A Blessed and Joyous Christmas 2009

Julie and I can't begin to tell you how incredibly blessed we are! God is good!

Christmas 2009, much like the years before was spent juggling time schedules to fit family get-togethers in Seabeck and Rose Valley in.

We also had an early Christmas arrival in the form of Adam, Brook and Michaela, who came the Monday before Christmas and stayed until we headed south for the Rose Valley Friends Vespers service on Christmas Eve and Christmas at Mimi and Papa's.

Toss in visits (frequent ones...but then again did I mention Michaela was here???) by Abbey and Dave, a trip to Tacoma's Point Defiance Zoo for "Zoo Lights" and a night of Thai Food whipped up by Adam and Dave and it was a busy week!

Miss Michaela is getting more personality by the day and loves to laugh at her Poppi. Grammy got lots of holding time in and so did Abbey. Even Grandpa Puckett logged Michaela lap time, so things were fine and dandy!

Oh, by the way...we also got an early Christmas gift and a HUGE answer to prayer when Dave and Abbey showed up at the house to ask us if "she looked any different". The look on her face was the give away and yes...they are pregnant - due in July.

For those that know, this is definitely a "God thing".

Now we look forward to 2010. If it's half as exciting as 2009 was...we'll be in for another great year!

Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes

Gas over and back to Smeltersville, Idaho - $120.00

Our portion of two day rental for vacation house - $128.00

Dinner at The Snake Pit - $24.95

A weekend with 8 great friends and surviving a 62-mile bike ride - PRICELESS!

You probably can figure this one out, but if not, Julie and I trekked across the state last weekend along with Abbey and Dave, Mike and Mardell Ryan, Dave and Dawn Boyle and Rob and Heidi Zylstra and participated in a 62-mile bike ride on the Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes. If you are interested at all in biking and haven't done this trail yet, we highly recommend it. First, because it is paved, second, because you have several options of great segments to ride and third (and most importantly) because it is flat!

We found a great vacation rental house in Smeltersville that accommodated all of us, a quaint place to eat in The Snake Pit and because Julie and I (along with a couple of other riders) were lagging behind at the end of the ride - we just missed seeing a Moose (actually a couple of them but I wasn't quite sure what the plural of Moose is - I'm thinking Meece!).

There were some in our group that were far enough ahead of certain ones, that said they saw them, but there was no picture evidence and so my story is - if I didn't see it, no one saw it!

It was a great weekend and I'm sure we'll try it again sometime!

Dinner at The Snake Pit! (from L to R) Mardell,

Mike, Abbey, Dave, Dawn

Dave, Julie, Mike, Rob and Heidi


The House on Happy Trails in Smeltersville.


This is at the start of our ride, so that's why

everyone is smiling!

No, this isn't one of our bikes stuck up in the trees.

.

Julie and Dawn still looking fresh!

The infamous Snake Pit.

The Hot Tub was a popular gathering spot for

the ladies!

Tri-Turtle Triathalon 2009

Julie participated in the 2009 Tri-Turtle Triathalon
this morning, her second triathalon this year. She finished
with a time of 1:55:35, which was three minutes
better than she did last year! She was sixth in her age
group (45-54) and 75 overall (out of 300).


A see of bodies takes off for the 2009 Tri-Turtle.
The men (green caps) and fast women (yes fast-women),
went first, followed by the ladies three minutes
later (pink caps)...it was a half-mile swim.


None of the pictures will really be flattering (you swim
a half-mile and then run up to your bike and see how
good you look!)...but Julie is out of the lake and on
her way up to the transition stage.


She had a really quick transition from the swim to the
bike and is heading out to the road course.


At the start of a 15.6 mile bike ride, just a nice little
ride through the country side of Holly and Seabeck.
Think you want to do this? One of the very first
riders was hit by a car in today's event. Ambulances
and medics were on the scene by the time Julie got there.


Finishing safe and sound is alway a good feeling!

But then you get to transition from the bike ride,

to a 5K run, so off she goes for the final leg.

Crossing the finish line in a Tri-Turtle career best

time!

This was our happy group (happy that they were

done!)...from left to right: Heidi Zylstra, Mardell

Ryan, Dave Boyle (an official Tri-Babe now that he

is done), Dawn Boyle and Julie.

Michaela comes to visit (Adam and Brook too!)

It was a great weekend at Grammy and Popi's (self-given names, but quickly adopted by all) house as Michaela Faith, Adam and Brook visited Seabeck!

Most of the pictures you'll see in this particular post, in some form or fashion deal with holding Michaela, but hey...that's what this weekend was all about - racking up baby-holding time!

