Progress at Work for Both of Us

This week was another busy one! My literacy night event finally arrived, an 8th grade parent night co-run by the PTA and the 8th grade team of teachers. It was a success with solid attendance (about 30 families or so, which is apparently more than usual), good food (sandwiches, fruits/veggies, chips, cookies, drinks, and coffee), and free books/raffle prizes. We were originally going to have the students do slam poetry and journal-making in workshops while the parents listened to speakers, but, unfortunately, the PTA found speakers that wanted to address both students and parents. I guess we'll have to plan to do our "cool" workshops later (the PTA kind of decided unilaterally and we found out about the new plan the week of the event- bummer). But, overall, we were happy with the event and so were the 8th grade teachers and the principal (who personally thanked our efforts via e-mail). We called each 8th grade home to offer a personal invitation and made paper invitations to send home with the kids. We also provided the chips/coffee (both donated) as well as all the free prizes/books (also donated). The parents and students got some valuable information about high schools in the area, graduation requirements, and how to prepare for what's beyond middle school. Our parent surveys, that we need to pass out for our copious paperwork, indicated that the families found the event valuable too. Success! Yay!

I've also been pursuing a scholarship campaign in which I'm ensuring that EVERY 7th and 8th grader hears about a specific opportunity. I'm happy that about 10 kids have already turned in their applications and many more are expected soon. I might also have a few kids applying for another scholarship that involves being able to meet the mayor. Cool for them! Finally, I am looking into an opportunity to take some kids and, perhaps, their families to the zoo after school for free. I saw a flyer about it and am hoping to use it as an incentive for after-school programs or an opportunity for ESL students and their families (or maybe both). Since our school is for sure closing after this year, many of us are working extra hard to make this a year to remember for our kids.

Kayle's work also went well this week. He said that his team was extra productive in fixing bugs and are beginning to catch up to their lofty quota. Kayle is also starting to focus more on improving performance (speed) instead of fixing bugs. He likes the new variety.

In church, we're still searching for a new community group. We've been to two groups since our old one changed meeting days, but neither has been quite what we're looking for. We're hoping to find another group that has a variety of ages, so we can draw wisdom from some older Christians and couples. The last two groups have been all younger people. Youth group is going well too and one of my co-leaders and friends just found out she's having a baby. I'm also getting to know the junior high kids better and am enjoying being able to lead a small group and prayer time more often. We have a junior high retreat coming up with other campuses of Mars Hill and churches from the area. Apparently the camp we're going to has "cool" features such as paintball, high ropes, and horseback riding, so it's not too hard to convince the youth groupies that they want to come. I'm excited to get to know the other leaders and students better, since I don't see most of them any time other than Wednesday nights. The sermon series is still awesome, and the service was a "record" 2 hours long this week (well, at least the longest service we've been to so far)! Ironically, the message was on the importance of preaching and avoiding hypocrisy. That's one way to practice what you preach!! :) After church, we went to lunch with some friends (we haven't for a while) and got some recommendations for an eye doctor and dentist. It was a nice time to reconnect with some people we haven't talked to in a while!

Today (Monday), it snowed and we had a 2-hour delay for school. This is the first time I found out BEFORE arriving at school, so I was thankful that Kayle thought to check for school closings. I was excited to go back to bed for an hour before work!

We also thank everyone who has made an effort to contact us this week. We've gotten e-mails, calls, and letters from some people we haven't heard from in a while as well as some we hear from regularly. This is the first week in a long time that I've heard from ALL the siblings in both of our families. We try hard to keep in touch (mostly with this blog), and we miss you all very much.

With love,
Angie and Kayle

Pastor Mark on Nightline!!

This week has been crazy for me, tutoring at school, preparing for our 8th grade parent night, and gathering donations for my school. So far, we've gotten books, board games, Frito-Lay chips (2 cases!), restaurant gift cards, and gift cards to Staples for school supplies. Allison has also secured some gift certificates for a grocery store, coffee for the event, and other food. So, it looks like we'll have prizes for our raffle and food for dinner at the event itself as well as incentives for our tutoring program this semester. Since we have no budget, it's a big deal to be able to reward the kids who work hard and show progress (it's tough to motivate middle-schoolers with words alone). I'm also planning to go around to the advisory classes next week to get as many kids as possible to apply for a need-based scholarship for college. It requires graduating from high school with a C average and not committing a felony and pays for full tuition at any public college in Washington with $500 for books. This is an opportunity I don't want any of the families to miss!

Kayle caught a cold from somewhere and hasn't been feeling well most of the week. He took two days off work and has been slowly recovering until today (mostly by constantly sucking on Cold-Eeze and drinking water). Work is still going well, and Kayle is happy with the progress he made this week, on the days he was there. The development of the new OS, Windows 7, is going so well that they plan to skip one of the test phases and release it earlier than expected.

This week, we planned to go to another community group (we're still looking for a new one to get connected again), but we missed because Kayle felt sick. Youth group went well, though we NEED to figure out some games that are not variations on dodge ball!! In a few weeks, the junior high group is going on their retreat over the weekend, so be in prayer for that event (I'll be going too!). Finally, our pastor was featured on Nightline this week: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/. The story is called "Sermons with an Edge" under "Tuesday" but you can also search for "Mark Driscoll" and find it. Of course, the show showed the "juiciest" parts of his sermons, particularly from our recent Song of Songs series. And, don't worry: our pastor is NOT always yelling, talking about sex, or being overly controversial (though he's not afraid to say things that popular culture might disagree with). He IS very outgoing, committed to the Bible and Jesus, and loving to his congregation. We've grown to find a wonderful, growing church home at Mars Hill and are excited to see what God is doing in Seattle (and around the world) through our church.

Right now, Angie is most anxious about a mid-year review coming up this Tuesday for work. (Kayle is in the process of one now too, but he isn't very worried about it!) The boss, who I haven't always seen eye-to-eye with, is coming to school for a 2 hour meeting with us. I've been doing good work at my site, but I'm just hoping some of the conflict in the past (about going home for Christmas, etc...) won't resurface again.

Keep praying for our 10 missionaries and 10 children in India!!

We love you and miss you, as always,
Angie and Kayle

End of the Semester Craziness!

This week was good but busy week, especially due to the fact that the end of the semester (and thus the last day to turn in missing assignments) was Friday. Therefore, a lot of kids were scrambling to turn in enough work to pass all their classes...some succeeded, some too-little-too-late...

On Monday, we didn't have school for MLK day, and I went to a rally instead at a local high school to volunteer with my Americorps team. Unfortunately, my site leaders were a bit disorganized. I spent the morning passing out programs for the workshops (outside- and it was actually COLD and icy...brrr), and, after that, mostly just wandered around without much real work to do. The rally itself was okay with a few singing performances (mostly by local Baptist churches) and a speaker or two that wasn't too memorable. A guy stood up for a long time trying to solicit money for next year's rally by getting people to donate large amounts and announcing them in the microphone. Then, the group marched down to the Federal Building downtown, but I didn't participate in the march. For one, I couldn't find where my Americorps group went. I also had a headache and was very tired (didn't sleep well the night before...perhaps b/c of the coffee I drank at church). Finally, the slogan was "Yes we can. Change begins now." That just wasn't specific enough for me- the marchers were holding all kinds of signs for their personal causes (some I agreed with, many I didn't), and I just didn't feel very inspired or unified. So, I went back inside to eat a late lunch with some others who opted out and left early on the bus. I was disappointed by my first big rally...

On Tuesday, my whole school stopped to watch the inauguration. Since many of my kids are big Obama fans, they were, in general, pretty interested in the big event. It was amazing to me how many people turned out in Washington DC, and I enjoyed watching my first inauguration. Soon after, it was back to work!

This week, I am so proud of many of my students. One of my 6th graders improved 1-2 grade levels in reading (from none to sounding out 2-3 syllable words). Another student's grades went up from all Es to 5 Cs and a B. Several of my more rambunctious kids also worked really hard this week and pledged to save themselves some of the grief next semester by turning work in on time (I hope!). I'm also seeing some of my day-tutoring kids at after-school tutoring as well. We've had many "talks" this week that will hopefully sink in and see fruit in the second half of the year. Finally, I've been working hard to distribute a great scholarship opportunity (full tuition plus money for books) to as many eligible kids as possible. Maybe my biggest impact will be many years down the road that way when some of my kids are financially able to go to college...

