ugly sweater champion!

We had another weekend full of Christmas activities! On Saturday morning, we had a special treat of going to Salty's for brunch. One of my adoptive families gave me a gift card and we had a great time feasting on every possible breakfast item!

Saturday night we attended our 2nd annual Ugly Christmas Sweater party. Ben was happy to take home the crown, err raindeer antlers for most creative for his old man/light sweater combo. It was a fun time with friends and great food.

Sunday afternoon Lindsey and I took Adelle out to get a pedi for her birthday. Even though it is winter, it was still fun to do a little pampering and of course a great chance to chat.

Little house update- we have a foundation!

We are off to AZ/CA for the holidays and will be back after the New Year!

even more Christmas festivities!

When it comes to Christmas, we just don't stop celebrating! This past weekend was no exception.

Ben was not feeling very well this weekend so I had to spread some holiday cheer solo for part of Saturday. I volunteered as a "guide" for families coming to get presents for their kids at the toy shop put on by the local YWCA. It was a blessing for me to interact with lots of different parents. I even got to brush up a little on my espanol.. I was actually really sad how much I've lost. I also got asked 3 different times if I was in high school.. I guess some things never change!

After resting all day, Ben was ready to go Sat. night. We went down to Green lake for the pathway of lights. This is probably our newest favorite Seattle holiday activity. We got down there a little early, so we went to Chocolati for some hot cocoa which was conveniently close to where we parked.



It was so fun to walk around the lake with lots of other families while taking in the lights. There were some sporadic carolers and a few pit stops for hot cider.



We finished off the night by driving through "Candy Cane Lane" which is one of the more well known places to check out holiday lights. It's hard not to be disappointed after growing up in Gilbert where people put their lights to music and having 30 blow ups in one yard is not uncommon. However, for Seattle, it was pretty good.

Sunday we went to church, did our normal cleaning, etc. and went to children's ministry. At one point, I looked over at Ben and he was reading a story with about 10 kids surrounding him. My heart skipped a beat at the thought of him being a daddy some day. Maybe not with 10 kids, but still. :)

Merry Christmas!

maybe I'm not only one...

I might be the only one that finds pretty much everything James does hilarious and cute. But, I partly have this blog for our memories, so I want to post this to remember James when he was this little..

Holiday Festivities!

Christmas is in full swing at the Crowl house!

This past weekend we braved the crowds to attend the Figgy Pudding Caroling contest in downtown.

We also checked out the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton. I use the term gingerbread because these were incredible creations made by local architecture firms.


Sunday afternoon we made some delicious sugar cookies with Jessie, Mark and James. I mistakenly explained that frosting a cookie included taking a bite out of it shortly after finishing. James thought it was a great activity except he wanted to bite every cookie he frosted!

Monday night our community group went and watched the Christmas ships on Edmonds pier and had a cookie exchange. We have had incredibly sunny weather recently, but it has been cold!!!

This is such a special time of year! In other exciting news... our house is finally being built!

Charlie Brown would be happy

Thanksgiving was absolutely wonderful. The best food ever, and wonderful company to boot! We spent the morning delivering food to some home bound clients of the local food bank. We go there every other week, but this was our chance to give them some fresh, non expired good food! We had a great time serving the people we have come to know and care for.


We spent the rest of the day at Jessie & Marks eating good food, playing some games, and scooping out our plan for Black Friday.


It's not even worth mentioning my Black Friday experience at Best Buy at 4:40 in the morning other than it did not work out as planned. We are back on the hunt for a washer/dryer set. Ben did scoop up all of the things we wanted at Office Depot including a new digital camera after ours broke in Seaside.

Saturday we headed out into the wilderness for our first forest tree cutting experience. It was beautiful scenery and we really enjoyed spending time with our friends. Our eye for good trees however is not the best. We thought we picked out a real winner, but when we got home and stood it up in our living room we started laughing hysterically. It definitely was not as full as we thought it was and struggled to put up 1/2 of our ornament collection. Oh well, it was a fun experience!

pre Thanksgiving festivities

Not a lot of pictures to post from this weekend, but we still had a lot of fun!

Friday night Ben and I got out for a much needed date night. Even though we don't even have kids yet, it is easy to get consumed in the daily activities and neglect spending quality time together.

We went to Zen Sushi in Mill Creek because Ben has been talking non stop about sushi for about the last month. I'm not really a fan, so I settled for some yummy teriyaki. It was slightly embarrassing when they only had chop sticks out and about 1/2 through shoving noodles in my mouth before they slipped off, a waiter kindly asked if I needed a fork. I am thankful we are married and not on a 1st date- that would have been so awkward trying to have conversation while I slurped noodles.

After dinner we went to the "cheap" theatre (it still costs as much as I paid for a new release when I was younger) and saw The Hurt Locker which was about Iraq soldiers who are responsible for destroying IED's. It was an incredibly intense movie and made us even more thankful for the people that serve our country.

Saturday Jessie & Mark took some pics of us for our Christmas card. I was happy to find a Christmas card freebie which allowed me to order 100 cards for free (including shipping!) After pics, we went to Red Mill for burgers and then I hung out with my sis while Mark & Ben went to the bodies exhibit. It sounded like it was fascinating, but I lost interest/my stomach when they began describing the nervous system like a fuzzy loofah.

Saturday night we babysit for our friends while they went out on a date.

