Happy Thanksgiving

We haven't been doing good this month with updates... so here's the latest. We moved into our great new home the first weekend with the help of our families (see picture below).



Then Sara went to Illinois to help Brittany celebrate her wedding (congrats Brit and Phil). She got to see lots of college friends and had lots of fun.






This last weekend we went to Portland to enjoy Thanksgiving with Sara's family (mom, dad, rob, karen, grandparents Brindley). We also went to see the signing Christmas tree in Portland and hit the stores early on black Friday.

Other big news for the month: Sara's cousin Shannon had her first baby... a boy.

Family amongst waterfalls

This last weekend we went to Silver Creek Falls to join a family get together. It was good times had by all (all two of us). It was a beautiful weekend and we took some time to visit the South Falls. This week is crazy because we are moving into our first house! We get the keys on Friday and both of our parents are coming up to help us move along with my bro-in-law and possibly my sis and the kids. Enjoy the pics and wish us luck :)

Oooo

Ahhh

Orange and black? We meant to wear green and yellow!

Sunset

Gotchya!

End of Summer

Here are some pictures of the end of summer for us. First, here are some pics of me and my soccer team that I coached for Upward soccer (soccer at our church).





Here are some updated pictures of our soon to be house (2-1/2 weeks to go). Even with all the house stuff and work keeping us busy we have been blessed to have been able to see a lot of friends and family in the last couple of weeks! It's been great. Just for kicks... here is who we have seen: Tanya, Robert, Forrest, Francie, Melinda, Jeff, Bryce, Joel, Mike, Sarah, Beth, Rachel, Sheri, Dave, Ivan, Ivan Jr., Henry, Tori, Michael, Jake, Drew, and Hannah... pretty cool, huh? :)

Ooooh Ahhhh

Sara and I went camping at Jubilee Lake near Tollgate the two weekends ago. It was a nice little spot in Eastern Oregon that was quite beautiful. It's nice to get out and see God's beauty every now and again, even when things are busy. Enjoy the pics!

Summer

Hello? Anyone there? Sorry it's been so long, but our computer went on the fritz and we were waiting for a new one that we ordered. Here's a little update on what has been going on... Sara's school is up and running. We will post a picture of her classroom when we take one. Things are going well so far. It is a new program, so it has taken a couple of weeks to figure out student learning levels and schedules, but things are starting to settle down now. As for other news, we recently went under contract on a house in Richland.




We also did some hiking in Yakima (copied Michael and Ki) a couple of weekends ago.



This last weekend Rob and Jen stopped by on their way to Montana and we went to the world famous Pendleton Round-up for the first time. It was a big rodeo with lots of good riders and some pretty impressive entertainment.

China Adventure

We recently got back from China, where we were for three weeks. It was a great opportunity for us to see a different culture. We spent a couple days in Bejing (15 million population), a couple days in Nanning (4-5 million) and two weeks in Du'An (600,000) were we taught English to 15 yr olds. We also got to go to some remote villages up in the mountains where only 10-15 families live in mud houses. The kids were great to work with and loved learning. Not only did we get to teach them English but got to share with them about our culture, how we love, how we have fun, and our morals. Most of these kids live in poverty and will never have the opportunity to go outside of their town, let alone China. Here is a little video highlighting our adventure. It starts in Bejing (2008 Olympics), then Nanning, then Du'An and the villages and finally our little detour through Hawaii (we missed our connection by 45 minutes forcing us to have a 16 hour layover in Honolulu, then had our flight canceled and had another 21 hours layover before we got home). Rough place to get stuck, huh? Let us know if you want to hear more. Enjoy!

Summer fun

Here's us having some fun before we leave on our big China trip. We went to the park in town to watch fireworks with our neighbors Scott and Allyson (and Teddy). Then last weekend we went to the Oregon coast with Sara's parents and cousin Dima. Beautiful weather and great friends and family... who could ask for more? :)

Fireworks

Holiday spirit

Skim boarding

Accidental charcoling

China prep

This weekend we put on a car wash, our second fund raiser for our China trip. We were incredibly fortunate with the perfect weather. It was great to spend a whole day with the team. We had a fairly steady stream of cars. People were very generous with their donations. Only 16 days until we leave!!!

Lunch break at the car wash

Us at the China team Chinese potluck

Family Fun

This past week we had the opportunity to see lots of family. It started out by going to Seattle to see my big sis at her surprise birthday party. We also got to see the rest of the family - Mom and Dad and Forrest and Francie as well as Jeff's family. Jeff did a great job of surprising Melinda and throwing her a great party.


On Saturday we headed down to Portland to visit Sara's cousins (Shannon and Ryan - and Ryan's girlfriend Katey) who were visiting from Tennessee, as well as celebrating Father's Day with Sara's dad. We had a BBQ on Sunday to celebrate the big day and then hung out and played games. Sara was able to stay the week since it is summer vacation right now! Here are some pictures of the week.

All the cousinsBeach bumsCannon Beach

Memorial Weekend

This last weekend we got to go visit Forrest and Francie (brother and sister -in-law). On the way we got to see my parents in Spokane and have dinner. In Montana we went to Missoula were we went to the Saturday market, walked down town, and hiked up Crazy Canyon looking over east Missoula (picture below). We even did a little dancing at the senior center.

We also headed up to the Kuntz family farm near Big Fork where Sara saw the cherry orchard for the first time. On Memorial day we drove up to Glacier National Park only to have probably the cloudiest day of the year! Oh well. We did see some great scenery on our way back, but had to wait until driving back through Idaho on I-90 until we saw a bear.

View from Crazy Canyon outside of Missoula

Montana

True love :)

Start-up

Well... better late than never, right? Since it seems like we are always going somewhere on the weekends, we figured that we may as well blog about it and if nothing else, go back and re-live the experiences ourselves! We hope everyone else will enjoy it too.
This last week I (Silas) had to go to Corvallis for work (working with HP) so we headed down early to do a little mother's day project and fix up Sheri's office while she and Dave were in Virginia visiting friends. It was lots of work, but Sara and I had fun and it was rewarding to see it look good at the end. We didn't take any before pictures, but this is what it looked like at the end.


Other highlights of the trip were having a bbq with Mike and Sarah, visiting our Aunt and Uncle and cousins (Collins) in Corvallis and having a sleep-over with 3/4 of the Gallaway girls (cousins). A pretty good trip if you ask us!


Some other recent news in case you haven't heard from us for awhile: Sara recently got offered a job to work as a Special Education teacher working with 10 Autism students in grades 3-5. The job is in a brand new elementary school in Richland (White Bluffs Elementary). Also, we recently decided to go to China to teach english for a couple of weeks followed by a couple of days of tourism in Bejing.