Meanwhile, one of the guys on loan to Kayle's team at Microsoft was laid off this week. Total, about 1400 employees were laid off (not in Redmond only). The guy working with Kayle's group wasn't too happy on Thursday but seemed better on Friday after finding out about the severance package. Right now, we're still not worried about Kayle's job security. And, by the way, even after I complained about it last week, Kayle still recommends the Windows 7 Beta version if anyone is looking to upgrade.

I went to the chiropractor twice this week, and it helped a lot. The second time, Kayle came too and had his back readjusted. Judging by his facial expressions, he looked less relaxed than I felt, and, at one point, I was laughing out loud while Kayle was being twisted like a pretzel. However, he said he felt looser in his neck afterward, and the chiropractor gave him an exercise to do at home to improve his posture. We also used a coupon we got for Bed, Bath, and Beyond to buy a shiatsu pillow massager. It wasn't very expensive, and it has worked great so far. Both of us are using it. Combined with our new resolve to exercise more, hopefully we'll both feel more energetic and less sore. We hope to go skiing soon, but we've been waiting until both of us feel up for it.

This week, we also tried a new dish: lemon-pepper baked salmon. We made it from frozen sockeye salmon steaks (sorry Grandpa Hoksbergen...not brave enough to try fresh on our first try!). We've mostly been sticking with our favorites lately: chicken picatta, rosemary chicken, homemade pizza, marinated steaks, and Belgian waffles (in the morning). We also made twice-baked potatoes this week and a large batch of Hinkle meat sauce. Only once have we resorted to macaroni and cheese for dinner (with veggies and fruit), so I think we're doing pretty well! I'm also enjoying a wonderful smoked halibut spread from the grocery store. So, I guess we're starting to explore some Northwestern cuisine...

Tomorrow, at church, Kayle is going to observe the tech crew during the 2nd service while I work in the nursery (yay!). We're attending the earlier service and serving at the 11:15. We're still looking for another CG that we "click" with. Youth group is also going well, and I loved leading a small group of junior high girls on Wednesday. I also gave a few books to a high-schooler who wanted them. In other news, one of my co-workers started reading the Bible I gave him and mentioned it at my Friday meeting. Pray for me to be able to help him understand some of the confusing words and be a good witness to him.

All in all, we're doing well and especially looking forward to my sister, Dani, visiting over her Spring Break from college (it's not until the end of next month, but she bought plane tickets this week). As always, we miss you all...

With love,
Angie and Kayle

Lots of Ups and Downs

This week was a tough week for Angie, with some back pain and fatigue. I'm not sure why my back should suddenly be more bothersome and tense, but I went to bed early (at 7-8pm) on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday after coming home from work. I was finally motivated to call the chiropractor and set up an appointment on Friday morning. It helped a bit, and I plan to go back on Wednesday this week. Maybe the cloudy winters of Seattle are finally catching up to me- I started taking Vitamin D (in fruit gummy form...yum) to compensate for the lack of sun.

On Wednesday, I went to Proxy (Mars Hill's youth group). We played Four Corners (a game in which one random corner gets out every round and you can switch between rounds- not too much skill involved, unless you excel at prophecy!) and the middle school students broke off to discuss not hiding our light under a bushel. Of course, this digressed into an impromptu singing of "This Little Light of Mine" (very badly) at the end, so, hopefully, none of the kids forget the topic of the lesson.

On Thursday, I stayed in Seattle after school for a talk at a near-by Baptist Church about racism in education and teaching African-American boys. The talk was good and...umm...charismatic. His first line was, "the best thing you can do for our African American boys is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I agree wholeheartedly. He went on to talk about explaining the education gap and strategies that help minority children excel in school, despite less-than-ideal family and economic backgrounds. I asked the speaker for a book recommendation for my particular work situation (in a predominantly black middle school, as a tutor) and bought his book about 101 strategies for teaching colored children. I also met a mom who wanted a tutor for her 7 year old son and passed on that information to my team.

On Friday, our team meeting didn't start until 1pm, so I spent the morning going to the chiropractor (who is really fun- talks to me all about Notre Dame and remembers me from when I stopped going back in September) and asking for donations for our upcoming literacy night at school. We're partnering with the 8th grade teachers for their 8th grade parent night and hoping to do some literacy activities with the students while the parents are talking. We're planning to get some raffle prizes (and prizes for the activities) as well as food donated to help entice some of the parents who don't usually make it out to these events. I got a good response from some of the businesses I talked to, but I won't know for a week or so what will actually be donated.

At the team meeting, we talked about our stress levels. Four hours of talking about the things that stress you out can sometimes be less than productive! Fortunately, I was in one of the low-stress groups, and we had quite a lot of fun with it. The leaders did not plan the trainings for second semester until they got feedback from us on topics we wanted. So, right now, we're sort of doing nothing next week except chatting and "planning" a Americorps party with our "leadership" committees (my committee, the extra hours committee, has not been meeting AT ALL since its inception...). Next week will be a LONG eight hours!

School this week was okay. One of my students might be changing schools soon, and a few others are still having a really hard time. On the bright side, my budding reader is up about 1-2 grade levels in reading, and I was pleased to hear him read a book about panda bears that I thought was beyond his ability. I helped some, but he is certainly improving on sounding out words. Now that I have a good idea of his reading level, I can do a better job pairing him up with books that are both easy and challenging for him. I've also been busy giving scholarship forms to specific students so they can apply for an award for middle-schoolers offered by the mayor. Another state scholarship can pay for full tuition to any Washington school if you meet income requirements- I've been handing out information about that too.

Kayle is doing well this week too. He's been playing piano and computer games in his free time as well as programming his pinochle game. To facilitate connecting our computers, he changed my operating system to Windows 7 (with little or no warning) and got me all upset. It took me a while to get everything back the way I liked it, but I'm adjusting now to my "upgrade". Kayle finally fixed the video driver on my laptop, so I can watch videos/tv shows online. I'm not so sure a change-averse person like me appreciates the fullness of technological advances. Can't I just keep everything the old way? (Kayle says an emphatic, "no!")

In other news, Kayle and I just started to sponsor 10 indigenous missionaries and 10 Dalit children from India through the Gospel for Asia ministry. Microsoft will match our donation to the children, since it's more humanitarian in nature. We received packets about each individual yesterday with stationary to write to the children. We wanted to share a story from one of our missionaries each week, so you can be encouraged by them as we are.

From Janardhan Kumar:
"I was born into a Hindu family in India. I worshiped a host of gods and goddesses, hoping to obtain health and prosperity. I also sought the help of a certain goddess to guard me from all the dangers of life. Moreover, for every area of my life I worshiped different god and goddesses. Thus my life was entangled with rites and rituals to appease these deities. Yet all of these proved to be futile, as I slowly found out later.

I felt as if there was no purpose in my living on this planet...But I had a Christian friend who was all the time happy, and I longed to know the secret behind his happiness. To get some direction from him, I shared all the difficulties I was going through. He invited me to his church. The people who came there were worshipers of one God, and all of them were happy and filled with peace.

The pastor opened my eyes to behold the one and living God who could give meaning to my life. Learning that a sinner can not have a relationship with a holy God, I cried out to Him, asking forgiveness for all my iniquities. The Lord heard my pleas and my heart was occupied with the peace and happiness that I was yearning for. I received Jesus as my personal Savior and Lord that day.

I became a regular to a local church and spent time daily in devotion. Later I witnessed the Lord publicly through water baptism. Gradually, I realized that the Lord was calling me to toil in His vineyard. To study the Word deeply and prepare myself for the task ahead, I enrolled in a Gospel for Asia Training Center."

Janardhan Kumar is now serving in Bihar, India, one of the poorest states which is centered on agriculture. Its population of nearly 83 million is less than 1% Christian. Our friend has a lot of hard work ahead! Please pray for him.

Finally, the sermon this Sunday was excellent. Pastor Mark preached on 1 Peter 1:3-9, and it struck close to my heart. It was about suffering grief for a little while in all kinds of trials and learning to rejoice through it. Here is the link where the sermon will be posted soon (Part 2- January 18): http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial

Well, that's all for this past week. Thank you, mom and dad (Maxey), for the purple (woo hoo!!) Kitchenaid mixer- it arrived earlier this week, but we have yet to break it in. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa Oskamp, for the Reader's Digest and Good Housekeeping subscriptions. They are both arriving now, and I enjoy reading them! We are still looking for a couch, but we must be serious, because we actually got a tape measure out and measured the space we have.

This week, I'm going to a MLK rally on Monday with Americorps, my school is watching the inauguration broadcast, and Kayle and I are trying out a new community group.

