It's SNOWING!!!

We went to church this morning and when we walked out, it was snowing! By the time we got home, this is what it looked like at our house. It's slowed down a bit, but it is still snowing.

Thankfully, it's Sunday and we've already done our grocery shopping for the week. We're going to sit inside, watch football, and enjoy the snow from the warmth and comfort of our home.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Tree makes the news

You'll find us and our tree on the KING 5 TV Web site if you know where to look.

Tree lighting ceremony

Tadaaaaaa!

This year's Christmas tree

After months of questioning and debating whether we were going to get another monster of a tree again this year, we finally made up our minds.

Here we are hunting for the perfect tree. The sun was out and there was no snow on the ground. We couldn't have asked for better weather.


After closely scrutinizing every tree in half the forest, we settled on this one. Unlike last year, we didn't get that chorus-of-angels-singing effect when we saw it.


We bought the 12- to 20-foot tree permit. Notice it's longer than our truck. That's a big tree - 22 feet long to be exact. I snipped off the top and it was 20 feet.

Here it is loaded up in the bed of the truck... hanging WAY out.


While this tree is probably one of the tallest ones we've brought home, it was quite a bit easier to set up than some of the others. I don't know if it's because we're becoming pros at it or because this one was lighter than the others. Probably a combination of the two.


I'll get some more pictures posted when we get it decorated with lights. We were too tired to put lights on it today after driving out to the forest, hunting, cutting and raising the tree.

My gift to you this holiday season

A couple Fridays ago I was at my desk reading something when this word popped, literally POPPED, into my head. I stopped what I was doing and turned around and said to Dave (my office mate), "Dave, what do you think of this word?" And then I walked over to the white board and wrote it down for him to read - wowch.

Dave read it aloud and annunciated it properly. He thought for a moment about it and then said he liked it. However, it wasn't a very enthusiastic response. I quickly explained to him that it was a wow+ouch=wowch equation, thinking he'd be more excited if I explained it to him clearly. I explained that it's for those situations that are mind bottling - brilliant and painful at the same time. Frankly, I was quite proud of myself for thinking of it and thought it deserved a better reaction from him.

I guess he had to think about it for a while before realizing just how valuable of a word combination it was. He sent me an e-mail later in the day showcasing his proper use of the expression. It was the perfect WOWCH situation.

Here is the e-mail chain for your enjoyment. I've deleted real names and sensitive information to protect the innocent.

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From: Captain Kirk
To: Chesland, Daved

XXXX and XXXX are now in disagreement on the train station schedules. This means XXXX will not give us permission to stop the trains at XXXX. I thought this had all been worked out a long time ago but I was wrong. If the schedule issue is resolved this week, we are good to go. But the firm, guaranteed, no questions asked , no risk whatsoever station opening date is now up in the air again. This railroad work is never easy and always unpredictable.

Captain Kirk

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From: Chesland, Daved
To: Terpster, Dustan; Holster, Jams

Wowch! We built a train station, but trains aren't allowed to stop at it.

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From: Terpster, Dustan
To: Chesland, Daved

Nicely played. Definitely deserves a wowch.

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From: Chesland, Daved
To: Terpster, Dustan

Perfect Wowch. I've been looking for that word my whole life.

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My gift to you this holiday season is a new word - WOWCH! Be safe and use it responsibly.

The right to life, marriage and religious freedom

Hi friends and family,
This isn't your usual Terp blog post. I think you'll find it a little more serious than what you're used to, a little more lengthy, and lacking of pictures. I hope that won't deter you from reading further. I think many of you share the same faith and convictions as us and will find the paragraphs below powerful and compelling.

How this blog post came about
My boss asked me to fill in for her this week while she was on vacation. I spent the week working in Shoreline (just north of Seattle) at our region headquarters office. Rather than commute between Bellingham and Shoreline every day, I house sat for my boss, which was a 10-minute commute instead of 90 minutes. Since I was on my own in the evenings, I got together with friends in Bellevue to hang out. Now, normally you wouldn't catch me listening to talk radio in the car, but that's exactly what I was doing Monday night in the car after having spent the evening with friends. I'm thinking it was a God thing because of what the program was about. I ended up listening to a 30-minute segment of Focus on the Family by James Dobson. At the end of the show I was left feeling convicted and compelled. It was about the state of our society and what Christians can do to make a difference.

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From their news release
WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 20, 2009 — Today a group of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration, which addresses the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty. The 4,700-word declaration issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not—under any circumstance—abandon their Christian consciences. Drafted by Dr. Robert George, Dr. Timothy George and Chuck Colson and signed by more than 150 Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders.

“We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

“We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral.”

“…We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.”

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I highly recommend you take the time to read the seven-page declaration,

http://manhattandeclaration.org

and, if you feel so compelled, sign the declaration.

Did you know
As the current administration's health care package stands, we will all pay taxes that will directly fund and support abortion clinics. This is extremely alarming.

Listen to the Focus on the Family podcast - It's titled "A Manifesto for Righteousness" and was broadcast on 11/23/2009. You won't regret it.

Our new floors

For the last month our lives have been completely consumed with wood floors. We tore out all our existing flooring downstairs and replaced it with 700 square feet of 3/4-inch thick, 5-inch wide, tongue-and-groove, unfinished Brazilian Cherry wood. After weeks of discombobulation, I'm happy to report that things are starting to get back to normal around our house. Oh, and the floors look pretty great too.

Let the tear our process begin.

Bringing the wood in to "acclimate" to the humidity of the house.

Tearing out all the old and nasty carpet. We've wanted to do this since we first moved in. It felt really good to rip it out.

Abby helped pick up all the little staples that were left behind when we tore out the carpet.

Here's the staple I stepped on. I got a little blood on the floor. My foot was sore for a week.

Tearing out the Oak wood floors in the kitchen/dining room.

All the carpet and wood floors torn out.

The first rows of Brazilian Cherry go down.

All the Brazilian Cherry is installed but doesn't have the finish on it.

Now the finish has been put on.

I think the worst part about this whole process was having to park the cars outside for two weeks. That was rough. I suppose it's a small price to pay for such wonderful new floors. The floors look even better with all our furniture moved back in.