.slacker.

Well I am officially a slacker when it comes to updating our blog. We have been so busy this past month...I haven't had a chance to sit down and spend some time blogging. So here is my effort to update you on our lives over the past few weeks....sorry for no pictures :(.

The beginning of the month started off busy as it marked our 1 year wedding anniversary on December 1st. Then the next few weeks were full of busy work schedules, Nick studying for the CPA exam, Christmas shopping and many other eventful outings. Then Seattle decided to have an identity crisis and turned into the North Pole for a few weeks.

It started the weekend of December 14th, as I was supposed to run in a 12K called the 12K's of Christmas that Sunday. It snowed about 4-6 inches the night before the race and by the next morning much of that snow had turned to ice, therefore, causing them to cancel the race. Nick was volunteering on the parking team at church and spent all Sunday morning manually pouring salt all over the parking lot so that people could make it to church and park without a problem. So as disappointed as I was in not being able to run in the race, I was able to join Nick at church. That night, we had the Lemaster Daniels Christmas party at Maggiano's in downtown Bellevue. It was a lot of fun to dress up in a formal dress and for Nick to wear his suit. I still feel like we are pretending to be grown ups :) It was a casino theme, so everyone received a ticket for chips when you came in and were able to cash in at the tables and play. It was great because it wasnt real money (I am so not a risk taker, therefore, I never gamble with real money) and I was able to learn how to play some fun card games without worrying about losing my life savings.

The snow melted from the first dusting, and then come Thursday it got pretty crazy! It snowed so much for this area...I think at one point we had over a foot of snow on the ground and let me just tell you that the Seattle area was not ready for this one! The entire area pretty much just shut down...abandoned cars were everywhere...no one left their house. You would have thought that it was armageddon. People freak about the snow! Let me just preface it by saying that I moved here from California....so I am not an experienced driver in the snow...but come on people..common sense!!! haha. I couldnt believe how scared everyone was of the snow. I was able to make it into work because I have a 4 wheel drive vehicle but I was one of a few people who made it in. There were people who missed over a week of work because of the snow. Since we never get snow like this, there is only 1 snow plow for every 60 miles and they refuse to use salt (gotta love the 'green' seattlites). This caused the roads to just become a complete mess...sometimes with 8-10 inches of snow in the middle of the roadways. Not a good situation.

As much as everyone else in the area despised the snow...I loved it!!! I thought it was so fun to have snow, and I learned that driving in the snow really isn't too bad. I was able to get around just fine and since most people stayed home, the traffic was great :) It was so beautiful. Sometime about snow is so peaceful....I hope we continue to get more snow!!

Spokane also got hit with a TON of snow around this time (they now have over 5 feet on the ground). My sister and brother in law, Lindsay and Derek, were trying to get back home to Moses Lake from school in southern california, but were unable to make it to Spokane because the airport was closed. So we picked them up at the Seattle airport on Thursday night and then drove to Moses Lake on Friday after work. We spent the weekend with the whole Dietzen family and celebrated Christmas since we were going to be with my family for Christmas. It was a fun weekend filled with lots of laughs, good food and fun.

We drove back home on Sunday to even more snow in the Seattle area and this continued through Wednesday, which was Christmas eve. On Wednesday, we were able to get out of the airport with no issue and fly to Sacramento to spend Christmas with my family. We had a wonderful time being with my family and Ashley and Joel even spent the night at my parents house on Christmas Eve. We had the whole family under one roof again :) We spent the weekend just hanging out, playing games, eating wonderful food and shopping. It was so fun and flew by wayyyy too fast. It was sad to go :(

We were home for work on Monday-Wednesday and then Wednesday night we drove back over to Moses Lake to spend New Years with the Dietzens and to spend time with Derek before he heads back to school for Baseball. We didnt get there until about 10:00 on NYE, but we played games and hung out with family and friends to ring in the new year. We had a nice long visit from Wednesday night through Sunday and just hung out and relaxed...did lots of reading, we even got to go sledding since Moses Lake has about a foot of snow on the ground.

Now we are back in Bellevue for a few days until we fly down to Newport Beach for one of my best friend Sarah's wedding. Sarah and Adam are getting married on Friday January 9th, in Newport and I am soooo excited for them. They are a wonderful couple and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for them in the future!!!

It has been a whirlwind of a month and I feel like we have been all over but it has been a great time to be surrounded by friends and family. We are so blessed. We hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season as well :)