We love you and miss you!!
Angie and Kayle

Phew! This is a LONG one!!

A Merry Christmas and Beyond...

Kayle and I went home to Michigan for Christmas, and we had a WONDERFUL time. We made it out of Seattle just in time to escape the big snow and ensuing paralysis of the whole area. (Some of the Americorps members on my team were stuck in their houses for over a week, because there was no snow plow to plow their neighborhoods!) The mayor of Seattle announced a "philosophy of snow removal" that doesn't "believe" in using salt (it might leak into the Puget Sound and compromise the wildlife) or steel-rimmed plow blades (b/c the raised lane markers fall off the road). What he didn't say was his "philosophy" results in a thin layer of packed down snow (i.e. ice) with enough dirt on it to make everything ugly. And, when the snow melts, there's piles of mud along all the roads and in between every lane. Most people here are now sufficiently hating snow...

At home, we stayed at Angie's parents' house and enjoyed 5 Christmas celebrations (one for each set of parents, two larger Hinkle and Hoksbergen gatherings at the grandparents' houses, and one with our high school friends). We were so happy to be able to see so many people while we were home! Some highlights include a trivia game with Uncle Stan, meeting our new sisters from Burma, Christmas morning and playing dominoes with the Maxeys (and a yummy breakfast upon waking up), playing board games with high school friends, going on a lunch date to Sam's Joint (our favorite restaurant), playing piano at Kayle's house (with no piano here, that was a treat for Kayle), and celebrating both Christmas AND birthdays (Kayle's b-day is January 12) at the Hinkle grandparents' house.

We also remember the "quick stop" at Kelly's uncle's house where Cody was supposed to feed the dogs and let them out. With their driveway unplowed, we got stuck in the snow for 2 hours. The Hinkle men (Dad, Kayle, and Cody) devised all sorts of plots to get the van out while the women (Mom and I) laughed in the car and revved the engine upon command. After much shoveling, pouring hot water, and putting firewood under the tires (plus some wonderful help from a caring neighbor), we finally emerged and made it home late at night. Luckily, that was our only negative experience with the snow. Mostly, it was just lovely to have a white Christmas and enjoy being snowed in a day or two (it is mostly brown and green all winter in Seattle).

We came home on Dec. 30 and, upon bringing our luggage inside, mostly just slept and bought groceries. On New Year's Eve, we still didn't feel like staying up until midnight (3am Michigan time), so we met some friends (about 12 of them) for dinner at a nice restaurant and spent the night at home. Kayle worked the first Wednesday and Friday back from Michigan, and Angie went back to school on Monday the 5th after grading/editting 6th grade essays for over 15 hours during the weekend.

This first week back was tougher than most, especially for Angie who was tired and "cranky" (Kayle's description) all week. My kids at school were still in vacation mode for a few days. We also got the progress reports for kids who are failing more than 1 class (this is one way we pick the kids who will get tutors for next semester). I was sad to see all the middle-schoolers I tutor during the school day still on that list. :( So, I had a lot of short "talks" about how "there is only 2.5 weeks until the end of the semester" and "use this calendar to make a plan to get your missing assignments in." Some of my kids are getting right to work, talking to their teachers, and turning things in. Some may need a few more "talks." I have to hope that some of the progress we've made together are not things that can be measured/reflected in grades alone.

On Monday, I ran into a student on my 2nd bus on the way to school. We talked about our break and how she wanted to improve in math. I told her about after-school tutoring and homework help during lunch. Anyway, we walked off the bus together, and, when I arrived at my desk at school, I realized that I left my backpack on the bus. Boo... This is the second time I've done this since being in Seattle!! When I called the next day, they hadn't found any purple backpacks (with my purse, Disney movies, and a few boxes of granola bars inside). Luckily, it just took an extra day for my backpack to show up in Lost and Found. My students were all making dire predictions: "oh...lost on the Metro...you ain't never getting that back!" I was just glad I didn't have to go get a new license or cancel our debit card. I made the trek downtown after school, and my backpack is finally home. On a funny note, my mom called yesterday and said the Metro Lost and Found sent her a notice about my lost "item." I guess they found her address written on something inside.

The other sad event was my community group from church had 5 people who could no longer come to the Tuesday night time. So, they voted to move the meeting time to Wednesday nights instead. Since I work with the church youth group on Wednesdays, Kayle and I can no longer meet with that group. They had become our friends, and we really enjoyed discussing the sermons and sharing life with them. Hopefully, we will still be able to catch up with each other at church or by sharing dinner together. I just didn't want to have to search all over again for a new community group to be in when we loved our previous one so much. Pray for us that we may find a new group as wonderful as the last one. :(

Finally, on Friday night, Kayle and I went to look at a digital piano that was posted on Craigslist. It was what Kayle wanted, and we offered them a decent price. So, now, we have a digital piano in our home, and Kayle has been happily playing away in his free time. I guess he realized how much he missed playing piano when he went home for Christmas. Plus, we had a sizable "digital piano fund" to use. That was all the motivation we needed! :) We are still "looking" for a couch, but we will probably end up choosing a new one soon, so the store will deliver it to us instead of us figuring out how to transport/move it.

That's all the news for the week, except Angie wants Aaron to know that I saw two hummingbirds here the day after I got back from break (I've never seen ANY before). Aaron got me a hummingbird feeder for Christmas, and Kayle is still trying to figure out a good way to hang it so I can see it out the window. I am excited for hummingbirds...

Don't forget to e-mail Kayle a "Happy 23rd Birthday" note tomorrow (Jan. 12)! We are making pasties tonight to celebrate...

We miss and love you all!
Angie and Kayle

P.S. To all those worried about the floods in the Seattle area on the news: it really hasn't affected us much. One day, there were high winds in our region and traffic slowed to a crawl across the bridge on my commute. It took forever for the Metro bus to get across and home after work, since the bridge is a bottleneck and traffic was terrible the whole length of the highway. The worst flooding effect I've heard is I-5, the major highway running to Portland, was shut down for several days, preventing deliveries and commuters from coming into Seattle. Apparently, the airlines were offering reduced fares for short flights to Portland, since that was the only way to get there for a while. But, mostly, Seattle can handle rain pretty well, so we're okay. :)

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

This week, we were both filled with anticipation as we anxiously await Dec. 17 when we will be flying home. It was also a wonderful week of celebrating the Christmas season.

This week at school, the other tutors and I were asked to help chaperone a field trip with the whole 7th grade. They seemed pretty desperate, so we agreed to go to Finance Park that Wednesday. On Tuesday, I called out to a girl that I knew as I was leaving school, "What grade are you in?" She replied, "6th grade, why?" So I said, "Oh, I thought you might be going on the 7th grade field trip tomorrow." Amazed, the boy next to her exclaimed, "You're in 7th grade!?!?" Kayle seemed to think I should share that story, though I have no shortage of incidents that reveal how I look younger than I actually am. Most of my students are incredulous when I tell them I'm married.

Anyway, the actual field trip was both insane and educational. It was insane because the buses were at capacity with 59 people and we fit 65 (counting kids and adults) in each of two buses for a 40 minute bus-ride each way! Not only that, but I was the ONLY chaperone on the way there to sit farther back than the first two seats (I sat in the middle), so I was mostly on my own in enforcing rules and general order. Thankfully, Allison (another Americorps) sat with me on the way back to school. Finance Park was an awesome concept! The kids were given little "debit cards" with a gross income, family size, age, and tax amounts on it. From that, they had to calculate their take home pay (given taxes) and make financial choices in 25 different areas, paying the bills on time for each one and making sure to save and have a positive balance at the end of the month. I had a lot of good conversations with kids about deciding how quickly to pay off a credit card balance, figuring out the insurance rates for the cars and houses they chose, and what to cut back if they went over budget. The kids were even assigned 5 stocks to follow as the prices changed 3 times throughout the day. The people who ran the program did a good job making the kids think hard about how the choices they make now might affect them financially in the future. They pointed out the lifetime difference in income between a college and high school graduate and even mentioned how their grades now (and in high school) might affect how much money they'll have to pay for college. Most of the kids stayed busy with the assignments the whole day, and it kind of made me wish we had had something similar in middle school, high school, or, even, college. I think it definitely helped kids put into perspective how to budget in needs and wants as well as live according to your means to stay out of debt. Some of the kids said it was "boring," but, regardless, it would have been hard for them to leave without having learned something valuable. (I talked all day to kids about how valuable that information would be later and how much of the math and decision-making I personally use in my finances.)