So excited for the short week this week! We're spending Thanksgiving with my sister & Mark. Ben and I have a fairly long list for Black Friday shopping. Unfortunately I will be working the crowds on my own, Ben has to work. I'll let you know if I survive!!

family

Can I just say how much I love living close to family? It is such a blessing to be able to drive 5 min. and see my sister, brother in law and little ones. I wish that everyone lived up here because it makes it so much easier to invest in each others lives.

Here are some pics from last weekend. We played some Hand & Foot, went to the zoo and snuggled with this little bug:

Fun with James

He'll be a great daddy...

Happy Halloween!!

It's hard to believe we've already said goodbye to October and it's time to take on November!

We had a great Halloween packed with all sorts of fall festivities!

Earlier in the week Ben carved a pumpkin for his work's contest. He ended up tied with another coworker at the end of the day and the last customer was forced to make a decision between the two. Of course, they went with the best one :)

Here is Ben and his pumpkin the "out of towner" minus the apple for the nose he added later.


On Saturday we met up with some friends at a pumpkin farm to go through the 12 acre corn maze! The maze was designed after a map of Washington, so it was fun to see little landmarks in the maze like the space needle, the Tacoma narrows bridge, Mt. Rainier, etc. We split up into couples and had a race to the finish. We got excited when we got to the end and no one was there. Much to our surprise, everyone had already finished and were busy exploring the maze some more!

Saturday afternoon we went over to Steve and Lindsey's for some pumpkin carving fun. I thought the ideas I had researched were sure winners, but I was surprised when everyone started busting out some amazing designs! Needless to say, we didn't come close to winning, but it was a blast spending time with our friends.


We left the party for a while to meet up with Mark & Jessie for some chipotle burritos. This was our third year going- it's a great annual tradition! This year, little Saisha joined our burrito gang, but she was a little too tired for a burrito this year!

more birthdays!

Friday night we got together with some friends from our community group and a few other local groups to have a fall party. There was also a pumpkin carving contest that Ben and I failed miserably at. I had an image in my head of an old man pumpkin, but it did not turn out close to what I was picturing.

Saturday was spent at my work's annual auction fundraiser. It's held at the downtown Hyatt in Seattle and Ben and I were in charge of the wine toss. (A ring toss around wine bottles- not throwing wine bottles like some people thought). It was a really fun night and we were successful in raising some money for our organization! It's also a fun excuse to dress up!

We celebrated Mark's birthday this past weekend which was the last birthday of the never ending birthday packed Fall. We ate a dinner filled with Mark favorites including home made onion rings, boneless buffalo bites, and a multi layer mint brownie for dessert. yum! For Mark's birthday, Ben is taking him to the bodies exhibit.. eek!!

James turns 2!

Our favorite nephew turned two last week and we were delighted to attend his train themed birthday party over the weekend. My sister set the bar high for future parties. Their house was decked out in train memorabilia including tracks on the ground, two different train sets, and even a train sweater vest for James to wear.


I have always wanted to get into cake decorating so I made my first cake for his party. I was really happy with how it turned out!


We love these 2!

it's fall!

It is definitely fall around here in Washington! The leaves are turning brilliant colors, we have pulled out the jackets and sweaters, the rain has started, and our Starbucks budget is increasing just a little bit to make way for pumpkin spice chai. I love this time of year. I love the smell after a rain, I love the trees that look like they are in fire, and I love snuggling up on the couch with a blanket.


We are doing all of the wonderful fall festivities required when living in Seattle. Last weekend we went to a pumpkin patch with our friends Steve & Lindsey and their little one Kaci. We had such a fun time picking out pumpkins, checking out the animals, and soaking up the smell of kettle corn.

This weekend was also the celebration of my sister's 30th birthday! We had a surprise party for her and the theme was "things I ate when I was 20" There was an interesting mix of food including ramen, pizza pockets, bean dip, apples + dip (apparently there were some people who ate healthy), skittles & m&ms, and Texas sheet cake for dessert. It was a fun celebration of a wonderful woman! Happy Birthday Sis!


My mom is up visiting until Sunday, helping out with the little ones during the day. We have been blessed to have her up here! We are also still loving being auntie and uncle.

One last anniversary hurrah

We topped our seemingly endless anniversary/birthday celebration by spending a weekend away in Seaside, Oregon. We went the first weekend of "off season" rates, and ended up getting blessed in a HUGE way with fantastic weather! We were reminded constantly how the weather "was not normal" (probably to avoid massive amounts of people moving there). We had an incredible time!

We stayed at the cutest b & b one block away from the beach.


We got there Friday night and ate a great cajun dinner at a local restaurant. We walked down Broadway, the main street and played some skee ball and explored a candy shop. We made it to the beach just in time to catch a beautiful sunset .



Saturday morning we did a coastal drive and stopped at lots of different state parks and look out points. It was absolutely breathtaking!



We spent Sat. afternoon in Seaside playing some more arcade games, drinking a tasty malt from an old fashioned soda shop, finding 3 geocaches, and collecting sand dollars during low tide.


Sunday morning we left Seaside and explored the town just north called Astoria. We loved Astoria! We climbed a 162 stair column to get an amazing view of Astoria, the Columbia River, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. We also went on a historic trolley ride that was run by a married couple, how cute!

It was a wonderful weekend!