It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This morning we had the first "frost" on the ground and it was chilly...the news said 25 degrees. No real word of snow yet, though...





Our "Portland" Christmas is slipping away quickly, and we're trying to pack it all in—Christmas music 24 hours a day, and a basically fully-decorated house.













We have probably our favorite tree yet this year, and we were a bit afraid it was going to be too big for our ceilings, but it fits perfectly. We're pretty obsessed.





our lights are somewhat less than we'd like them to be, but we're learning. who knew putting up lights was so difficult? i think we'll do it better next year. and i'm gonna get a wreath for that front door soon. maybe today.





We're trying to start a tradition of going to some Portland Christmasy traditional thing every year (you may remember that we went to see a christmas carol last year)

And last night we went to a "Portland Christmas Tradition" .... the Singing Christmas Tree. Mostly a Christmas song performance, with a bit of drama, some silliness and a fair amount of cheesiness, the draw of the Singing Christmas Tree is that the main choir is in the shape of a tree...



unfortunately, we were in the cheap seats and couldn't see the top of the tree...it was actually really good, we definitely enjoyed ourselves.

but we didn't get as good of a picture of ourselves as we did last year...



eh. you take what you can get, right?

and in the last bit of christmas news, we put some jingle bells on nickel's leg and i wish there was a video to accompany. we may have traumatized her, but it was hilarious...she was limping and straight-legged and so confused.



so with that dog cruelty, merry christmas! 20 days....

daniel preaching!

the sunday before thanksgiving, daniel preached for the first time.

it was amazing. i was pretty nervous for him, but he prepared a ton and really felt good about what he was supposed to say and the direction of his message, and then he got up on stage and did amazing. seriously, flawless. i am so, so, so, so proud of him, it's unreal. of course, if he bombed it, i still would have been so proud of him, but the good thing is he didn't :)

it's here for you to listen to!

go to it directly here
or through the website here, where you can download it if needed...right now it's the second one from the top, called "Are You Asking the Wrong Questions"

and our church couldn't include the video that was shown for copyright reasons, but i don't see why i can't link to it here, so when daniel gets to the part where he's talking about a video, you can pause it and watch it here.

Christmas album of the year!!

It's Christmas Time!!!!! YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!

We just found our favorite new Christmas album of 2009 so we thought we'd share!

It's Chris Tomlin Glory in the Highest and it is fantastic!! Really. It's worth the 8 buck or whatever on itunes for sure. We will have pics and videos of our newly festive house soon. Stay tuned!

P.S. 2008's winner for best new Christmas album went to James Taylor At Christmas. Also very much worth whatever they are charging.

Wildhorse weekend

We got to take some high schoolers to Wildhorse Canyon, a Young Life camp in Eastern Oregon for a student discipleship weekend last month.



Even when its a camp I've never been to, there is something about going to a Young Life camp that feels like coming home. It's a place that I know I can trust. I can trust the message that students will here. I can trust the people working there to stop at nothing to make sure that everything is just right for kids to hear about and experience God.

And Wildhorse didn't disappoint. It is vast...to say the least. Here is the view of camp from the beast of a mountain that we climbed.



So even after losing feeling in my extremities after zip-lining into a lake, in Oregon, in late October I still had a great weekend. If you are reading this and we did Young life together at some point Kirsten and I miss you like crazy. So quit dragging your feet and freaking move to Oregon already so we can do ministry together again. We have a bedroom waiting for you (see previous video post).

The Great Pumpkin...

Ok, so here's the deal. we aren't terrible bloggers. We swear. We just can't find the cord that connects our camera to the computer. Lame, we know, but that's why we can't blog. So I was going to do a post about our pumpkin carving, which was so much fun in our new house! We carved a pumpkin that Dave and Sherry Grey grew!! A home grown pumpkin! How awesome is that!? And we were really pleased with the results! It is probably the silliest looking pumpkin face in the history of the world...but in an awesome way!

So hopefully we will get those pictures up soon, but until then I thought I'd share a picture of Matt and Kim's pumpkin. Because, I don't know if you know this or not, but they are pretty awesome at this (I think they learned it in one of their 52 combined years of schooling). We are talking NO STENCILS or anything here... Be in awe!



Show-offs...

Here it is!!!

Ok, so I missed my deadline. I am a few hours late, but I have good excuses. We lost our video camera until last night and it turns out that videos take FOREVER to upload to Blogger...So it's not my fault! Anyway...Here it is! Our new house!!!!! Enjoy the tour!
















Well there it is! We can't even begin to tell you how much we love it and how overwhelmed we are on a daily basis that it's ours. Thanks for following along with us during the process. It felt pretty slow at times, but looking back it really feels like last week that we were picking out lots and showing you our hole in the ground. Pretty amazing.

