The Washington Files

Happy New Year Everyone!

2008-01-04T12:00:00.001-08:00

Well, the holiday season is over and a new year has just begun. I think I will recap our year in one long paragraph...here goes:
We started off the year in Park City Utah with the Eric, Ruth, Steven (ph?), Lisa, Nicole and Brian. That was a blast. Lost my job at EDO Corporation (no loss). Worked with RICO for 5 months...thanks Eric!! Moved to Seattle. I am working for PSE in Bellevue WA and we reside in Renton (Jennifers birthplace). Jennifer is now a full time mommy...she loves it. We found a really cool church. We are adding a new member to our family (due in June). Everyone thinks its going to be a boy minus me. Our visitors for Christmas included: M & D Andrist, Jason Andrist, Mom Marotta, JJ Marotta (aka Cave Troll), Mike and Kate Bandamer and of course Hailey Bandamer. It snowed on Christmas!!! How cool is that.

2008 began with a suprize for me...see below for my new pal...Captain Barbossa. We just call him Bossa.

Do I really have to think of a title?

2007-12-19T14:14:00.000-08:00

Seven days left until Christmas. I haven't done one day of shopping. In eight weeks, my wife has done the following: decorated our home (normal living, Thanksgiving and now Christmas), hosted a family of four (friends from Ventura) for 5 days, her parents have been here twice, hosted 3 or 4 dinners, weekly grocery shopping trips, daily mommy activities with a very active Kaela, took one 5 day trip to San Diego, daily house chores (our house is always tidy), makes dinner 5 or more days a week, makes breakfast and lunch daily for two (sometimes 3), entertains a small dog daily, she is starting to do a bit of school with Kaela, bills (ew!), keeps us on budget, knitting projects, baked 5 or 6 dozed cookies for Christmas (don't ask about how they were all ruined!!), all the Christmas shopping, made a curtain for our room, spent an afternoon painting our living room and dining room, scrubbed the house down from top to bottom when we moved in (did i ever mention how disgusting the house was when we moved in?)a couple of mommy dates with friends from church, did everything for Kaela's Birthday, umm...oh yeah, did I mention she is pregnant????!
Cheers Jennifer! You are the best!

"Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave."

- Martin Luther

More photos of our day

2007-12-01T19:19:00.001-08:00

How the Hall's spent the day - Dec.1, 2007

2007-12-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

We bought our Christmas tree today. It's now situated in the corner of our living room right next to the fire place. I will take a photo once our living room is clean...there is some serious decorating going on right now. Oh by the way...its been snowing since we got home from the tree farm. We have about 2 or 3 inches of snow on the ground and it has just begun to snow again. It is just amazing. It's December 1, we just bought a Christmas tree, we played in the snow (IN OUR FRONT YARD), I trimmed the base of the tree with an axe (because it just seemed right), we drank hot coffee/tea/hot chocolate, ate some elk jerky (I gave a chunk to the mailman...he was pleased), played in the snow some more, ate dinner and put the lights on the tree. Could it be any better than this??? Great way to start the Christmas Season. We were so blessed today!

Happy December 1!!!

2007-12-01T08:49:00.001-08:00

Well, if you look at the picture...we have snow. What a perfect day to go get our christmas tree. Great way to start the Christmas season. It is sooo beautiful up here. I wish you all could be here with us. We will update later with more from our outing.

Well said Governor!!! Bravo!

2007-11-29T18:17:00.000-08:00

Kaela Cooks in her new Kitchen

2007-11-18T21:29:00.000-08:00

This is by far the best one yet.

2007-11-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

2007-11-10T09:51:00.001-08:00

Check this out....I want to do this.

2007-11-09T19:33:00.000-08:00

One of our friendly neighborhood spiders....man, thats hairy

2007-10-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

2007-10-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

October 12 - "My Feet Are Cold" (this is going to be a long one)

2007-10-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

We really miss you all so much. It's Friday evening (1800) and we are all in the kitchen. Jenn is making dinner (a little of this and a little of that), Kaela Jane is standing on the stool coloring in her new Mickey Mouse activities book and I am sitting on a camping chair watching the girls do their thing.

I have just finished week number three at Puget Sound Energy. I know I told everyone that I would never work for a corporation again...HA...here I am once again. To be honest, its the best experience I have ever had working in a cubicle...seriously. They treat all the employees with respect and really take care of each and every one of us. Check this out!! Normally, back home, I could walk a hallway at work saying hello to ten people and I would in return get one or two responses. Here, you can"'t Prairie Dog (stick your head out of the top of your cube) without peeps saying "hello, "good morning" or "hey, you wanna go to Starbucks?". I am not exaggerating...I never exaggerate...ever. So, everything at work is going really well. I am learning so much. Working in the commercial industry is such a bizarre thing...it is so flexible. There were so many regulations in the defense industry when it came to contracts. Here...they just tell me to go ahead and write that contract....No we don't need to get approval from anyone...just send it off. Strange. Enough about Puget Sound Energy...oh wait!! Did you know that 5% of PSE's energy is renewable? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy Consumers can actually choose to purchase renewable energy...up to 7% of their monthly bill. Green Washington peeps.

