Kyah and Abby

I figured it was time we got an updated picture of Mom and daughter together on the blog. We took this picture on Sunday. As you can see, Kyah is decked out in her Seahawks gear for game day. (Thank you, Kevin and Becky, for the awesome outfit.) She's still growing into it.



Can you see a resemblence between the two? Abby's folks always say how much she looks like me. Regardless of who she looks like more, I'm blessed to have these two beautiful women in my life.

We had her Mariners outfit on a couple weeks ago to celebrate the end of the season. We're looking forward to a better year next year, hopefully. (Thank you, Peter, for that outfit.)

Now all we need to get her is a Sounders kit and she'll be set.

Lots more smiling

The new game now is to see how many times we can make her smile. It's so much fun. It's like winning the lottery every time she smiles. It's addicting and you just want to keep playing. Yesterday, Abby and I played the game a lot, and we won the "lottery" a lot, too.

It almost looks like she's laughing in this one, huh? She's not laughing yet...


Take special note of what her shirt says. : )






What's the hardest part of the game? Catching the smiles on camera. For everyone one smile caught on camera, there's about 20 that need to be deleted.

Smiling's my favorite

For the last couple weeks Kyah has been smiling, and let me tell you, it's so much fun when she does. We get so excited when she smiles. I mean seriously, what's not to love about this smile?



It's not happening very often yet, but one or two times a day and for a short period of time, she'll smile with you. I'm not talking about the smiling-while-falling-asleep or just-filled-my-diaper smiles either. These are the eyes-open-I'm-learning-to-smile-back-at-you smiles.

Let's see, off the top of my head, I can recall her smiling for Steve, Abby's Mom and Kayli within the last week.

Marion family comes for a visit

Abby's family made the trek to Bellingham on Sunday to spend a little time with us. We all know what they really came for - snuzzle time with their precious granddaughter (and/or niece). And snuzzle they did.

Grammie and Grandpa with Kyah

Rocking with my girl

I walked in the door today after a hard day's work, went up stairs, took Kyah off Abby's hands, and rocked her for 15 to 20 minutes. Seriously, it just doesn't get much better than this! What a great way to relax after work.



I've probably said this before, so you'll have to bear with me as I say it again. One of the things that I most looked forward to after Kyah was born was being able to do exactly this - relax with her napping in my arms. I'm pretty lucky. God has blessed me with two amazing women.

6 weeks old... already

We had fun snuzzling with Kyah on Friday evening.





It's hard to believe our beautiful baby girl is already six weeks old. As you can see from the photos, we're having a blast with her.

Matchmaker matchmaker

A little more than two years ago, Abby played matchmaker and set up two of our friends, Tim and Jessica. I'm happy to report that Abby's matchmaking was successful and on Sunday, Sept. 5, Tim and Jessica said their vows and rode off into the sunset together. Way to go, Honey, way to go.


Looking back at how it all started, I had my reservations and really didn't want to be too involved in Abby's ploy. I mean, Tim lived in Bellevue and Jessica lived in Bellingham - there was the whole distance thing to contend with. Tim had said repeatedly that he didn't want to date someone that didn't live in the same city. Some how, though, Abby got him to come around to the idea after months of pestering him about this girl he had to meet. She was finally able to get both Tim and Jess in the same place when we had a 4th of July party in 2008.

As another one of my best friends, Peter, recalls it, when Tim first saw Jess at the party, he said, "Who is that girl, she's hot?!" Aren't you glad you came to Bellingham for the party, Tim?

Here we are at the Bellingham waterfront waiting for the fireworks show to start. Tim, don't sit too close to Jess... be sure to leave a little space... don't act like you're interested. You could have parked a semi between those two.


After a very successful first day/meeting, Abby kept the ball rolling and scheduled an impromptu putt-putt golf exhibition the next day.



We/they ended up spending the whole day together. By the end of the day, Tim was changing his original plans for the weekend. He had only intended to spend one night in town. Now he was planning to spend another night just so he could spend another day with her. Come Sunday morning, Tim was hitting me up for clean clothes because he hadn't brought enough for multiple nights. Hahaha. And poor Peter, who had carpooled with Tim to Bellingham, was at the mercy of Tim's changing schedule.

The best part of the weekend was when it came time to say goodbye: Tim walked her out to her car (at our house) and spent quite a bit of time out there saying goodbye. When he returned, we asked, "Did you get her number?" His response, "Well... errr... uhhh... no." For the love, do we have to do everything for you, Tim? Apparently, he didn't want to send the wrong signal to Jess and seem too pushy or something. Who knows what was going through his head. So, Abby had to take action again to ensure that this relationship got off the ground. Abby worked her magic...

Guess who came to visit the very next weekend? Yup, Tim was back in Bellingham seeing Jess again. This time, though, they didn't need us chaperoning. Tim did need a place to stay. We kindly offered him a key to our house and a room and bed to sleep in on weekends. He came to Bellingham quite often, but we didn't see him very often. : )

In 2009, we traveled to the Cayman Islands together.


It has been an amazing experience to be a part of their relationship and watch them grow together. We are so happy for them and pray that God will continue to bless them in their marriage.