cute!

Chels

Catching Up...

Well hey there! You know, it's funny, but I feel as though I should explain myself... I promise I've tried to log on to Blogger to write a blog but have had issues with my computer (and repeatedly forgot to ask my Computer Guy to fix it), but I remembered the other day and TADA! I'm back, baby! So, without further adeau, a little catch-up...

It's crazy that I haven't updated since two weeks into second semester; okay, so I'm realizing how much time really HAS passed at this point. I'll try to go through quickly... *trumpets sound* I survived my first year of teaching! There were times that I thought I would lose my mind, which was saying something since I've made the little bit I can claim to have left pretty hardy, but the relationships I built with students, coworkers, staff helped me make it through. I had new struggles as well as new blessings. First big announcement is that I signed my contract at the high school for next year. For some of you, this may be a surprise and I completely understand why; my last blog expressed sentiments of "get me the heck out of here"... but my views of life, growth and plan have changed a little bit. I pursued other opportunities, went to the Washington State Educators Job Fair, even had an interview at my "dream" district Sumner SD, but it's been pretty obvious to me that God still needs me at White River. I look forward to the fact that I'll be a tad bit more seasoned in experience, lessons and the ways of the school and that the administration will be a huge support (in ways that most teachers don't have). Also, my biology team for next year is changing a little bit and the power is being shifted into the hands of student-centered educators; one of the more frustrating points of this past year for me is the "we need to look good" and "teaching to the state test" mentalities, all of which we had to play into, but that is on the mend! By the way, completely focusing the entire year of study on the Biology End of Course exam was one of the most infuriating parts of my year. We didn't even have time to teach animals! What the heck?! Off my soapbox (it's usually a pulpit so count yourselves lucky, you got off easy), another cool part of next year is that I have three honors classes; this will drastically change my day (not sure if for better or worse, this past year they were my squirrelliest!) and I have a first period prep. The beautiful part of that is time to collect myself and prep for labs in the morning. This way, I won't have to stay at school until 7pm all the time! I'm going to miss my midday break, but I'm really thinking it will be a nice change. Anyway, I truly think this next year will be easier and better in many ways, and I will keep my eyes open as to any changes that He sees fit. I do want to wrap up this schooly paragraph, however, with a fun tale; I've had hundreds of funny moments that you may or may not have seen posted to Facebook (I'll try and be better next year about posting them here) but one I am especially proud of was begging administration for $200 in budget to buy some fetal pigs for dissection (sadly, $200 buys you about 16 piggies) and making them all last the entire day! First three periods used 8 pigs with various stages of dissection for each period (first period does preliminary cuts, second, removed specific organs, third period massacred/removed everything including the eyes and brain) and the last two periods used the rest. Needless to say, I was kind of a hero around the staff for the day. Thriftyness at it's finest! Oh, and the picture up there is Rich and I at Senior Prom in Seattle... chaperoning was actually really fun, especially scoping out all the camoflauge suits and hats and dancing to Cotton-Eyed Joe. It really was quite a year, so full of lessons and life that it's hard to look back on. But man am I thankful :)

Once the students were gone, the staff spent alone time in their rooms preparing for the upcoming year (yeah right, more like finally organizing from the past year) and we then had some team time/staff meetings with some great discussions. After that, summer commenced! I got a lot of house and craft stuff done while relaxing up until this point, but it has also been pretty busy! Between traveling around, making wedding jam with Grandma Casebolt and McKenna, singing at Bible Camp in Olympia for a week with my church worship group and other frivolities (seen below), I've been loving the hectic summer so far. Below are some pictures of my crazy times up until this point; hopefully it'll make this post go faster :)

Three days after the last day of school was my best friend Chelsea Trotter's wedding! It was quite the busy weekend with the bachelorette party, rehearsal, set-up, decorating, and taking care of her beautiful daughter. Thankfully, the weather cleared up and it was a wonderful (somewhat windy!) day in the groom's parents' backyard! I snapped this photo of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson :) best of luck to the happy couple!

Okay so this isn't quite in chronological order, but we went to the Crab Pot for my birthday this year and OMG! So amazing.

I've visited where our wedding is going to be next year, here's one of the pictures I took :) YAY!

The next few pictures all happened within the span of a week (this past week to be precise!):

Did King Tut in Seattle...