Abbey came out ahead in that department (but she made out the baby holding schedule, so go figure), with Julie in close second. But it was fun to see who ate their meals the quickest, in order to rescue Michaela from that boring old life of being "not held" or who would jostle in to position when she started to fuss.

Even Great-Grandpa got his time in, including holding her for an entire game of Settler's of Catan, which Brook came away victorious in!

Welcome to the world Michaela Faith Puckett!

We are more than excited and extremely proud to welcome Michaela (mah-kay-la) Faith Puckett to the world!

Michaela entered our lifes this afternoon (8/8) at 3:46 PM at the Sunnyside Hospital in Clackamas, Oregon. She weighed in at 7.77 ounces and 19 3/4 inches and if we don't say so ourselves...is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

It was quite the eventful day-and-a-half as we got things going with an email from Adam in the afternoon yesterday, that Brook had been having contractions about 10 minutes apart for at least four hours. We patiently waited by the phone and later that evening, got the "red-alert" call from Adam. So we hopped in the car, headed to Abbey and Dave's house to pick them up and took off for Rose Valley, where we had planned to drop Bailey off (Julie's folks). When we were almost there, we talked to Adam, who told us things really hadn't progressed very far. So we opted to park it at Julie's mom and dad's for a little while.

After a couple of hours of semi-sleep, we got another call from Adam (3:30 AM). Brook's water had broke in the parking lot of the hospital! So we got our act together and headed south.

We pulled into the parking lot at 4:30 AM and promptly placed ourselves in the waiting room outside of Labor and Delivery. We didn't realize that it was going to be such a lengthy stay!

Even though it has been a long day, it is great to report that Michaela is healthy (all fingers and toes) and happy (and so is Brook!) and we're bushed, so it's off to bed and more to come later!

Summer in the Northwest

The start of our summer has been almost perfect this year. Rainfall has been minimal, our garden is off to a much better start than last year and we've been busier than ever!

Between family functions, church functions and Julie starting up her training for this summer's triathalons - our days are just zooming by.

Abbey (with Julie's help) hosted a baby shower for Brook (and Adam) and little baby girl Puckett (to be named later) at Mimi and Papa's house in Rose Valley. While the ladies were showering, it gave Adam, Dave, Papa, my brother Bill and myself, a chance to go hit the little white ball around at the Three-Rivers golf course. Brook is due at the beginning of August.

Earlier in the month, Julie and I, Abbey and Dave and my dad went across the canal to go clamming. We came back with 80 steamer clams, but our hopes at finding the elusive goeyduck were dashed.

While Dad looked sexy in his shorts, we'll have to work on the black shoes and white socks look.

Notice that Dave (to the left in yellow) was the only one in full clamming garb.

Last weekend, several of us got together to go on a 40-mile bike ride along the Olympic Discovery Trail. This paved biking trail starts south of Sequim (pronounced squee-um) and goes just north of Port Angeles up on the Olympic Peninsula. This was by far the longest ride that most of us had been on to date (it was actually 37 miles, but we rounded up to make a better story). But other than a few minor spills, we all made it back safe and sound. We have several of these trips planned for the remainder of summer.

The Bahamas in January sounded like a good idea!

For our 30th anniversary in late January, we opted for a cruise to the Bahamas. At the time we booked it sounded like a good idea! Temperatures were forecasted for the mid-70's and since we were experiencing colder-than-cold weather in Seabeck, why not, huh?

We knew we were in for a "special" week when our arrival into our debarkation port of Charleston, SC was met with freezing temps and rain. It did manage to get a little better, but not much!

We sailed on the Majesty, the smallest ship of the NCL fleet and that had its advantages and disadvantages. The entertainment and food were good (especially the never-ending cookie tray and the Chocoholic buffet on the final night), but there wasn't much else to do on the ship, especially when sitting out on deck in the sun was pretty much ruled out due to the cold winds.

We did have a great day in Nassau (warmest day of the trip) and spent a majority of it getting to know the locals at the Straw Market. Row after row of local hand-made items and special deals awaited all the "pretty ladies" and "big men" that wondered through. Julie had her choice of Coach purses (trust me...they were real...just ask the locals) but refrained from purchasing!

Our day on the Grand Island and Freeport was spent kayaking through the Mangrove trees. Look closely, does this resemble something out of Pirates of the Caribbean (they shot part of the movie there)? And it was here that we met a wonderful couple from Lynchburg, Virginia, Bill and Pat Lease. We had dinner with them the final night of the trip. It was great!

We were going to take this picture regardless of how cold it was! Actually the water was warm enough to go swimming in, but unfortunately, we would have froze when we got out!

This is the beach in Freeport where we had lunch during our kayaking trip.

So we haven't decided whether or not cruising is for us...we'll let you know once we do!