ASAP

THIS is why we can't WAIT to move asap. Unbelievable.

Seattle Graduation Dinner Party

We had a fun, private meal on Lake Union, a good ending to a good day:)

My crab-stuffed Mahi Mahi in a mango sauce- so good...

Girl's and Boy's sides segregated:) (unintentionally, it just evolved that way)


Playing around with colors

Graduation: Take 1

Putting on my hood for the first time- I wanted to wear it like the Miss America contendants but that was vetoed

With Springer, Brant and On, some of the cohort-mates

Cheeks were getting a little sore by then

Grateful to have friends and fam there

New fave pic

Kiesha had a crush on my copper and green eye-shadow and made me document it

Silly huge robe

Finally we got smart and took some outside shots


It was a good day. Thanks to everyone who's sent cards/gifts/flowers, they are prominently displayed in the kitchen:)

How to Boil an Egg

I'm not a dumb person, and this is a dumb task, I should be able to do it flawlessly time after time. However, this has not been the case, and various techniques have disappointed, so I'm throwing it out there: do any of you know the perfect way to hard boil eggs? I'm talking, one crack, two half shells, piece of cake, perfect. If so, let me know!

Bye bye B-E

Friday night we got to watch some of the YL seniors Los loves graduate from Burlington-Edison High School. I hadn't been to a high school graduation in a long time and definitely loved going, as a closing piece of this chapter of our lives. We are proud of them, and know that college will be a fabulous transition for them.

Josh was the last person in the recessional line. He spotted Los and I, spontaneously ran over to hug us, and then had to run back through all the junior girls to catch up:)

Josh and Los

Matt makes out with Burly too, he's an affectionate guy:)

Bourne... Jason Bourne (way better than Bond!)

So with all the graduation festivities and everything going on, we needed some down time as well- so we holed up and hosted our own little Bourne Trilogy movie festival. It had been a while... we forgot how much we LOVE them! Love all the international locations (London to India, and everywhere in between, Germany, Russia, Tunisia...) and the story line and the action. Now I feel inspired to write my last 16 pages:)

Snapshot from 2am

I should be sleeping. I tried to go to bed 3 hours ago. I’ve been checking the clock since 11:30. My mind won’t turn off. Does a spoonful of Nutella have that much caffeine? Is it excitement about graduation? Anxiety about finding a job and a new home? Anticipation of traveling this summer? And in years to come? (Asia, the Caribbean, Africa and World Cup?) Talking about getting Burly a sister again- a Pug, or maybe another breed? Decisions, decisions. Making lists in my head. Things on back burners and things on front burners of our lives. Thinking about buying and selling furniture, yet wanting to live simply. It’s hard to have a “style” when your location and space changes every few years. Rustic pine? Espresso? Glass? Wood? New? Antique? Who knows! Where and when will we end up somewhere? We hope we land permanently in CA, but are we the kind of people that land permanently? We’ll never stop exploring, but is it in our DNA to settle? There’s so much to experience in life! So much wonder, so much beauty and creativity. We are on the cusp of new life, full of surprises around every corner, I can feel it, it makes me hyper and giddy. The yearning to experience as much as possible in this life makes me ache! It makes me want to burst!

Yet it’s 2am. And I should be sleeping. I’ve done all my tricks, performed all my acrobatics, went pee another time, closed the shutters even more tightly. Cuddled with my dog. Put him in another room, so I don’t hear him snoring. It’s raining outside. That should be soothing. My husband is sleeping next to me. I put my ice-block feet on his warm legs. Listening to him breathe should be soothing. Yet here I am, twiddling my thumbs at 2am. There must have been something in that Nutella.

World Cup 2010- South Africa

Maybe one of our next adventures? Who's coming with us?

NYC Marathon

Maybe next year babe...