Visited Jenna down in Albany for some fun times and some engagement pictures; for the sake of avoiding redundancy, I'm just posting this one picture! The rest are on Jenna's blog if you want to see them but I'm pretty sure I have the same clientel :) She did a phenomenal job, we are SO happy with them and thankful for her willingness to do it! That and we were extremely comfortable and able to be dorks the whole time since we knew our photographer... in other words, thank you Jenna for a most amazing gift. We love you and are so so thankful for you in more than just photo ways :)

Grandpa Casebolt, my dad, Richard and I went hiking to High Rock Lookout and had some phenomenal times and views! I don't think I've ever been able to see St. Helens, Adams and Rainier all in the same skyline before... hopefully it's just the beginning of many hikes around Rainier in the future! Richard loves hiking and I can't wait to show him more of Sunrise and Paradise; sadly, and unexpectedly, we couldn't hik any of those trails because of snow still...

Ahh the lake... good stuff

And we capped off Richard's vacation with a day trip to Ocean Shores! He'd never been and we had an excellent time, especially practicing our First Dance in the tide :)

So this is kind of a weird post with little to no direction, I know, but I do have two big things I want to add to it. First off, I am EXTREMELY proud to announce that Richard took his big computer certification exam (termed the CompTIA A+ certification) this past week, the one he's been studying for for months, and PASSED on the first try! I am so happy for him! Just goes to show what hard work gets you :) a lot of people take it multiple times so it's quite the accomplishment to have only had to take it once... so, with this certification in his toolbelt, he is going to continue applying for computer jobs but will hopefully be more marketable with his certification; it's basically an award that says he knows pretty much everything about computer hardware, software and network repair, and most computer places value that over a degree! A degree is still on his mind, but he may be waiting to find out exactly which degree would be more beneficial for his career. In other words, HUZZAH for my honey :)

Second thing is that Richard and I have started the house hunting process! We've decided we love the area, the commute would be easy for most anywhere in the Puget Sound area, and the interest rates would make a mortgage the same approximately as our rent is where we are now. We've viewed around ten houses or so up until this point and found one we absolutely loved but it's not going to work out and should be closing to another buyer this week... must not have been the perfect house for us in His plan! It's kind of a scary big kid jump, but I'm excited to own a home and begin dumping money into it :)

I know this has been quite the haphazard post, but it must get weirder... Aunt Tanya has requested Lily pictures and I must oblige, so enjoy! Hopefully I'll see you guys at the Relay this Friday; please let me know if you have any questions! Love you guys so much...

This was from when we "dogsat" in May... obviously, she wins the pen.

See the toy under Lily's head? It's actually her favorite, it's a squeeky dog toy but she treats it like her child. She sleeps with it, tears it up, and carries it around the house by the neck. Sweet, I guess?

Told ya.

XOXO Chels

A Tumultuous Season

At last the time has finally come
When my full heart is overrun
By joys, delights and childlike fun;
The HSPE begs me reach for my… gin.

If you haven’t guessed, the above is a joke. A joke poem. A joem, if you will, that I wrote on the first day of HSPE testing. As much as I would love to divulge the HSPErrific, HSPElicious and HSPEtastic details (all words created by myself and my Proctor Partner to pass the time), I will save that for another time when a future blog post is not as plentiful with updates… but yes, in case you’re curious, the past three days of watching students test has propelled me into madness.

Well since we last spoke, the second semester of White River High School has begun in earnest. It’s been about a month and a half now and it is very different from first semester; the beginning was very trying and made me quite sad, I had no idea I had become so attached to my kids from before! But I have come to many realizations, though I feel that I am still learning and enjoying the experience a bit, that will be addressed later in the blog. I feel as though I am respected and have heard good feedback, but still... it isn't the same!

At the end of the first week of the new semester, I wasn’t feeling super fantastic about my new beginnings. When I got home, Richard had the car packed up with everything but me and asked me to get in for an adventure. Despite the headache and pessimistic attitude, I obliged. We
hopped in the car and sped off towards the sunset. He was surprising me with a short drive to Lake Tapps (I found this out very quickly… and was so excited because we hadn’t been yet!). Didn’t quite go as planned… we got lost on back roads and every park we tried was closed for the season OR blocked off by fallen trees from the Snowpocalypse. Well, we were missing the sunset and feeling somewhat disappointed, so we decided to just go home… but then I had a thought.