This week was pretty good for tutoring as well. I'm really proud of one of my ESL students who is making noticeable progress in reading and sounding out words. His mom is anxious to help out at home, so I sent her an extensive letter describing my work with him and giving practical suggestions for helping him progress in reading, writing, and math. I've already seen him come back with "homework" he's done, and he tells me he's already learned the next two lists of sight words beyond what we've practiced at school.

I slso have a trio of 8th graders that are really tough, but we made a new agreement this week. They each signed a behavior contract with me and will be able to come to a pizza party at lunch if they do well for 20 out of 26 school days (until the end of January). So far, the day I didn't have them for tutoring, all three got kicked out of class for disrupting, so we'll see if any progress is made. I think all three passed their test on Lewis and Clark though, so that's a start!

My 6th graders that I have for 2 hours each day alternate between rambunctious and super productive. On Thursday, the class had a sub, so I helped out in the classroom instead of pulling out students to work in a smaller group. The class that day was out of control with talking and moving around and not working. I helped as many kids as I could with the assignments, but a good portion of the kids saw the day as a free-for-all and the sub had little respect. I wrote the teacher a long note with all the students who did well, and it sounds like the rest will be copying a good size paragraph about respecting substitute teachers on Monday.

Finally, it sounds like our next literacy event will be piggy-backing off an 8th grade parent night. We went to a meeting after school with the 8th grade teachers to ask to help out with their parent night and do activities with the students while the parents are discussing the possible school closure and how to prepare their kids for high school. We have to do 4 literacy events according to our Americorps grant for our school, so we'll be pretty busy planning most of those next semester.

Kayle's team at work is working hard at debugging before leaving for the holidays. He's been really busy lately and the general stress level of his co-workers is up right now. I asked Kayle if he was stressed, and he said, "Nope. I don't have enough responsibility yet." A typical, laid-back, Kayle response... In other news, Kayle loves programming so much that he's creating a pinochle game in Visual Basic. This is to "practice" the programming language and, hopefully, create something we can use to play pinochle online.

On Friday night, we had a wonderful evening. We were invited to a formal dinner for leaders of the church youth group and their spouses. It was organized by 6-8 mothers of kids in the youth group, and they did a phenomenol job of "appreciating" us. We got all dressed up (Kayle in a suit, Angie in a long black velvet dress) and ate a 5-course Italian meal. The table was decorated even fancier than a wedding banquet with candles and fresh flowers in the centerpieces. We ate appetizers in the living room before sitting at our placecard at the table and enjoying homemade soup, fresh french bread (with dipping oil), caesar salad, asparagus, chicken parmesan, and pasta. The meal ended in the living room again with a chocolate-raspberry dessert with ice cream and drinks from an espresso machine. The ladies were so sweet in serving all the food and drinks. It was very special. Then, to top it all off, they sent us home with some extra soup, some jars holiday cookie mix, and 2 $20 Starbucks gift cards (one for each of us). We were so touched by their generosity, especially since I haven't been helping there that long yet. It was a fun time, and Kayle got to meet some of the other leaders. One, Abby, is flying out to Chicago on the flight just before ours on the same airline.

On Saturday, we picked up about 40 books that were being donated by someone in Kirkland and ran a few errands in the morning. At night, we went to the biggest white elephant gift exchange I've ever seen since the days of Peace Youth Group. Brenda and her roommates had about 40-50 people over to their house for some Christmas cheer. We knew about half the room from church or through other friends, so it was a good time of hanging out and laughing at the many goofy presents. Among the best were a calendar of "extreme ironing" photos, a pregnancy test (opened by a very embarrassed girl), a single Magi statue, a TV (dragged across the room by a very small boy who, despite mom's protests, was determined to open the biggest present), and a large box of wedding bubbles (that still had the tags with the couples' names). We laughed a lot and ended up taking home a cribbage board (Kayle is so lucky...) and a Japanese-style lamp. Then, as we left, we were excited to see it snowing!! It snows here only a few times each year because of the proximity to the ocean. There were a lot of radio rumors about it possibly snowing this weekend, and it made it officially feel like the Christmas season to have about an inch of snow on the trees and grass. Until now, it really didn't seem like the middle of December to us yet, because, though most of the leaves have fallen, it usually stays about 40-50 degrees outside with snow only visible on the distant mountains. At this point, I'm all in favor of trading rain for snow!

Today, Sunday, is our official 6 month anniversary or, as Kayle puts it, our "half-anniversary." We enjoyed going to church and hearing about 2 Corinthians 8 regarding generosity in these troubled economic times. I guess the Today Show taped the sermon and is interviewing our pastor this afternoon. I'm not sure when that show will be aired, but the sermon was good and is online at www.marshillchurch.org. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, playing some cribbage, doing laundry, and planning for our trip back home. We wanted to come home to a clean house after break, so we are working on eating all our perishable food (essential for cleaning) and scrubbing/vacuuming/dusting. For dinner, we made our first frozen pizza at our new home...and it was a disaster! Kayle didn't read the instructions on the box and thus did not bake the pizza in the little browning tray it came with. I guess the crust can't support itself well when placed directly on the oven rack, because, about half-way through cooking, Kayle ran upstairs and dragged me back downstairs to see the pizza. There was a ring of crust on the second rack and a big pile of all the toppings blackening on the floor of the oven. I guess they don't make frozen pizzas like they used to!

Well, only 3 days left before we arrive in good ol' Grand Rapids. We can't wait to see family (especially meet Kayle's new sisters), high school friends, and significant snow! You are all in our thoughts and prayers...

With loving anticipation,
Angie and Kayle

PICTURES FROM WASHINGTON!!

Here are some pictures of Washington... The weather has turned into the wintry, cold rain and hazy, grey skies, so there are only a few pictures outside from a random day when the weather was nice. There are pictures of our furnished (mostly) condo and a few of our friends here. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Angie.Hinkle/PicturesFromWashington#

Angie and Kayle

The Exploding Pot Roast

This week was a great week and a difficult week at the same time. We both enjoyed our jobs this week, but, after 4 days of sleeping in over Thanksgiving, waking up at 6 am was almost torture! I, especially, was tired this week, but we made it through nevertheless...

On Wednesday was the long-anticipated Book Giveaway at school during lunch. It was so fun to see the excitement on the faces of the 6th-7th graders at the chance to spin a prize wheel and win 2-3 books of their choice. It was chaotic, but I think they loved it. The 8th graders weren't quite as enthusiastic but still about 30 of them decided to get some books. It's nice to see the books showing up around school as the kids read them for another small prize (if they can tell us what their book is about). We even had a few girls who came by the next day having already finished their books! I'd say our first literacy event was a success, and we're gearing up for an even bigger one with students and parents next semester...

Wednesday night, Kayle and I decided to prepare a pot roast to go into the crock pot the next day. Kayle was in charge of braising the meat, and I was in charge of chopping everything else. Well, our meat started frozen, and, while it was thawing in the microwave, Kayle put some vegetable oil in a pan and started heating it up. It started splattering a little, so he turned down the heat until the meat could go in. Still partially frozen, when Kayle put the meat in the pan, the oil started popping all over with loud sounds punctuated by my surprised screaming and Kayle's laughter. I guess, as the water dripped off the meat into the oil, it sank and then rapidly evaporated (since, Kayle informs me, oils boils hotter than water). Don't worry, we were far enough away that there was no danger to us. However, our kitchen had some nice oil splatters in one whole corner! I suppose I won't entrust Kayle with braising the pot roast in the future...

On Friday, my team meeting was cancelled, so I didn't have anything to do for work. I dropped Kayle off at Building 41 (where his office is) and came back home. As soon as I walked in the door, I couldn't help but think, "Hmm...what to do now? Only 8 more hours until Kayle gets home!" I suddenly remembered why I was previously so anxious to find a job. So I sat around, reading "A Wrinkle in Time" (Kayle has been bugging me to read it for YEARS now), watching some TV, and doing laundry. I also ran some errands and went to Great Clips for a haircut. I asked for shoulder-length hair with some long layers, but my haircut ended up being shoulder-length in the front and several inches longer in the back. It didn't look too bad until I got home and finished drying it, finding out (to my dismay) that this particular combination makes my hair curl inward in the front and stick straight out (horizontally) in the back! Really quite terrible! So, I picked up Kayle at work and begged him to take me back to get it fixed, which he gracefully did(no teasing or anything). As the same lady fixed my 'do, it kept getting shorter and shorter. Now, my hair is, more or less, one length and falls to about 1 inch below my chin. As Kayle says, "it's growing on me" (pun intended). I think it's not much different than some of my other summer haircuts, so I'm much happier than before...

