Winter Wonderland?

We are in Kirkland for Christmas, as we typically are this time of year. However, this year (unlike most) we haven’t left Kirkland for the past three days. While the seemingly neverending snow is very beautiful, we are starting to get a little claustrophobic. I have never been so excited for our trip to Fred Meyers this afternoon. But, yesterday we took a walk to visit Allegra and Matt and their family. Allegra and I had a chance to compare baby-bellies… I’m winning (but I have a 10 week advantage). I am also winning the baby-belly competition with Tiffany, even though we are due on the same day (freaky, I know — and no, we didn’t plan that).

So while we are stuck inside, we are enjoying what will be the last Christmas without screaming children running around… Next year will be different for sure.

Visiting Autumn

If Autumn won’t come to us… then we will just have to go to Autumn. Although we did catch a preview of winter…

While we are still without child and fancy-free, we decided to take a quick weekend trip to Virginia to visit some friends. During our last trip out that direction, we hit most of the tourist highlights. However, that trip was focused mostly on our friends’ wedding, and we didn’t get to hang out with them too much.

This trip was much more relaxed. We spent one afternoon with Ben’s brother at the Naval Academy and some time experiencing Washington DC, but mostly we had a good chance to catch up with our friends.

SoCal Fun

So I know we have been negligent in keeping up with our blog posts. I think the slump in my blog posting can all be explained by my hesitation to post pictures of my self in my rapidly expanding state. Then again, it has occurred to me that I walk around with my big belly in public all the time. I guess if I can get over that, I should be able to get over posting photos on our blog.

These photos are from the middle of November. We had some visitors in town and a beautiful weekend to enjoy hanging out in Orange County. We discovered a park we had never been to that is remarkably close to where we live. The park has a man-made lake where we rented these tri-cycle paddle-boat things. We also spent some time walking through the beautiful nature trails

We also tried to go to the beach, but it turned out to be a crazy windy day. Unfortunately, Ben didn’t get to play much frisbee. Despite the wind, it was still a beautiful day at Huntington Beach.

Tagged

So I’ve been tagged by Marilee to blog 7 interesting things about myself.  I am not so sure how interesting these things are, but here goes:

1.) I love the beach.  When I was a teenager, I spent a week every summer camping at the beach with my youth group.  Those were some of the best times of my life.  While my husband hates the feeling of sand on his skin and burns easily, I can’t get enough of the beach.  My first trip to summer camp, I tried to clean the sand off me for the first couple of days.  When that proved to be a useless effort, I gave in and just enjoyed the sand.  Now I love the feeling of sand in my toes.  I even like how after a trip to the beach, I find sand in everything.  Every once in a while, I still find a few grains of sand in the pages of the Bible I used to take with me to camp.

2.) I have wanted to be an architect since I was 14.  I like how architecture combines logic and problem solving with design.  Of course I have my days where I get frustrated with work, but in general, I love my job.  I like having a creative outlet.  I like that I can draw a little sketch of a building and that someone will build it.  And I like that what I have drawn becomes someone’s home.

3.) I like wearing Converse shoes.  Currently in my closet I have a brown pair, a red pair, and not one, but two, pairs of charcoal gray Converse shoes.

4.) I love ice cream.  I used to eat a bowl before dinner nearly every day.  My favorites are mint chip and vanilla.

5.) I used to have a great sense of direction.  Now I get lost all the time.  I think my husband’s even better sense of direction has caused mine to atrophy.  I can get myself to a few places that we go to regularly, but outside of my daily or weekly routine, I am sure to get lost.

6.)  I don’t like last minute plans.  For example, last Friday afternoon I won 2 tickets to a hockey game for the game that evening.  I almost didn’t go.  Fortunately, my husband likes to be spontaneous, so we went, and we had a great time.

7.) I started drinking coffee when I was 10.  Now, before you think that I must have had a terrible mother, I started drinking a pretty frou frou drink… a raspberry mocha… and I had one a week during my sister’s music lesson.  Besides, I grew up near Seattle and that just isn’t too strange there.