You see, we’d been discussing for the better part of two months whether or not we could afford a pet… or if we even wanted the responsibility! We decided after many long conversations that we could and that we wanted to; short story shorter, we’d been looking for a few weeks for our purrfect companion.

As we sat and thought of our failed attempt at a romantic sunset, I suggested that before heading home we stop by Petco just to see what (or who) had changed since our last visit. When we got there, we noticed that the same sweet 3 year old cat we’d looked at before was still there, but she
had a new neighbor. A little brown and gravy tabby kitten, 4 months old, started meeping next to us. We went to her, spent some time sticking our fingers in her cage to pet her and see her reaction, and knew that she was just what we were looking for. It took a while to get everything straightened out (we had to run home and get our lease agreement) and also had to get all the
fixings for our new baby, but about 4 hours after our failed sunset we arrived at home with our new baby girl! Her given name, Harriet, was immediately abandoned and replaced with Lily.

We’ve completely embraced our new parenthood, almost to the point of being weird (I call us the crazy cat people), but she’s so wonderful! We’re still trying to train her in some respects but she is absolutely perfect for us and has our goofy personality :) she’s brought us
nothing but pure enjoyment and we’re blessed by her. I’ve been thinking about the little reasons we love her and came up with what I’ve considered cat successes:
1. She hasn’t pooped outside of her litterbox. Yahoo!
2. She’s never pawed either of us… teeth are another story.
3. She has two different meows, one for dad (crazy cat man) and one for mom (crazy cat woman).
4. She isn’t destructive! Except for the blinds in the spare room… mortal enemies, they just get in the way.
5. She’s a real cuddler and obsessed with her crazy cat parents.
6. We can clip her nails after turning her into a kitty-fuzzy blanket burrito.
7. She plays on her own like a madwoman; we laugh so hard.
8. She didn’t eat at first but now she’s a piglet. Awesome.
9. The spray bottle is working, but she still tries to get away with things (only child syndrome).
10. She’s literally afraid of nothing, even when mom sneezes VERY loudly while she’s napping on mom’s chest.

The night we got her!

She's precious :)

And kinda weird.

Enough catness… on to the next topic! Since this blog is in chronological order, I’ll begin with the next event. I won’t dwell on it since it still hurts to remember a bit. Three days after we adopted our first born, I went to a Weight Watchers (*cough* Whale Watchers *cough*) meeting with
my mom. On the way home, I called Richard to see if he’d started dinner. He didn’t pick up at first but did on the second try. He sounded out of it, but I didn’t notice until I’d asked him if he was home. He said “no, I actually just got in a car accident”. My response: “don’t say that, that’s not funny”. His response: “I’m serious”. It was at that point that I started to freak out, trying to find out if he was okay and where he was; he didn’t know either. At one point he
needed to talk to the cops, so while he did that I called my dad and he told me what questions to ask and what I needed to find out (after calming me down). When I called Richard again, he put a paramedic on the phone and I got directions to where they were. In my nervousness and distress, I got lost but finally found him. Seeing his car made me break down again, but I was so glad
he was still upright and coherent; it could have been so so much worse. Quick synopsis of what happened in the accident: Richard was driving down a remote highway between Auburn and Black Diamond and an older woman turned to the left about ten feet in front of him while he was going 55mph and she was going 30mph. It was a head-on collision and she wasn’t hurt whatsoever. That’s the short of it. I whisked him away to Enumclaw’s ER (he said he didn’t want to inconvenience the paramedics anymore and refused transport… don’t worry, dad’s
talked to him about that :) ) where we spent 6 dreadful hours. Final count was: sprained left wrist, concussion, whiplash, two cracked ribs, and a lip laceration apart from other strains and bruises. The lip looked the worst; his bottom teeth pushed clean through to the outside. But after some scans, some 20 stitches, and some morphine, we were on our way home. Honestly, worst
experience of both our lives, but he probably would have died without his seatbelt. Moral of the story: WEAR YOUR SEATBELT!

Lily was trying to help daddy feel better :)

One good thing that came out of this mess, apart from Richard’s life of course, was…

Our new Honda Civic! His car was completely totaled and we figured that new cars’ financing and cost are low enough that we could do it :) she perty.

