Catching up...

Wow, I didn't realize just how long it's been since I posted anything. My short engagement to Steven seems very long ago now.
We were married, as planned, in a beautiful ceremony in the Spangle Church. I should post pictures sometime....
We honeymooned on the Olympic Peninsula (after spending the weekend between Spangle and Walla Walla so Steven could play in the WWU graduation brass ensemble--it was worth the $150 we got out of it!) in a beautiful cabin on Lake Cushman. We drove around the peninsula and spent two nights camping near Forks, WA, where my family likes to vacation.

Work restarted for me on June 25, so we hurried to get moved into our little house near the University. We were very fortunate to get it, too! It is small and VERY old, with a bathroom the size of the shower in a hotel I visited recently, but just right for us. It has a good-sized backyard, too, and Campus Housing said we could plant a garden, which we did. We had a late start, so didn't get much out of some of our produce, but we got lots of zucchini and summer squash, some tomatoes, lots of carrots, two pumpkins, several cucumbers, kale and mustard greens, and some herbs. This year we have a much more intense garden planned, and I am eager to get planting.

We took Labor-Day weekend to do some long-postponed backpacking. Steven and I drove up past Sandpoint, ID, to the trailhead of Harrison Lake. Our favorite place in the world to backpack is a little cat's-paw lake two ridges over from Harrison (we call it Little Harrison). We had a rough time getting in, because the last 2 miles of the hike are cross-country (no trails) and we struck out a little too low, resulting in the necessary navigation of many rock fields and woods that we would not otherwise have encountered. We were supposed to hike back out later in the evening to help some friends in who were going to join us, but decided against this as we were both completely exhausted and it was too dark to safely navigate. We were pretty sure that our friends would make camp at Harrison or thereabouts after waiting a while.
Steven woke us early so he could hike out to find our friends. I stayed behind in camp to get breakfast ready and such. I took my sleeping bag and mat down to one of the large rock slabs that surrounds the lake (it is essentially a basin of rock) and enjoyed the sunshine and breeze. I even took a bath in the water, after figuring out how to chase away all the insects that were floating on the surface (some kind of flying ant covered the surface of the lake, for what reason we never learned; I don't remember seeing them in the air). After seeing the bugs I decided just to sponge bathe, but found when I rinsed my soapy washcloth that the detergent made the ants "magically" flow away from the edge. I spent a wonderful couple of hours enjoying the sun and spending time with God in nature.
Steven returned with the others about 5 hours after he left. It turns out that they had way more stuff than would have been wise to haul over that track, so they ended up just taking a day-hike in to where we were and we visited for a little while before they went back to their camp.
On Sunday we had an interesting adventure. It was very cold when we got up in the morning, and by the time we got around to making breakfast it was raining "hail flakes" as I decided to call them. The same stuff is referred to as "corn snow" or even "hail" by others, but I thought hail flakes was a good term, and fit better. We had a hard time finding a good place to make our food as it was so windy and precipitating heavily. We managed with breakfast and decided to hike out that day instead of waiting until Monday. By the time we were packed it was about 12:30, and still raining/snowing. We dressed warmly and hiked out in the wetness. It turned out to be a wonderful trip, as the cold was just enough to keep us from overheating with all the strenuous hiking, and the slightly snow-covered mountains were incredibly beautiful. We found an easier way out than we had found in and had a wonderful time.
We headed back to Spangle and spent Steven's birthday with his parents, then went home.

Steven started school in late September, and it's been a challenge to balance school, work, and house cleaning, but we are getting along fine. Christmas was a different adventure, with two families to visit now, but we had a good time with that as well. We took a trip to Canada with my family to visit my great-aunt Alyce, and had an exciting time on our way back, as there was snow on the roads and we didn't have snow tires yet. We went off the road at one point and nosed into the ditch, but my dad was able to pull us out again and we had no further mishap. We got our snow tires fitted that evening on our way into Spokane. :)

Here's our most exciting and wonderful news for the year: We are expecting our first baby in July. He is growing like a weed (and so am I!) and it is so exciting to feel the changes in myself and also feel his little body exercising! He is kicking and boxing pretty frequently these days. The most wonderful movements, though, are the movements of his daily life: rolling around, feeling the walls surrounding him, and fluttering his little limbs. These make me feel that I am truly getting to know him.

Now we are planning a garden and getting ready for the spring. It is so much more exciting to see the growing things around me now that I am feeling another little thing growing inside me.
I will do my best to keep you all posted on how things are going.