After the hair fiasco was resolved, Kayle and I had a lovely date in Redmond Town Center, which is set up much like a two story outlet mall but with the charm of a small town feel and Christmas lights. We wandered around, ate dinner at the restaurant we went with Joe when we came out for Kayle's interview, and checked out a store or two. It was very nice and we laughed a lot.

On Saturday, there was a big theology conference hosted at our church with Dr. D.A. Carson. He's a big deal in theology circles, having written/editted more than 50 well-acclaimed books and memorized the whole Bible in Greek/Hebrew and English. Supposedly the guy knows about 6 languages fluently as well. Anyway, I was very excited to hear him speak in 4 lectures about what he thinks are the most important passages about Christ's death and resurrection. He talked about Romans 3, Revelation 12 (woman and dragon), John 11 (raising of Lazarus), and John 20 (doubting Thomas). I've never read a book by him, but both Kayle and I (and some friends who went too) came away impressed and feeling like we learned a lot. Since it was an all-day thing, we went out for lunch with our friends and had burgers at a little pub. When we walked in, a waitress told me that there were "no kids allowed." I think I stared at her blankly for a minute before I realized that she was implying that I (and another younger-looking girl named Kat) were "kids." I laughed and told her we were all over-21. The place was additionally fun because it featured two skeeball machines which provided much joy and entertainment as we waited for our meals. Maybe we are "kids" after all!

At night, Kayle was tired and stayed at home while I went to a Christmas caroling thing. It was awesome. The event was sponsored by a cruise line and is apparently a long-standing tradition in the Puget Sound, running every night for several weeks around Christmas. Each evening, they host a different choir on a large boat all bedecked with Christmas lights and stop at several beaches for a 20 minute sing-a-long Christmas concert. Not only that, but the cruise line has several other large yachts plus private boats join in on the fun by following the "Christmas ship" around, also fully decorated. It was awesome to stand on a beach for a evening concert and have 25-30 colorfully lit boats circling in Lake Washington. Brenda, one of our friends here, always knows about cool random things like this to go to! Apparently, Bellevue also hosts something called "Snowflake Street" where the main road shuts down for a large drum-line dressed as tin soldiers and artificial snow to fall on the spectators. Might have to check that out as well!

On Sunday (today), we went to church where Dr. Don was preaching for the service. He spoke about the four ironies in Matthew's account of the crucifixion of Jesus. Then, we headed home for a nap and a late lunch of homemade pizza. Kayle's video game night from last week was postponed until today, so he'll be gone later on this evening.

We're really looking forward to being home in just over a week!

With lots of love,
Angie and Kayle

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week, we both enjoyed the short week of work and long weekend with friends. I was busy at work Monday-Wednesday, helping kids with homework, preparing for our literacy event next week, and running the after-school tutoring 2 out of 3 days. Our literacy event is a book giveaway and, while I'm still waiting to pick up the donation from one bookstore, I have over 600 books in our living room ready to find a good home with a middle-schooler. We're planning to have a little game to "earn" the books and have them divided into genres so each kid can pick a book they'll like.

The other news from work is rather sad. We found out this week that, due to under-capacity in the Seattle School District, Meany Middle School will probably be shut down next year and the kids sent to other area schools. A bilingual school and an alternative school will move into the building instead. With the state-wide $5 billion deficit, it looks like Americorps programs like the Washington Reading Corps (the program I tutor with) might also be cut for next year. So, my current job, in more ways than one, probably won't exist in the fall. I'll get to finish out my 10.5 month term, so there's no real danger of being suddenly out of a job, but I'm just concerned about the kids I work with and whether they'll make it at a brand-new school with no tutors to help them catch up to grade level...

On Thursday, we went to Caleb and Laura's house for Thanksgiving. They go to our community group, have been married about a year longer than us, and have a very cute 3-month-old baby girl. Before leaving, Kayle and I made twice-baked potatoes with bacon. They turned out well, but we forgot to factor in the time to mash the potatoes with a hand-masher and were, consequently, about 20 min. late to dinner. Fortunately, we weren't the last ones there and, with all the amateur chefs, dinner wasn't on the table for another 45 min. after we arrived. We also brought fresh pineapple and corn. There eight of us there (plus baby Grace): Kayle, Angie, Caleb, Laura, Joe (from Dutch House), Henry (now lives with Joe), and a new couple (Amy and Tim). The meal was so nice and featured turkey, stuffing casserole, gravy, mashed carrots with rutabaga, jello salad, pumpkin pie, and ice cream pie in addition to our potatoes, pineapple, and corn. We talked for a long time after dinner and, randomly, ended up singing hymns out of some hymnbooks they had with Kayle accompanying on a keyboard. We missed our family but ended up having a very satisfying Thanksgiving...

On Friday, we went to Paula and Jeff Irwin's house for a game night. We brought fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies (but ran out of chocolate chips and only put about 1/3 of the normal amount from the Hinkle recipe- as a result, they tasted kind of like plain cookie dough at the end) and milk. There were lots of cookies, leftover pumpkin pies, and other snacks too. To Kayle's dismay, we played Progressive Charades again (or, as they called it, "the Hippie-Pirate-Ninja game" for no explicable reason). This time we played with only people/characters instead of any random noun, and it was funny to see multiple Captain Jack Sparrows, Edgar Allen Poes, Obamas, Bill Gates, and Wall-Es (and I thought I was creative!!). I had a good time since it was fun to get to know and meet the other 12 people there (most were familiar faces, including Joe, Caleb, Laura, Henry, James, etc.). Kayle perfected his charades strategy of avoiding all embarrassment by simply pointing at objects and people in the room- it is surprisingly effective for him. After the game, we watched Wall-E and I almost cried when Wall-E didn't recognize Eva at the end...it's amazing how emotionally invested one can get in a cartoon...

Today, we mostly just lounged around, finishing our laundry and grocery shopping. We caught up on e-mail, did some checking around on the computer, and read. A four-day weekend seems rather long, but I guess we've been pretty busy too... Tomorrow, Kayle and I are going to church in the morning, and Kayle is planning to go to a all-male video-game night in the evening. I'll probably finish sorting, labeling, and boxing up all those 600 books while he's gone!

Only 2.5 weeks before we board the plane for Michigan! And only about 2 weeks before we've been married 6 months...how time flies!

Until next week (and with love),
Angie and Kayle

Food, Friends, and Fun

This week seemed much busier than most, but we enjoyed ourselves and were pretty social overall. It's nice to be getting to know people more...

Last Sunday, we went to the 11:15 service at church and out to lunch at a nice, family-owned Mexican place afterward. We relaxed the rest of the day with the "Sunday nap" and talking to Michiganders on the phone. It seems like the only time to call home is the weekend...

Monday, it is always hard to get out of bed in the morning. We wake up at 6:15-6:30, eat waffles or pancakes for breakfast, and head off to my bus-stop near Kayle's work. We do this every morning, but it seems particularly difficult on Mondays. Mondays are also my toughest day at work, since I run the after-school tutoring that day and the kids who come are both numerous and particularly troublesome. (It seems even middle-schoolers are anxious to get home on a Monday.) Usually, Kayle and I enjoy a quiet night at home to gear up for the rest of the week. However, tomorrow (also a Monday), we're planning to go on a nice date night to Outback Steakhouse. Yay!

On Tuesday, we had community group at night (with Milano cookies as the snack!). We talked about the sermon which was about taking "marriage Sabbaths", basically spending time out of our busy lives with each other whether it be on regular dates, short weekend getaways, or longer vacations. We talked about how to cater those nights to our husband's/wive's tastes to create good memories for both and really cherish each other. It was good for us to think about setting time aside for dates and maybe going somewhere for a weekend in the near future (maybe at a ski resort...). My "homework" is to plan a getaway for Kayle that he will particularly enjoy...so far, I'm pretty stumped...

On Wednesday, I went to Proxy youth group at night. We played dodge-roll. Yes, you read that correctly...dodge-ball with dinner rolls. It was pretty fun, and I rocked the first round with my team. Our team ("Team Jonah", after the smallest kid who was unanimously elected our mascot) unfortunately came in second for the dodge-roll tournament and is 2nd/4 teams for the overall "Turkey Olympics". Boy, youth groups are notorious for coming up with strange and slightly disgusting games... For the lesson, the middle schoolers went through the part of Mark 3 about the "unforgiveable sin." I did not envy Jonathan, who taught the lesson, one bit. But he did a good job explaining the Scripture and reading up on the topic beforehand, so it was a solid lesson. If you can't tell, the middle school group is going through the Gospel of Mark...there's some tough stuff in there to try to explain to 6th-7th graders!