Jennifer - Well, lets just say she doesn't even have time to teach ice skating with all the work she is doing around the house. This house is 2200 sq ft...with a basement, garage and a yard (front and back). We were told that the house was cleaned prior to our move in date. Well, I am guessing a homeless person and seven dogs were hired to live here for a few days in exchange for some cleaning. I am also positive that this homeless person got on his or her cell phone and called all other local homeless peeps to have a party. This place was disgusting. I won't go into what was cleaned off of the walls in each and every room (hint- it was all waist high down to the baseboards). NASTY! Well, you know Jennifer...she has been on a rampage. We can actually walk around the house without shoes. You'd have to be crazy to not have shoes on around here...its way too cold. She has done a fantastic job so far. Oh...did I mention the awesome meals she has been dishing out? Lets try some math - Weeks of rain+cold+lots of good food=Jason is going to put on some weight! Pray for Jennifer...she is tired. There is so much still to be done.

Kaela Jane - She is just KK....always having a blast. Her vocabulary is so amazing. Everyday she is coming up with something new...its awesome. She is still saying some of the funniest things...as "big kids" her age normally do. She just took her pants off in the kitchen. I asked her why she was doing that. She says,"Well, I have to go see Mommy". What?? That is so bizarre! Anyway, she is really doing well with the move. She does say often that she would like to go to her "udder home in Sousand Oaks". All three of us seem to miss home this week.

So, today's blog is getting a bit long...sorry. I am including some pictures below for your viewing pleasure.

One more thing...I need to include some other updates. Things are happening around our friends and family that you may want to know about:

Jason Andrist has successfully accepted a position with the Peace Corp. Way cool! He will be leaving in May of 08 heading off to South America for 27 months of duty. More to come on this as we here more from Jason.

Dan is almost finished with building the garden. Its pretty sick!

Mike Forrest is somewhere in Europe. We miss you man. If you read this, send me an email..I wanna know if your ok.

Ruth Barone is going to nursing school. Ruth...just look it up on about.com and wikipedia!! You won't have to waste all that time driving to school silly.

The Stephens - Junior should be here any day!!! We are all waiting for the call John.

Thats it for now...whew. I think my computer is out of ink.

Week in WA #1

2007-09-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

Well, its been a few days since the last update and it may take a few more days to actually write something important. We are super busy setting up the house...including the yard. 2200sq.ft. is much different that our small condo. Taking care of the house will be a full-time job.

We will update in a few days with whats happening. Miss you all so much.

The Halls

Day 3 - Cambria to Shasta

2007-09-19T23:15:00.001-07:00

Good Evening Southern Californians,

It's 11:00pm and we are now settled in our Best Western Hotel room (room #131). We drove from Cambria to Shasta via PCH-101-???-5. I think we drove about 500+ miles today. It was so beautiful.

Our stay in Cambria was really relaxing. If you ever get a chance to go to Cambria...make sure you stay on Moonstone Beach. There are a load of Inns right on the beach with beautiful views of the Pacific. If you time it just right you can stay in Cambria during a minus low tide for hours of fun in the tide pools. We had a 1.5ft low tide which is a bit high for the tide pools but we were still able to find some starfish, hermit crabs and sea anemones. Seals hang out on the rocks and watch your every move...its really cool.

Check out the first installment of the Crab Hunter...

Sorry for the "fly in the butt" thing...the little bloke crawled down...well nevermind...sorry!! He's not there now...don't worry.

Anyway...we started our drive at 9:00am from the Fog Catcher Inn in Cambria. The drive up the coast from Cambria to Big Sur was breathtaking. I think it took us about 3 hours to drive from San Simeon to Carmel....we stopped for pictures a few times and of course ate lunch at Nepentha (an Andrist ritual).

Once you pass through Monterey you leave the coast and head towards Sacramento. Somewhere south of Sacramento we drove through a very large rainstorm that produced more lighting than I have seen in the last few years. It was awesome!! I think we drove about 100 or more miles before we were able to turn off the wipers. It was nice to see some rain. I guess we will be seeing some more rain in the next few months...ha!!

The rest of the drive was somewhat uneventful but beautiful. California is such a great place to view Gods creation. If you ever get a chance...the drive is long but rewarding. From the clear blue seas of the central coast to the countless miles of deep green pines of Shasta in one day...its almost too much to take in.

Talk to you later...

Jenn and Jason

On Our Way...

2007-09-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

Hello All....
Well, we are starting a blog....this post is just a test to see what it looks like. We are currently in Cambria California. It is so peaceful and beautiful up here. We just left our home in Thousand Oaks and we are on our way to Washington. We already miss our friends and family back home. It is very strange to be in between homes. Our Thousand Oaks condo is empty...thanks to Jamey, Dyan, Mema, JJ (Godzilla), Jan, Dan and Jason A.

Tomorrow morning we will be leaving for Shasta California. I think we will be in the car for 9 or 10 hours...yikes.

We will update more later...