I need more friends

Move over Facebook, the new, all-the-rage Web 2.0 site is Twitter.com. Abby and I are twitting http://twitter.com/theterps. It's my new favorite thing. I think Tim described it best when he twitted, "it's like blogging, but without the pressure to write an epic post." Essentially it's microblogging. It can easily be done from your phone too.

Can't wait to twit with you! If you're already a twitter, let me know.

I should warn you, it's a bit of a culture shock when you first start reading twitters. It's practically got it's own language. Don't be afraid to try it out.

Thankful for friends

The day after Christmas Abby and I got together with a bunch of friends to hang out and catch up. We started with brunch, did a white-elephant gift exchange, progressed to Starbucks, then on to Seattle for dinner, then we played Rockband, and finished the evening off with bowling. It was a lot of fun, and really great to see friends that we only see a couple times a year. We constantly thank God for the wonderful friends that He has blessed us with. They are truly amazing.


Brunch at Matt Metsker's new house. (Left to right: Taylor Swedberg, Tim Reeves, Brett Lumsden, me, Matt.)


Gift exchange at Matt's. (Left to right: Andy and Emily Hooper, Abby, Matt.)


At starbucks. (Left to right: Anne Marie Champoux, Jessica Rosenquist, Kara Pentz, Abby, Mindy Swedberg.)


Dinner in Seattle. (Left to right: Jessica, Tim, Anne Marie, Mindy.)


Dinner. (Left to right: Taylor, Peter Plantenberg, Abby, me.)


Rockband at Tim's. (Left to right: Brett, Taylor, Mindy, Tim, Jessica, Abby)


I've never bowled a better game than this. Look for the D on the left side of the screen and then follow across the right side for the score. I scored 192!!! I've never scored that high before. And I also bowled three strikes in a row (known as a Turkey) for the first time ever. It was crazy! Brett was so excited for me when I surpassed Tim with my score that he tackeled me in the middle of the bowling alley. And if you've never seen Tim bowl, you should know that he bowls like a professional. I can't believe I was only a few points away from breaking 200. Does anyone understand how to score points in bowling? If so, would I have broke 200 if I had thrown a strike instead of a 9 on my last throw?

Christmas with the Marions

This post is for Jenn Marion. For those of you who don't know her, she is Abby's older sister and is a missionary in Africa. She made the tough choice to not travel home for Christmas. I do believe this was the first time ever too. Christmas just wasn't the same this year without her.

Jenn, I made sure to take lots of pictures for you, that way you could experience Christmas with the fam, even though you weren't here. Hope you enjoy these.



Video of 'Oh bring us some figgy pudding'

The snow-cano erupts

The snow-cano finally erupted today. Would you believe that there were little tiny elves that spewed out? Fine, there weren't elves in there. Instead it erupted into a sledding mecca.



This video was shot while it was still semi-light out. Abby and I worked on it until we had the sled running all the way out into the street. It was quite the ride. By that time though it was dark and we couldn't video anymore. You'll just have to take my word for it, or come over and take a ride.

I invited the three-year old neighbor to come sled with us. After a few rides down the snow-cano, he decided that it was more fun to pretend to shovel the driveway with the over-sized snow shovel than risk running into the thorny rose bush with the sled. Can't blame him; the rose bush is bigger than him.

Here's Abby gearing up for a ride.


I put wood steps into the side of the snow-cano because the snow was so dry that it wouldn't pack.


Ready, set, go!


Look at that face. What an exhilarating ride.


I only shoveled the driveway four or five times to build this humdinger. It took a little work, but it was well worth it.

5-6 inches of more snow

I thought you might like to see the view from our bedroom window this morning. We got dumped on again last night. We easily got 5 to 6 inches of more snow. That's on top of what we already had. My snow-cano is growing on it's own.

The weather channel says we're supposed to get several more inches today and tonight. Plus the five-day outlook shows snow every day, right through Christmas, for Bellingham.

Bring on the storm, we're ready

We're super thankful that we're done with our Christmas shopping. We've been done for a quite a while now. It's a good thing too; we've had snow for a week now and more is supposed to come tonight. The weather and road conditions are going to make it tough for all those last minute shoppers to finish up.

So far the only wrinkle that the snow has put in our plans is that it is preventing us from going to a Christmas party in Tacoma tonight. We're bummed about it. It's better to be safe than sorry.

Snowman with a boof of hair

In my spare time at work, I built a snowman in front of the office.





Burlington got 1.5 times more snow than Bellingham did. There is probably more than a foot of snow at the office. Crazy. And more snow is in the forecast for Sunday.