2009: part II

From the last post, I left off where us Powelson's were enjoying a nice summer of work and taking time to play. Despite having a full and busy schedule of fun, somehow, we ended up with no plans for Labor day, and so spent a lazy Labor day morning talking about plans for where we wanted to be in a few years. Discussion turned from trying to move from our one bedroom apartment (since the lease was up) and trying to find a house to rent for a while. Craigslist results for houses to rent yielded very expensive results - how can people afford to rent houses? But there was a little two bedroom home for sale. With no intent of actually buying a house, we called the Realtor to see if we could check it out. We went to look at the home that afternoon, and really liked it. Two days later we put an offer on the house and the sellers accepted! I've heard that most people look at a few homes before buying their first, but it just felt right, and you can't dispute that feeling. So we bought it.

The house

The back of the house

The secret grow house, which is one of the many storage sheds on the property. (If you come to visit us, Richard gives a special "flashlight tour" of our crazy back yard. It's pretty spooky, but you do get your own flashlight.)

It turned out to be a good buy - 1) because the monthly mortgage payment turned out to be less than what we were paying to rent our apartment, and 2) because we found out we would soon need two bedrooms! About two weeks after signing an agreement to buy the house, we found out that we would be having a baby! And two weeks later, as we were trying to adjust to that news, we found that Kim would be losing her job (thanks to major state budget cuts the whole program was closed).

So to review, in just a little over a month, we bought our first home, found out we'd be having our first baby, and found out we would be losing our major source of income - in that order! Oh yeah, and Richard started graduate school sometime in there as well. And right after that, we moved into Richard's parent's home until the house closed (which, by the way, we sincerely appreciated them letting us crash there and eat their food for a month!).

According to the Holmes and Rahe stress scale, these factors alone should have made us both at risk for stress-induced illness (really, the scale should have said we were at risk of going crazy). And despite all this, I have to say that we've been incredibly blessed, not just because we haven't gotten ill, but also because life has continued to move along beautifully. We are loving the house, and slowly getting settled in. Kim is thoroughly enjoying some down time in-between jobs, and is enjoying a healthy pregnancy to date. Despite the recession, there's been pretty job interviews and it's looking hopeful that there will be a good job soon. Richard made it through his first semester of graduate school with great grades, despite all the life commotion. November and December were mostly spent wrapping things up (moving into our home, Kim finishing her job) and adjusting to all the changes. So I think, with the new year, we're ready to just veg for a while - at least until May 19th when our baby is due. Hopefully we'll have no exciting news until then! Here's a few more pics from the rest of the year...

Just got handed the keys to our house!


The first Thanksgiving we've ever cooked - rather beautiful, if I may say so...


My little brother - back from his 2-year church mission in Canada!


Out with the Powelson clan


Christmas in spangle - making truffles, going 4-wheeling, and gym night




And there's it is, 2009. Wishing all a wonderful 2010!

Another year has flown by, without a single addition to our blog...

I'm considering only posting on even years, that way every other year I have a guaranteed new year's resolution. Actually, Richard, who is in charge of the yearly Christmas letter was feeling a distinct lack of creative energy for the task, and so it never materialized. Thus, the task has fallen upon me to fill in the details of the last year - our 2009. I think the main problem with writing about the past year, is that it implies writing about things that happened before September - and there has been so much change in our lives since then, it's hard to believe that there were a full 8 months of the year before that. So, I'm doing two installments of 2009. here it goes!

January - August aka the part of the year where everything went along nicely.

Life was going well. We had settled into Tri-cities living, and into our jobs at Lutheran Community Services - Richard working in suicide prevention, and Kim working in hospitalization alternatives (keeping kids in their homes with intensive intervention instead of shipping them off to residential care). It was great for both of us to be working in the same building, but with different co-workers, as it meant that we each always had a lunch buddy, and someone to talk to if work got slow.
Richard's sister got married in February, so we spent a lovely Valentine's day helping with and participating in that event. In our spare time, Richard took to loving board games, and has become a collector of sorts (ask him about boards and bits if you dare), while Kim started, and actually finished multiple craft items - special shout out to craft club that lasted one meeting, but was still very fun! Richard was part of music club with the guys, while Kim spent craft night talking, shopping and doing anything but crafts. Craft club died, but music club turned into something greater - the Seaworthies reunion.

March brought on the much anticipated first show of the Seaworthies reunion - with Richard on the keys. Although much acclaimed, a few months later they performed their second and last show, leaving Richard wanting to perform more. Thus lead to the beginning of the Powelson family folk band:



While the Powelson family folk band has yet to perform, we have high hopes for summer 2010. Watch out free family events in the park!

In April - needing to refresh ourselves and shake off winter - we took a long weekend, and had a fabulous time in New York and Connecticut. That should have been a separate blog all in itself, but here's a few of the best pics:

The greatest grocery store of all time.
Easter Sunday at Yale, at the oldest campus church in the U.S.

Finally got to have a street vendor New York hot dog. Truthfully, the gyros were more amazing. But the hotdog experience was still good. All the food in New York was good.

Times Square

Richard and Al Roker.



When summer came around, we also took some time off to head to the coast with Richard's family.
At a little light house we visited.

A sporty shot of Richard on the beach

Yoga on the beach


Aside from work, summer also included going to Kim's 10-year high school reunion (why is it always so hard to believe that it's been 10 years since high school?), as well as a
best friend's weddings (and a guest appearance by DJ honeysauce).


We also floating down the river, watching the neighbor's fireworks on the 4th of July from Richard's parent's rooftop, and saw America at the county fair. It was all going so nicely, until that one fateful day in September when we got a crazy idea...but that's for the next post :)