From: marathonmailer@nyrr.org [mailto:marathonmailer@nyrr.org]
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 14:53
To: Evans, Carlos J LT (VQ-1)
Subject: ING New York City Marathon 2008


Entry Number: 292990

Dear carlos evans,

Thank you for applying to the ING New York City Marathon 2008. We're
sorry to inform you that you were not selected in the random lottery
drawing. Although we wish everyone could be accepted, we have to limit
the size of the field to ensure the best experience for each of our
runners.



WHATEVER!

Deadlines and Graduation...

Okay, so pray for me to feel motivation not procrastination! I have 26 pages to write in the next week- 10 of which are due tomorrow before I graduate in Seattle. Then before we head to CA to graduate down there I need to conjure up a 4 and a 12 pager... I am so checked out, my mind is running wild! Which is not helpful, by the way.

This too shall pass. I just can't wait to PLAY, and to RELAX and to see friends and fam and SUN in Cali... and then clean our house/yard so we can put it on the glorious real estate market! And go to Europe! And, and, and... you see why I get distracted from the task at hand?!

Goodbye.

and one more thing (that was my reference to John Mayer's song My Stupid Mouth, in case you missed it)

Graduation dinners:
This Saturday-5pm Lake Union BluWater Bistro, let us know if you're coming! Happy hour until 6:) And I am planning to be happy.

Next Friday-6pm in Pasadena Twin Palms.
Next Saturday- 3pm bbq at my aunt/uncle's in the OC, in Lake Forest (right by Rick Warren's Saddleback Church). Their backyard is straight out of my dreams (or magazines), come if you can!

Brazilian Soccer- the beautiful game

For our date night Saturday, we went to maybe my favorite sporting event ever thus far (other than the Olympics in '02), the Brazil-Canada World Cup 2010 qualifier. I've been outside the Rose Bowl, and the 2004 (big deal- Sox won) Yankees-Red Sox ALCS, but never coughed up the dough for the tickets. This was $200 well spent, it was SO EXCITING. I still love soccer, even though I haven't played in years now. I mark my life by World Cups and can tell you exactly where I was for the past few (2006- Canadian pubs in Vancouver, 2002- in Seattle, right before moving to Berkeley, 1998- Amsterdam pub and Kyrgyzstan, watching anywhere with a tv! 1994 and 1990- in California on the floor at my mom's house).

Canadian Fashion (or lack thereof!)

Brazilian Fashion (she was wearing 5 inch wedge heels too!)


Sitting in the 5th row, even near the goal line, was so cool. You could hear the players and see their fancy footwork up close. I have never seen such flawless passing in my life. Corner kicks (which I used to take and love) were 5 yards away from me, amazing! Of course with our sub-par camera, I couldn't capture the action, but I tried. Within the first 3 minutes of the game Brazil scored right in front of my face, and 7 minutes later, on an amazing header, Canada scored the equalizer. The end score was 3-2, with 2 goals taken away for offsides and many near misses; it was so action-packed we were hoarse and breathless.



Doing the wave with people from all over the world was so fun. I had no idea there were that many Brazilians in the Northwest! The sea of obnoxious yellow even beat out the Seattle uniform (Black North Face). The people-watching was fantastic, as many of the 47,000 fans came decked out in hilarious outfits and a bunch of Brazilians did Capoeira (this awesome Brazilian 'fight' dance I always love to watch- check out the video if you don't know what I'm talking about) outside the stadium to the pulsing rhythm of the drums they beat for three hours before, during and after the game. Such a fun night!

My sentiments exactly:)

Kids we like!

In case I sounded too down on kids in that post, here are some kids we like. We've already featured Sophie (our favorite 2+ year old girl) and big bro Gavin

Isn't she awesome?!

and Judah, (Below) our favorite <1 year old boy, both of whom live in Jacksonville, FL; but here are some neighbor kids and friends' kids we hang out with. Our neighbor kids are crazy, about 6 of them have those mini-trucks that they drive around all over the place (the sound haunts me while I garden and study- it's worse than chalk on chalkboards). They're up and down our cul-de-sac on bikes/trikes all day long too. But we like them, and they LOVE Burly (the only dog on the block that they can pick up, b/c he stayed 'puppy' size... so it's cool.