So we promise that our blog will move on! No more birthdays, no more house posts...but fear not. We will keep posting (more frequently we promise). We love that we can share a little of our lives with you this way! So keep reading!

Hopefully we will see you soon! (When you come visit!!!!!)

Ok...

so we here at the monroe doctrine realize that things have kinda gotten out of hand. we have heard your unvoiced grumbles (and your voiced ones amanda) and are responding with a resounding..."wait just a little bit longer"

we are all moved and and LOVE the new house (understatement of the century) but before we give you all the grand tour we wanted to do most of our unpacking, so we can show you what it really looks like, not just the same empty rooms you are used to seeing only now filled with cardboard boxes.

So we are now ready to officially say that within 48 hours the online virtual tour will be ready!!! So keep reading! Don't give up on us yet.

And then...we will be able to post about other things! (and there was much rejoicing...)

second to last

best i can tell, this will be the second to last "in progress" house post we'll do. today we went, but the camera battery died as we got out the car, so we didn't get any pictures. so we'll just have to show you the new lights and light switches with the carpet, which happens to be the last thing they do before clean up and move-in. thus i think that will be the last "house in progress" post and this is the second to last (but even as i type that i remember that the door handles aren't on and the landscaping isn't done...hmmmm...)

but regardless, all last week they painted, so we have lots of those photos, and the plumber came! so without further ado, we'll begin with the paint:



there it is!!!! and this color looks completely different in different lights i'm realizing, so here's another look—



so the stone is in, and then the main color (obviously) and trim are painted! (that second picture is before the trim was painted, so that's why the little diamonds in the trim are still wood color)

and then it's not hung in the picture, but this is our door:



red!!!

so then as you move inside, this is the foyer:



so, yeah, the color's really hard to tell there, but trust me, every other picture of it was worse. it's called "blonde" and that's basically what color it is.

and then the dining room and the office are the same color:





which daniel's calling simply "martha stewart"

and then everything else is white. but seriously the prettiest white i've ever seen. and i love white. you wouldn't be able to tell from a picture but the white is great.

so that's all the paint!! then they did the backsplash in the kitchen and the plumber came. so we'll start with the kitchen sink...



we love, love, love the subway tile and do you see that disposal? a disposal!!

and then things like toilets and faucets





and of course bathroom sinks!



the guest



and the master!

plus, a couple of spickets



and a dishwasher!! yayyyyy!!!



almost there...

16 days and counting (or thereabouts)

what the heck is wrong with us? over a week?!? are we all regretting no more birthday posts? eh? anyway, i mean, we have a house to talk about for gosh sake!

sooooooo...without further ado....



we'll start in the bathroom linen closet (obviously...) look at those shelves! all that room!! seriously. seriously, what will we do with ourselves?!

more shelves in the guest bedroom closet (or possibly the office, i can't tell)



our upstairs hall closet (woo hoo isn't this fun!?)



our DOORS! ahhhhhhh we are SO obsessed with our doors!



the first window framed...but you can't really see because of the light...



this is the sink for the guest bathroom...



and these will go in the master bathroom



more doors!



hinges!!



hand rails for the stairs



and look! our "patio" yay!



and a DRIVEWAY!!!



the beginnings of the deck...





and look at all that trash! allllll of that is from our....





kitchen!!! gosh, i can't tell you how much this is my (and has become our) DREAM kitchen!!! it's unreal. UNREAL.











and a peek at our hardwoods...they've been all covered up since they were installed.



the downstairs bathroom (right next to the kitchen) floor!



and then only Labor Day weekend headed out and bought ALL of our appliances. labor day may be officially our second favorite holiday (christmas, of course). we got amazingly sweet deals. really, it was incredible, way more than we EVER thought we'd have in terms of household appliances.





a DISHWASHER! ohmygosh, seriously. i don't know how people live without dishwashers. that may be really, really snobby and lazy, but more so, i'm just entirely sick of such a messy kitchen. the truth is, we are lazy. and probably really snobby, too.



an amazing oven. maybe like 3 times bigger than the one we have now



a huge, huge, huge fridge. and look! ice on the door!! we don't even have an ice maker right now!!! and soon we'll have ice on the door!!!



and the washer and dryer of my dreams. of. my. dreams. i will do laundry all the time. anyone have some extra laundry i can do for them? i mean, right now it costs us $2 to do one load of laundry.


allllright, so that was long, huh? but there's more. see, the title of the post means that we move in in about 16 days. s i x t e e n days. sometime around the 5thish. woah. but i can't show you all the rest, have to save some. but soon, don't worry.