On Thursday, I came home a bit early from work, and Kayle and I drove up to Cedar Valley Elementary for another Americorps group's literacy night. It was a pirate-themed event (Literacy Island) complete with a hired professional pirate who walked around all night and eyepatches/earrings for the volunteers to wear. The games were fishing, letter tic-tac-toe, and an entire room of crafts. Kayle and I worked at the storyteller station, reading picture books to groups of kids. With 350 parents and kids in attendence, plenty of food, and a big raffle at the end, I'd say the night was a huge success. The experience gave my group some ideas for our own school's literacy night, which will take place next semester. It was also nice for Kayle to be able to meet some of the people from my work. The next day, they said he was "very nice."

On Friday, I went to the training day at the Federal Building downtown. The topic was "rascism in education," and it was one of the more interesting trainings so far. After, we drew our "avatars," which our leader described as the divine god-version of ourselves (from Hinduism). That was kinda strange, but mostly people just drew superheroes. Mine was Geeky Girl. Kayle thinks it's funny that I periodically come home from work with elaborate pictures I've drawn during an official training. And I made fun earlier in the year of his perks at work!

On Saturday, we had our most social day yet in Seattle. We went to the Brinton's house in the morning for a work party. The wife has been in the hospital for quite some time trying to keep a very premature infant inside despite early labor. Meanwhile, there was a lot of stuff to be done around the house before the baby arrived. A bunch of other people from church decided to come over to help complete their long list of chores. Kayle and I helped hang new curtain rods and curtains in the living room and I played with their two little boys, Micah and Asher. The baby has since been born (Zephaniah Isaac- a mouthful!), and, at a little over 3 lbs, is remarkably healthy and should be home soon. Yay!

Next, we came home and made pasties (again). We bought all the ingredients last weekend but never got around to making them. This is probably the last time we'll have them for a while, since, with left-overs, it seems like I've eaten way too many pasties this season (and I thought that wasn't possible). But at least we'll have something yummy to bring for lunch at work this week. After a short rest and a big lunch, we headed to an engagement party/open house for a couple from our bible study, Brian and Vicki. They are getting married in the spring of next year. Their proposal story was so cute with a beautiful mountain hike during which Brian surprised Vicki with a picnic lunch, a rose, some hot chocolate, and (finally) a ring, all of which fit covertly inside the giant hiking backpack he usually carried for the additional weight as exercise. The open house was fun, because we got to meet Vicki's parents and some of her childhood friends as well as visit with some of the guys in our bible study.

After, we headed to yet another party, this one a fondue open house at the home of Sara and Gary Burns (a couple from our community group). We met several new people from church and got into an interesting discussion that lasted for 3 hours. Kayle and I didn't leave until close to 9:30. It was a long day, and we promptly fell asleep.

Finally, today, we had church in the morning. We were talking about making good memories in marriage and about recalling our first date (among other things). Kayle and I remember several of our dates, but we have no clue what our first official "date" was. Probably a dance or something...anyone have any idea? We went to the 9:00 service this week, because we had our membership interview schedule with Gary Burns after church. We met in a coffee house, and it was nice to have him get to know us a bit more before pronouncing us official members of Mars Hill Church. He's also going to help Kayle get involved in the production crew (lights, powerpoint, sound, video), since that's where Kayle is most interested in serving. In the afternoon, we went on a bike ride, called home, picked up some books from the library, and went grocery shopping. All in all, it was a good day!

My dad suggested that Kayle and I take some pictures of our friends here, our condo, and even the town of Redmond. On our bike ride today, the camera ran out of batteries, but I'll try to remember to post some photos of our life here soon. We're still a bit embarrassed by the emptiness of our front room, and it might take a while for us to get another clear day to see the mountains in the background.

Random other news: my friend from college, Karis, has had a rough time healthwise lately. Her body has been rejecting the organs implanted in her about 2 years ago, and she's having all kinds of side effects to the medications. She's had health problems off and on for a while now, and she's not doing too well. However, last I heard, her body had stopped rejecting the organs and her risk of infection is slowly going back down. Anyway, keep her in your prayers. I invited her and her sister (Valerie) to our wedding and went to ISI (youth group in college) with them both.

On a lighter note, I saw a bald eagle in the wild for the first time. I was riding on the bus to work and saw it perched on an art sculpture that is in Lake Washington. So cool!

We can't wait to see everyone at Christmas. Less than a month now! We're sad to be unable to spend Thanksgiving with family but happy to be invited over to a friend's home to share the meal with a big group of friends from CG and bible study. We both have Thursday and Friday off from work, and we're looking forward to the long weekend. I'm trying hard to get ahead on my hours for work too, so I'm not behind when I get home from Christmas break (I need to get 1700 hours of service by the end of 10.5 months, which works out to about 40 hours/week, not including time off for breaks).

Anyway, we miss and love all of you! See you soon!
Angie and Kayle

Another Typical Week

This week didn't have anything too special going on, but sometimes those weeks are the ones that help you rest up! Next week is pretty busy, since I'm helping out at another school's literacy night on Thursday night. We also have two parties next Saturday (an engagement party for a friend here and a fondue party with some people from our community group from church) and our membership interview for church on Sunday.

School was great but tiring this week. I had off for Veteran's Day, and I spent the extra time calling to get books donated for our literacy event book giveaway. Since a lot of the kids don't have books of their own at home, we thought letting them pick one out to keep might encourage some of them to read more outside of school. I got 161 books donated from a used bookstore in Redmond and another 50-100 pledged by Goodwill. Another store asked for an official letter before deciding how much to donate and another said they were ordering books just for us (but didn't say how many). The cutest was one store owner who bought us one book herself and set it aside for me. All in all, we hoped to get about 300-400 books, and it looks like that might be quite possible. These are just the stores on the Eastside of Lake Washington where I live. Another girl who works with me is in charge of contacting bookstores nearer to our school in Seattle. Yay!

Another funny story is that I missed my bus stop on Thursday and had to ride an extra 40 minutes on the bus (all the way into downtown and back) to get to school. Oops! Good thing I asked not to be scheduled to tutor any kids until 9:30, so I didn't miss anything except some prep time...

Kayle is doing well at work. He fixed a bunch of bugs this week and felt pretty productive overall. If you want to know more about what Kayle is working on, there is a video from the developer's conference about Visual Studio 2010. Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/emea/teched2008/developer and search for "Jason Zander", picking the 2nd video (the Keynote, not the news one). The video starts with a 15-16 minute introduction, so you have to scroll ahead to start with the demos right away...hope that made sense! (WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS SUPER GEEKY!!) :)

On Tuesday, we went to CG and enjoyed seeing everyone for a discussion of this week's sermon. On Wednesday, I went to Proxy (youth group) where we played a trash can basketball game with a raw turkey (gross...yes, you read that right...yes, we made all the kids wash their hands WELL) and discussed the Gospel of Mark with the junior high. On Thursday, Kayle and I provided the meal for our bible study. We made spaghetti with Hinkle meat sauce for about 10-12 people and baked some garlic bread. Nothing too extravagant, but it was our first time cooking for a large group! Bible study went well, and we looked at Psalm 146. Finally, on Friday, I had my team meeting for Americorps where we made "life maps", basically a time line of our life and how we got to where we are today. It was interesting to hear everyone share about their life but also a bit heart-breaking. A lot of my teammates are coming to this year with a lot of baggage from their past...

Today, we're just running some errands and maybe going to a huge craft sale held by the Christian school where our chruch meets every Sunday. We might help clean-up or something... We're still looking for furniture and piano with no luck so far. We also have grocery shopping, library, laundry, and the bank.

We miss you and love you! We hope to hear from everyone soon!

Angie and Kayle

Game Night!

This week was a typical week for our household. I went to work at the middle school all week and enjoyed helping the kids with their reading and writing. Some of them seem really motivated to catch up in school and start getting good grades. I'm trying to encourage them as much as I can! Kayle's work is going well too.

On Tuesday, we went to community group and talked about grace and our motivations for coming to Christ. We still love getting to know the people in our CG, and it's fun to see some babies (3 total plus a toddler) once/week. Kayle and I might take the babysitting shift at some point. Not sure which is better...adult conversation or playing with the lil' ones...