Burly playing in the sprinkler at the other Evanses house on our street
Chunky Caleb and Ashley

Monica and Erik's baby Audrey and big bro Jackson




We also can't wait to meet other friend's kids, like budding artist Elise and her sister Ainsley in South Carolina some day.

Even while writing this blog, I got a call telling me I'm going to have another little cousin for our future kids as Mike and Anna are pregnant again, that's fun. Maybe Nathan and Kaeden will get a sister? Better go add it to my list, I'm telling you, babies are everywhere!!

Babies R Us (well not us, but them)

Seriously. Could any more people I know be pregnant at one time? Seriously. In the next month, 3 friends are giving birth, and that's just the tip of the iceberg... My running tally for 2008 has like 15 people on it, intense... So many people I know have 2 kids already- how did the time fly by?

This weekend I had two baby showers, I am about OD'd on baby paraphernalia for a while.

With Kelci and Kiesha- we've gone from galavanting around Europe to being adults together!

Kirsty, who we honored today, may be the most gorgeous pregnant (or otherwise) lady ever!

I am SUPER happy for our friends, and everything they got is so little and CUTE, but what a market it has become, Baby Polo and Baby designer organic clothes, unbelievable. And don't get me started on how expensive this stuff can be... $100 slings, $400 strollers. It's overwhelming. Being one of the few people that has not had a baby that was at these showers, let's just say that I'm sub-par at the games they play. And that's okay. I will have my time, but right now I just need to digest the barrage of info thrown around the past two days (most of which I won't repeat for fear of sounding ignorant and gross- I mean, who wants to read about breast pads, right?) and be glad that it's other people who are dealing with it right now. I just need to finish grad. school and then I'll start learning about everything these gals are taking on. When (if) God grants us the joy to walk down that path, I want to be stoked, but today, just for today, it is a little overwhelming...

Lovely weekend

The countdown is on, as I need to type 26 or so pages for my finals... second to last finals I ever do! (maybe) So I really shouldn't be blogging... but whatever. Pray for me to finish!!! Two weeks til everything's done and we're in Cali! Woo hoo... It will be a grand celebration, if you want to come to my aunt/uncle's for a bbq (they live in Lake Forest, in the OC) let us know, 3pm on the 14th!

But we had a fab weekend this weekend and I wanted to share some pics/stories from it... Friday night we went to our local brewery with Nick and Lindsay, so much fun... When we have kids we will miss these "single" days where we can go out until 11 or whenever we want, so we're savoring them. We can't wait to visit them in Africa after they move to Malawi!

Saturday we went to lunch in Seattle at the Snow's house, where we met the 30 people we're traveling with in Greece and Turkey. That was tons of fun, even though I was regretting making Spanakopita by hand, since it took me 2-3 hours on Friday! It was a huge hit, though, so I suppose it was worth it. Don't ask me to make it for at least another year:) The group is great, with a great mix of ages (13-65) and marital status:) I'll definitely be chronicling our time, similar to what I did in S. America (though regrettably without Joel's great photos).




Before our fun date night Saturday, we were in Bellevue with time to spare, so we decided to walk around their cute downtown park. No sooner had we gotten there, then all kinds of people with small dogs started to show up out of the woodwork. Turns out that every day at 5:30, there's a gathering of owners so dogs can play together. Such a fun surprise to meet a bunch of strangers this way and Burly had a ball being sniffed as the "new guy," and chasing around Maggie, Molly, Yoshi, Charley and co.

Netherlands

So my little brother decided last week to up and move to Amsterdam to play baseball for the summer.



I know it's not quite as enticing as asking ya'll to come visit us in South Texas (psych), but if you are in his new hood, go say hi!