Happy Hallowe'en!!

Just wanted to share some fun Halloween photos with all our family and friends out there!

Here's Jack o' Lantern #1. A couple weekends before Halloween, we went to a local organic farm and picked out two pumpkins from the patch. We couldn't wait until Halloween to start carving, so this guy was set up a bit early.

This photo has nothing to do with Halloween, but I just wanted to show off the lobster! My mom came up with this great idea. See, she misses not being able to cook dinners for us, so each month, she sends me a menu and recipes and a check to buy the food with, and I can cook a nice dinner for Brian and myself. This was a extra special celebratory dinner in honor of buying our first house.

Here's pumpkin #2! Not the greatest picture, but I think you can see; it's a cat peeking over a fence saying "Boo!" We named it Boo Kitty. We think the cat looks a little like George.

Here we have some holiday decor.

And here's Brian, hard at work on carving Boo Kitty. Yes, that is a roto-zip he's using :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Moving in Across the Crick

Well, we've gone and done it now. We're officially suburbanites :-P

On Labor Day, Brian and I and some very kind friends moved all of our stuff from the U-District in Seattle across Lake Washington to Kirkland. (If you want our new mailing address, just shoot either of us an email or a phone call, and we'd love to give it to you.)

The move went pretty smoothly. We only had one truly evil piece of furniture: the dreaded sleeper sofa. Now, the story behind this ridiculously heavy piece of furniture is that we bought it so that our out-of-town friends and family (of which there are many) would be able to have a place to sleep when they came to visit us here in the Emerald City. It was well enough when we lived in a one-story bungalow, but let's just say it is a blessing that none of our four sofa-moving men died getting that thing up to our third-story condo! After about half an hour, unfastening some lighting fixture, taking a door off of its hinges, and some scraped paint here and there, the sofa is happily settled in our guest bedroom. So all you out-of-town friends and family had best be heading out this way to take advantage of it :)

We love our new place. We're almost completely moved in at this point, and it really feels like home. We can't wait to light our first fire in the fireplace this autumn! There are some oddities in the house. The previous owner clearly should have been a renter and not a home owner. The place isn't totally trashed, but it's pretty clear she didn't know how to maintain things. Or clean. Ick. But, a little sweat equity goes a long way, and it's been a good challenge for us (so far, at least).

We're photo-documenting our rennovations as we go, so we'll be periodically putting updates of the condo online for all to enjoy. Until then...

God bless!

NEW PHONE NUMBER

We have a new phone number. Yay!! But I guess it's not a good idea to put it on here. Email Brian or I and we will send it to you. :) Then, you can feel free to pass it on to our other friends and family in LA, Cd'A, and Rochester.

Officially Mrs. Brian Hudson

At last! For once the State of California actually came through on something. I was honestly beginning to worry. I had heard from several people in a little wedding chatroom I used to visit while engaged that Los Angeles was notorious for making people wait up to 5 months to get the certified copy of their marriage license, without which one cannot go to the Social Security office to change one's name. But, in a month-and-a-half, they managed to deliver it to my door.

The best part is that when I went downtown to the Social Security office here in Seattle, the hardest thing I had to do was find parking. Which, incidentally ended up being less than a block from the building and costing me a quarter. (Toto, we're not in South Central anymore!!) Then, I went into the building which was empty except for three employees and one other lady. So, I walked right up to the counter, filled out my application, and got my name changed. My new card should be arriving in the next 8-10 days!


In other news....

Brian has begun work at MS and just loves it. His boss, John, is a really neat, down-to-earth guy who isn't one for working crazy hours and seems to feed them all very well. He's had so much free food at work, in fact, that I'm beginning to feel silly for packing him lunch!

UW is treating me well. I wore one of my USC sweatshirts to school today for the first time. No one gave me any dirty looks, which was nice especially considering that it was the most conspicuous piece of 'SC garb I own: bright red! Tends to stand out next to UW's white, grey, and purple. Oddly enough, nobody around here seems to wear red. Intriguing...

Student body aside, though, I did end up in an interesting conversation due to the sweatshirt with two of our new neighbors. Apparently the husband of the family next door, whose name is Adam, was a Bruin, class of 1989! He said 'SC was a lot dirtier then but that he has a good deal of respect for them now. Nonetheless, he and our neighbor from across the street, Randy (who is a UW grad) couldn't help ribbing me for a little bit. It was a good introduction; mainly, it was really nice to get to meet some folks who live nearby.

More photos of the house soon, I promise! I just need Brian to sit down and help me figure out how to get them off of the camera.

The Pix are Here!