On Wednesday, I had Proxy youth group at church. I've been playing a little Rock Band but discovered that drums is even harder than guitar for me...guess Aaron will have to help me practice! We had our "4th week feed" in which we eat a meal together and hang out for the full duration of the night instead of our usual teaching, games, and small groups. This month was pizza and some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the "live" version from when I was a kid. I never remembered how lame that movie was until we sat and made fun of it with a bunch of middle/high schoolers... I used to think that movie was so cool!

On Thursday, we went to 20:CF, the Microsoft bible study, together. We studied psalm 2 this week. Unfortunately, I was the only girl there, so I was inundated with "computer talk" the whole hang out time. What can I expect with 6-8 Microsofties in one room plus me?

On Friday, I had my weekly training meeting and we learned all about teaching kids to read (very useful). Since it was held at the Federal Building, I went to Pike's Place Market and ate a genuine gyro for lunch and bought some fresh produce from the fruit stands: a pomegranate, strawberries, raspberries (the best I've had in a LONG time), asparagus, and a pear. Later, Kayle and I played in a poker tournament at church to benefit the youth group. All the buy-in money is going towards the upcoming winter retreat, to help with the cost/student a bit. Winners had some cool donated prizes. Too bad we both got out within the first hour! My full house got beat out by a four-of-a-kind and I guess Kayle went all-in on the first hand he played and lost. Guess neither of us will get hooked on gambling any time soon! It was "for the children" anyway...

On Saturday, we ran a bunch of errands, went to a few garage sales, and picked up some groceries. We also made pasties (again), and they turned out very yummy. At night, we were invited to a game night with some friends from college/church. We played progressive charades, Hilarium, and Apples to Apples. It was a blast, and we laughed hard all night, especially when Kayle played the "Celine Dion" card and admitted he didn't know who she was! We are very fond of that group of friends...

Finally, today (Sunday), we slept in and went to the 11:15 service. This week was a "hot week" sermon from the Song of Songs (our whole recent sermon series is from that book). After, we went to lunch with some friends at a Mexican restaurant and came back home for a nice, Sunday nap. (I love my Sunday nap!~) Kayle went to a men's video game night to play some Halo and hang out with the guys from 20:CF. Since he's gone, I've been cleaning the house, doing laundry, and writing this post...

We miss you all more than ever and are counting down the days until December 17! Say "Happy Birthday" to Siang, Dani, and Aaron this week!! We think of you all a lot and keep you in our prayers! Remember us in yours as well...

Lots of love!
Angie and Kayle

Americorps SERVES Institute

So, the title of this post is the name of the three-day, two-night conference I went to for work this past week. The event was held in Wanatchee, WA, a small town about 3 hours east of Seattle (just across the mountains) known as the "apple capital of the world." It kind of felt like good ol' Michigan with all its apple orchards. The conference itself basically consisted of a series of seminars during which I could pick which topics to learn about. I chose to go to lectures on everything from improving reading comprehension to reaching "hard-to-reach" kids and dealing with bullies to using the Americorps education award. Honestly, only 2/5 of the seminars were engaging for the full hour and half, so it mostly felt like I was stuck in overly long lectures all day. I also felt sick on the second night of our stay, so I went to bed at 6:30 pm and slept through the night. I had hoped that SERVES would be more fun and informative, but, to be fair, it had it's good moments...like the food (the food was pretty yummy, especially the apple crisp!).

Our training session yesterday was a surprise potluck. I say "surprise" because our supervisors forgot to tell us about our responsibility to bring food until the afternoon the day before. So, I copped out and just brought a bag of chips from our pantry. So much for my new cooking!!

Kayle survived decently well without me for a few days, if you consider eating rosemary chicken quesadillas every day a balanced diet! I think he missed me a lot, but not much seemed to get done around the house while I was gone... Actually, he went to our community group one night and worked on some membership stuff the other night. So, I shouldn't tease him too much! Nonetheless, we were happy to be reunited on Thursday night and rest after a long week (all those lectures and miles of riding in the car wore me out!).

For Halloween, Kayle and I went to a spooky movie night with a large group of friends from church and bible study. We watched "Signs", which, though I've seen it 2-3 times before, hasn't gotten any less scary. I think we all jumped/screamed several times during the movie. Overall, it was incredibly fun to get together to eat candy, talk, and freak out over a scary film. It was a happy Halloween for us...oh yeah...and I wore a 50's poodle skirt costume all day too. Kayle dressed as a Microsoft employee...

Kayle's work: still going well. For those computer geeks out there, he also likes watching the new Microsoft product demos on microsoftpdc.com.

Anyway, that's all for now. We'll work on calling everyone as soon as we can, but feel free to call us too when you have free time. We love and miss you all!

Angie and Kayle

Looking forward to Christmas....

Hello again everyone!

I should start off with the most important information of the last few weeks: how our first pasty-making experience turned out... For those who don't know, pasties (pronounced pah-stees by the Maxeys) are steak, potatoes, rutabaga, and onion wrapped in pie crusts. They are a Maxey family favorite and my mom spent years perfecting her recipe and tailoring them to every family member's tastes. I made them this week and they turned out pretty well...not QUITE as good as the finely-tuned original but still yummy. Now, for those of you who do not think this is big news, just consider that EVERY SINGLE person in my family except Dani (who didn't know I was making them) specifically made a point to ask how my pasties were. Seriously, Aaron, Dad, Mom, and even Grandma were anxious to hear all about it...lol. I love my family!

Now on to much less significant news...

My work is going well. I'm very excited by the hard work most of the students I'm tutoring at school are putting into catching up and improving their grades. A few volunteer tutors and I started working with 4 students in reading/writing for the last two hours of the day. All of them were failing or close to failing every subject. But with our help, they all have made a plan to get all their missing assignments in, go to some after-school tutoring to work on math/science, and are working extra hard with us to catch up in reading/writing. They are so busy that they finish all the in-class work for the day plus 2-3 of their missing assignments during the 2 hours with us. They also seem enthusiastic about trying to get good grades and mostly are responding well to our belief that they can catch up and start doing better in school. I'm so proud!

I also have a 6th grader reading at about a 1st grade level. He's also trying his best and even practicing his sight words and spelling at home. I've been reading some African folk tales with him (he's from Kenya), and he was so excited about them that he checked out his own book of folk tales from the school library. Already, I've started to see some improvement with building the number of words he can recognize right away and just generally with his confidence in learning to read.

The after-school programs are going well too. I love sign language and am learning all kinds of new signs. I'm more of a student in the class than a teacher, but I help out as much as I can. The after-school tutoring just received an influx of new volunteer tutors, so the kids who come pretty much have one-on-one tutoring if they need it. Now that I have more hands to help, I can focus more on teaching the kids who come rather than monitering behavior and trying to keep them on task. We also started something called "Math Mondays" where most of the volunteers have a special interest in math. We hope the kids struggling in that subject will be even more motivated to come after-school for help if they know math will be the focus that day.

Also, we had a big Americorps kick-off this week Friday with speeches and an award presented to the former governor (Locke) who devised the Washington Reading Corps program and signed it into law about 10 years ago. They gave a statistic that WRC (my program) has helped about 140,000 kids in Washington improve significantly in reading/writing since its inception. Wow! There were about 900 other Americorps members from the Seattle area at the event in the Seattle Center (by the Space Needle). Pretty powerful to see so many people from around the country committing a year to national service...

After the morning presentation, we had a disaster preparedness training. Apparently, Washington state experiences/has the risk of more kinds of large-scale disasters than any other state (even volcanoes). Umm...cool, I guess? But, don't worry! They gave us a starter kit of supplies for our home (water, emergency blanket, first aid stuff, etc) for use in case of an emergency and told us all about what to do in situations like fires and earthquakes (drop, cover, hold...now you know!). The presenter was knowledgable and really funny, so it actually kept my attention for several hours. Hmm...I'm still thinking the moms might get more worry than relief from this paragraph...sorry!

Finally, my work has a three-day, two-night training conference this week from Tuesday to Thursday in Wenatchee, WA (which is apparently a small town east of here known for their apple-growing...sound like Michigan to anyone?). I get to stay in a hotel with a really nice girl (Melissa) from my Reading Corps team who is also married. I'm excited to get to know my teammates more, and I hope some of the trainings will provide useful information for me to put into practice at my school. On Friday, we'll be back in Seattle for another team training with just my group, so I'm a bit sad that I won't be at school for most of the week... Pray that Kayle will survive for a few days on his own!! :)

Kayle's work is also going well. He finished adding a new feature and is working on adding another, more complicated one now. I guess I'm not really allowed to say anything exact about what he's doing (confidentality and all that) so you'll have to ask him personally if you're itching to know more. I hope it suffices to say that "he likes his job."

