is this thing on?

this is one of my favorite pictures, i hope you enjoy it, too. from left to right starting with me: jaime, brian, kara, george, sarah, aaron, kate, ben, josh, janson, elissa, & amy prayer...it's a good, good thing. there's Joel, our officiant... he's got earrings and a wife and a sweet goatee. our videographer's eyes got wide as he said, "whoa, what a cool priest!" here's the big picture... just pretend the videographer isn't there, trying to hog the reading of the Word.

go to this link! http://ipods.freepay.com/?r=23048509

whelp, brian's 23 now. my parents and bff amy came up to visit for the weekend. we ate at the backcountry brewery and then visited the outlet mall. i played hostess for the first time. i made lemon-soy burgers which turned out pretty good if i do say so myself. mom and dad brought him a cake from the place that made our wedding cake because they make pretty much the best cakes i've ever tasted and then he opened his presents. it was very nice to have people we know around since we really haven't met too many people up here yet. happy birthday brian!

our view from our balcony our dining room our kitchen our living room

so, brian got the call that he got the job at keystone resorts in the accounts receivable department. our next step was to find a place to live a.s.a.p. so we got online and looked at the ads in the summit daily news and then headed up the next day determined not to leave until we'd found something. there really aren't places to live in keystone because it's pretty much all just condo's for all the tourists. so, our first two places were in dillon valley. we walked in the first one and felt like we were on an episode of 'that 70's show'. it came furnished and it hadn't been re-decorated since the apartments had first been built. orange, shag carpet, brown pleather swivel seats, orange curtains, and a fireplace that had been painted mustard yellow. we said we'd keep it in mind...right. our next stop was up the street a little ways and it didn't look hopeful from the outside but we kept an open mind. we walked in only to have our nostrils bombarde...

so, it's been a long time and while i feel like i should apologize (though who i'm apologizing to has the potential to allude me) i think i should just leave it at this: dial-up internet stinks and i don't have the patience to work on a blog when it takes an hour for every link i click on to load. now that that's been said... this summer has been a whirlwind with so much change, so many events, and so much goodness. i moved home to colorado springs at the end of may and as i was driving down division street in spokane for the last time as a resident i almost burst out of my skin i was so happy to finally be leaving. for those of you who've never ventured to spokane, it's really not a horrible town so go, visit, boost their economy... i just did not want to live there anymore. coming home was great because it meant that i got a break from being a grown-up for a while and if you think that's not an excellent thing, i think you're lying. my only task was to...

said good-bye to my good friend jude today. she and her husband joel (the officiant for our wedding) are moving back to seattle. though i'm not looking forward to the long-distance thing, i'm very excited for them and to see how God uses them there.