Now that I made it through that, I am going to tag:  Carrie, Kerry, Allegra, Ashleah, Tiffany, and Erin.

XY

It’s a boy! If you didn’t know, we are expecting a baby in the end of February. Tonight we had a few friends and family over for the big gender reveal. After dinner, we had everyone pick a box… pink if they were guessing it was a girl and blue if they were guessing a boy. Once everyone had a box, they opened them at the same time. All of the boxes had the same thing in them; a cupcake with XY written in blue frosting (for the Scientifically Challenged).

We also took name suggestions from the group. The boy and girl name lists were more even until after the reveal… And even though it seemed to be a group favorite, we probably won’t be naming our baby Darth Vader. (Sorry Joel)

7 degrees

Almost 6 years ago, we began planning our own wedding.  The first place we looked into having our wedding at was this gallery space in Laguna Beach called 7 degrees.  Although it is a very cool venue, it didn’t end up working out for our wedding.  However, when our friends began planning their wedding a few years back, we suggested that they look into it.  So last night we got to go to their wedding at 7 degrees and it was beautiful.  The bride and groom put their personal touch on every last detail.  Everything from the martini bar with an ice luge and a full coffee bar to the bagpiper at the ceremony and framed paintings painted by the groom’s grandfather around the gallery.

A Wedding in Somis

This weekend we went to a friend’s wedding up in Somis.  While not the most convenient of locations, it was beautiful.  And it was great to see old friends and be a part of Gina and Caleb’s special day.  Both the bride and groom are particularly goofy characters, so the wedding was definitely a party.  The event also turned out to be somewhat of a group effort.  My friend Jessica and I helped with the wedding invitations.  Another friend, Marilee, made a gazillion cupcakes (they were delicious)!  Other friends helped with wedding favors and make-up.  All in all, we had a great time.

You’ve Been Soft-Served!

We’ve been working on this little project with a group from our office for the last few months.  Well, not that little.  Actually, it ended up being about 8′ tall.  The project, more specifically, is a design competition and canned food drive, all rolled into one.  We participated in the first ever CANstruction event held in Orange County.  CANstruction has been held in many different cities all over North America, but this is the first time it has been in Orange County.  Twelve teams participated and the structures are on display now (for the next 2 weeks) at South Coast Plaza.  Each team had to design a structure out of canned food, collect the necessary cans, and build a structure for the display during a 12 hour period while the mall was closed on Friday night.

Our team decided to build a soft-serve ice cream cone out of tuna (dolphin-safe, of course), corn, and chicken cans (all from Trader-Joe’s… they do have nice looking cans).  So here it is… what do you think?

Ben, Chris, Jessica, Sarah, & Doug... mid-cone (11:45pm)

Ben & Jessica... the aerial view (12:00am)

Ben, Audrey, & Chris... admiring the work (3:00am)

The Final Product (3:30am)

A weekend afternoon in sunny Seattle

Last weekend we went up to the Seattle area to visit the fam.  Since we travel up there a couple times a year, there aren’t many tourist attractions that we haven’t visited yet.  However, a while back Ben was reading about a new winery building in Architectural Record.  It turns out that the Januik Winery is located only minutes from my parents’ house.  Although it is a pretty simple, concrete tilt-up building, the architect (Mithun) used wood and concrete details in a unique and affective way.  The day we were there, they were setting up for some sort of event that night.  The indoor and outdoor spaces provide a nice venue for events.  There is also a wine tasting room and storage areas for the wine.  Here are a few photos for the interested:

Local Tourists – Part 2

Last weekend we hosted 2 more visitors from Seattle, so we had yet another opportunity to play the role of local tourists. Besides taking the Brosts to some of our favorite restaurants in Orange County (such as Wahoo’s, Zov’s, Memphis, and Celinda’s), we spent an afternoon at Huntington Beach, and a day at the Getty. Along the way Marissa tried to teach the art of the “candid self-portrait.” We had a great time… if we could only spend every weekend playing catch at the beach and wandering around a great piece of SoCAL contemporary architecture with some of our favorite people.