Or rather...they are at www.pictage.com. Just enter Bethany&Brian and you will find professional photos galore! Let us know what you think ^_^

Home Hunting Complete...the Church Hunt is ON!

Well, as you can probably tell from the title of this post, we have found a place to live! What a godsend, huh? I can hardly believe that we've only been here for 10 days and already we've found a wonderful little home. We ended up leasing that cute little house in the University District that Brian wrote about in the last post. We're planning on taking pictures of the outside today after my Italian lecture, and then we'll post them for you all to enjoy. Once we've moved in (January 15-17!!) we'll take some interior shots; those are more fun than the outside anyway, right?

Brian is particularly excited for the basement, henceforward known as "The Man Cave" where he plans to do manly things...like build model airplanes (rrraaaawwwwwwwrrrrrrrrr!) Do you hear the manliness? No...he'll probably build stuff down there, too, and hopefully have some good male bonding time with other "buildy-type" men. My one question is about the washer and dryer down there. Does that mean that part of the Man Cave belongs to me, thereby decreasing its manliness? I think not. I will just have to do laundry when he's not around :-P

Well, one down, one to go. The church hunt has begun. For some reason, we've been sticking to the Christian Reform denomination as we begin our search. We're denominational muts, as is, so really we're just trying to find a church home where we can grow. Our first attempt was at Seattle CRC. Nice little congregation and the sermon was thought-provoking...but we were by far the youngest couple and we really want to plug in with others who are in the same place in life that we are.

This past Sunday, we went to Sanctuary CRC, which is inside of the Taproot Theatre, a Christian theatre company around here that I plan to check out sometime in the not-too-distant future. They are a very young church, begun just over a year ago. Their worship is good and their pastor is really great. He, like Seth (the pastor at PCI for those who don't know him), seems to have the ability to "comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable" and to be controversial in a gentle way, "speaking the truth in love". We are going to a viewing/discussion of the movie Crash at the church office tonight. Hopefully that will prove entertaining and enlightening. If all goes well, we should be back at Sanctuary again on Sunday.

Brian mentioned after church that there are pros and cons to the church being so young. It's a little scary because you don't know what will happen, and they're just getting on their feet. But, it's also exciting because there is so much room to grow and serve in a church whose traditions aren't yet solidified. To be a part of that growth and service would be a great blessing.

A Lot Can Happen in 3 Weeks

Well, everything went beautifully! Exams finished up with a bang. Brian and I both did very well, it seems. The wedding was a dream. It was so incredible that neither of us ever had an ounce of nervousness or hesitation. We were simply overjoyed from beginning to end. In another week or so we should have the link to our online professional pix. In the meantime, here's a teaser for y'all:

Me and Meg at the hotel before the ceremony

Me and Caiti, also at the hotel

Brian's Aunt Terri putting on my veil (after doing all of our hair!)

Our First Dance: "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds

Let them eat... butternut squash soup with curried olive oil :-P

Crying during the Father-Daughter Dance

Mom and I both crying during her special song, "In My Daughter's Eyes" performed by Lance & Carol Brown (written by Martina McBride)

Bad picture of me, but the cake looks good!

Sorry, Ethan...we used forks and did NOT shove the cake in each others' faces

Just before leaving the reception. I think we were even happier than we look :)

The honeymoon was a blast. We stayed at a 100+ year old B&B called the Gold Mountain Manor Inn in Big Bear City. We had a marvelous time exploring the town, eating delicious meals (and yummy snacks in between), and enjoying married life :-P

Christmas was a blast. We had such a wonderful time celebrating with family and friends. We got to go to Lanie's Christmas concert at their church with Uncle Jim & Alex (Aunt Krissy we up in the loft with the kids). We got to check out Grandma & Grandpa Carlberg's new apartment at Legacy on Christmas Day. It was really cute and the dining room they had for us was very nice.

On December 30th, we had our second reception at Mom's house. It was wonderful to be surrounded by so many people we love to celebrate our marriage once again! What a perfect end to a fabulous trip.

A picture of the Rochester Reception cake.

And, now we're in our temporary housing here in Seattle. School starts on Tuesday for me, and Bri is counting the days until he begins at Microsoft. It seems that the whirlwind of the past month is beginning to die down, but the dust hasn't settled yet. Life is good, and God is better!

Btw... Here are some pictures of our new apartment:

Kitchen

Kitchen: view from living room

Bedroom: View #1

Bedroom: View #2

Brian at our kitchen table: already on the internet :-P

View of the Space Needle from our living room window!

The Living Room...I think the little candle makes it homey :)


THE END.