About two weeks after the accident, an interesting and controversial announcement was made. Our school district’s alternative high school, WRAP, is to be closed after this year. This not only means that those kids will be reintroduced into the general curriculum, but also that teachers
will need to be moved around. Since I am the bottom of the totem pole (along with my friend Joanna), we were told chances are high that we won’t be invited back next year. The Assistant Principal that hired me, Lainey, really wants us to stay and is even planning to train me this summer to teach AP Biology, but I honestly don’t think that my place is here. I know God intended my first year to be here and to be challenging, as it has been, but I’ve come to realist that this is not my place in the teaching world. Being bumped would be a blessing and a mercy in disguise; I have begun the search for middle school jobs in the area. We love this part of the state and would love to stay if possible! I’ll keep you updated, but rest in the thought that I’m happy with this turn of events :)

This past month, we’ve been lucky to have been able to travel down to Albany for Payton’s second birthday (please see Jenna’s blog :) ) and to go to Spokane to celebrate Richard’s birthday with his family. Both trips were wonderful and tons of fun, we’re so blessed by our families! On the
Spokane trip, we weren’t able to stay at his parents’ house because his little brother was quarantined with the flu; but thankfully, the rest of the family (including all sisters with spouses and children) made it to his sister Britta’s house for a birthday dinner! It’s the first time the whole family was together in a while which was great, and we laughed and talked wedding most of the time :)

Speaking of which, wedding plans are going splendidly! We’re waiting to tour our venue within the next few weeks but have TONS of ideas otherwise :) we’ve also decided on our honeymoon! Say hello to Seaside, Newport and the Oregon Coast :D Oh, and we’re also getting help (and discounts) from a budget wedding planner; she has a lot of decorations and linens and connections so she’ll end up saving us lots of money! It’s going to be beautiful and less stressful with her help. Not only has it been fun to constantly plan our own wedding, but I was just asked to be Maid of Honor in my best friend Chelsea Trotter’s wedding taking place this June. It’s going to be short planning for sure; I didn’t come in late in the game, it’s just a three month engagement, but it gives me a mental diversion from the end of my first year of teaching :)

I know this was quite a tedious blog as far as updates goes, so I’ll leave you with this little nugget. My mom came up a few weeks ago to Bonney Lake because the Marshall’s there is known to stock a large variety of Anna Lee’s, grandma’s favorites other than Bunnykins. When we were there, we spotted at the opposite end of the store these furry little friends:

And couldn’t resist :) I see them daily and am reminded of her; not a day goes by that I don’t think of her anyway, but these add some reassurance that she’ll still be there when another of life’s major events comes next summer :D I love you all dearly and miss you even more.

XOXO Chels

Being True to my Name

My lovely mother just reminded me that I am not being true to my blog name... no, not Chasing Chelsea, but the URL that reads www.tomakemymomhappy.blogspot.com. I guess my blog earlier, which is pictureless, did not make mom happy. Therefore, here are pictures. Love ya, mom! :)



Kinda blurry, but yay Victoria! Just found out :)

The beautiful Empress Hotel

Our (upgraded) deluxe suite :)

We frequented it's streets constantly, pricing between seven souvenir stores within arms reach of each other... compete, monkeys, compete!

The Undersea Gardens were in the bottom level of the boat behind us; so cool!

Merry Christmas to the royal-feeling commoners

The picture our waitress took right after the proposal :D this deserved the coveted Chelsea "thumbs up"!

Happiness... and blingyness.

In our hotel lobby after getting lost for two hours after the engagement dinner (we were both on our phones, didn't realize that we'd passed the restaurant three times on the way home...)

Chinatown! Home of some creepy alleys and an awesome pawn shop.

Victoria Harbor.

Fisherman's Wharf! We fed seals... twas awesome.

See! I don't lie!

Best. Fish. And chips. Ever. Fer real.

Welcome to Butchart Gardens!

Made Zoolights look like child's play... sorry, Zoolight enthusiasts. The one thing we drove to, but probably the coolest thing we did the whole trip! Also enjoyed the light scavenger hunt they had based off the song "The 12 Days of Christmas".

Inside the Government Building...

Outside the Government Building!

Royal BC Museum... there was real ice in the mammoth exhibit, ya know, in case he woke up.

Our future home will be modeled after this! I would have jumped in for the photo op, but we already had a follower (museum security we dubbed "the gustapo") at this point... I apparently took pictures I shouldn't have, but they should have made the signs bigger!

Sad to be on our way back to the "Big Kid" world...

My hope is that many are appeased. Blessings to y'all!

Love,

Chels