Another big event from this weekend was a party to celebrate a friend's return from Japan. We played Wii, ate Mochi balls (an ice cream dessert), saw some pictures of his trip, and had a blast playing Cranium. It was a fun night and Kayle especially enjoyed beating everyone at Kirby's Avalanche. I loved being on a Cranium team with Kayle and winning the game (I guess Kayle and I know each other well enough to guess effectively). The party was at Joe's house (it was for one of his roommates, Jordan). About 10-12 of us were there.

I also went to the Notre Dame-Washington game in Husky Stadium on Saturday. Kayle gave his ticket to my friend, Sarah Jenkins (from ND), so I went with her. We had a lot of fun catching up on each other's lives, going to a huge ND tailgate put on by the alumni club, watching ND crush Washington (even though our team did not play all that well), and hearing from another avid ND fan all about our team this year and his predictions for the next few years. It was a bit nostalgic to cheer on the Irish in person again, and both of us missed ND stadium and the thrills of the student section. Hopefully, I'll make it back to South Bend for a game at some point...

Other random news:
-Kayle has been working on his chess game all week, taking online tutorials and solving chess problems. If he asks you to play over Christmas, beware!
-I lost my backpack by leaving it on the bus this week, but thankfully got it back the next day by visiting the downtown Metro bus office. I guess I shouldn't read "Little Women" while I get off the bus anymore! Still Gretel...
-Our church community group assigned "homework" last week along the theme of Song of Songs: write a letter explaining to your spouse reasons why you love them. It was fun exchanging those letters last weekend (I got two whole pages...woo hoo!).
-We're still waiting to get my insurance card for Americorps to coordinate our health insurance with Microsoft. I've been waiting to go back to the chiropractor until we get this figured out, but my back is starting to get really sore again. I hope that gets figured out soon! I also have a small bill from the doctor that we have to contest...blah...
-The rain isn't completely back yet. The last few days have been pretty warm and sunny. I think the nice weather will last a couple days before the cold drizzle starts up again. Bus stops are not nearly as pleasant when chilly and wet.

AND LASTLY,

-We bought our plane tickets to come home for Christmas!!! Yay! We're flying in on December 17th and leaving the morning of the 30th. We saved about $500 by flying on those days, but I have to miss the last Friday training session for work. My boss is not too happy about that, but I need to prioritize my family. I think I escaped this time with only a short lecture! :-/

Well, that's all I can think of for now! We love and miss you all! Thanks for hanging in there for another LONG post...

~Angie and Kayle

Phew...New Job Coming Along...

Yeah...I know it's been a while since I've last updated. So, I thought I'd get you all up to speed on the Seattle Hinkle household.

During my last post, I had just interviewed at Meany Middle School and accepted the job with Americorps. Now, I've been working for about a month and getting into a nice routine with work and home and rest. The first week at work was all orientation, starting with a 4.5 hour paperwork session on Monday (Sept 15)- we work for the Washington State and Federal governments as well as an organization called Solid Ground, not to mention our individual sites (the schools). So, it's all very seeped in bureacracy which equals paperwork all the time! The first week of training was tough since I'm one of the only Christians on my team of 30 or so and we do a lot of discussion of values, ethical leadership, and anti-racism. But I'm getting to know my team better and have some good one-on-one and small group conversations on these things, even though I don't always have the ability to express my viewpoint in the big group discussions. I'm not in West Michigan anymore, that's for sure!

At my school, I had a slow start, getting acquainted with some students and teachers and figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing everyday. We have a great full-time YMCA staff, though, that runs after-school programs and has been at Meany for several years, so they help out a lot! I work closely with the VISTA member at my school (also with Americorps but doing more of the indirect service: volunteer recruiting, donations, making schedules, planning literacy events, etc...). Her name is Allison, and we've been getting along great as a team. Right now, I'm finally getting more into what I'll be doing for the whole school year. During the day, I'm tutoring kids one-on-one or in a small group when they are pulled out of class for more intensive work with me. I also get to do other kinds of tasks like reading aloud every Tuesday/Thursday to an 8th grade class and giving a short in-class writing assignment that I return with comments. Other odd jobs include organizing some teacher libraries by genre so kids can find books they like and hanging up student essays in the hallways for parents to see on our curriculum night. These more random tasks should slow down as I get more kids assigned to me for tutoring. After school, I help with tutoring all subjects on Monday and Thursday as well as co-teach a sign language class on Tuesdays. The YMCA after-school programs are so diverse and popular that I get to meet a whole bunch of kids this way. So far, I'm really enjoying my work at the school and am ready to keep moving towards a full tutoring schedule. Oh! I also went to a cool All-City tutor training held at another middle school over the weekend (this Saturday). It was very helpful with suggesting useful activities and strategies for various levels of readers, and I'm glad I went. Although, I did win a rather bulky box full of prizes at the raffle that I had to take home on the Metro bus...eek! Oh...and speaking of busses...I'm MUCH more comfortable riding them around than I was at the time of my last post. My daily commute is only about 1/2 hour and Kayle (bless his heart) drives me to and from a bus stop nearer to his work in order to save me time in the morning. (That means he's been working the 8-8.5 hours/day I've been at school PLUS the time it takes me to get to and from the bus stop where we meet...awww, sweet.)

Kayle's work is still going well. He's been picking up a lot more of what he'll be doing on his team and is enjoying learning all kinds of new things. He comes home some days and tells me he "fixed a bug" or worked alongside someone else for the day. Overall, he's happy at his job, so I guess that's good! :)

In other news, church is going fantastic. We just joined a community group which discusses the sermons on Tuesdays. We like it especially because it has a variety of experience in it: a couple married 35 years, several just having kids, another newlywed couple and a few singles of various ages. This makes the conversation so much richer, and we feel lucky to have some guidance and wisdom from people at so many stages of life. We are still almost done with the membership process. Kayle is trying to figure out where he wants to serve the church (music, tech, development, set-up, etc...), but I have already started meeting the kids at Proxy, the middle/high-school youth group at Mars Hill. After our membership is complete, I'll probably start helping with the younger kids ministries on Sunday morning as well.

The other (mostly) fantastic thing is the Notre Dame football team this year. I'm so excited at their improvement! No more 3-9, and the announcer said this weekend that "this is a brand new team compared to last year". Jimmy Clausen (QB) is posting better numbers every week and, while we're not GREAT this year, we show a lot of promise for next season! We have tickets for the Washington-Notre Dame game this upcoming Saturday and I look forward to cheering on the Irish in person again. The Michigan team is another story...cough, Toledo, cough...

As the Seattlelites say, "the rain is back." This basically means gray skies and drizzle and fog every day. This is true about half the time now, but the clouds will soon take over full-time until summer... However, Kayle and I finally got over our persistant colds and are waking up each morning refreshed and ready for a new day (for the most part, at least!).

Finally, our cooking ability is still improving despite being much busier than before both of us were working. We've "discovered" the wonders and joy of the crock-pot and having a warm dinner when we get home from work. We try to make pot roast or pulled pork once/week now. We've also mostly mastered the Hinkle spaghetti and meat sauce recipe and have tried (with general success) London Broil, banana bread, marinated steak, chicken picatta, etc. One of my most treasured parts of the day is making and eating a warm breakfast together- we always have pancakes, belgian waffles, french toast (not too often), or bacon/eggs in the morning, which makes for a great start to every day. YUM!! We also have been trying to eat more fruits/vegetables. We especially have been enjoying fresh strawberries, asparagus, and pineapples. We've officially cut down the number of times we have pizza for dinner to about once every two weeks! YAY!

We're so happy to hear from all of you, and it's been CRAZY to try to call tons of people on the weekends. By the time I get out of work, it's usually pretty late at home. Keep leaving us messages and e-mails, because we LOVE to be updated on everyone's lives!

Keep praying for wisdom and prudence in my discussions at work and for our marriage to continue improving despite being more busy. We love you and miss you!!

Angie and Kayle

Angie Vs. Metro Bus System

Kayle and I enjoyed a long labor day weekend. On Saturday, Kayle went hiking with Joe, Brenda, and two other friends, mostly to "head for the hills" in escape of my girl's scrapbooking party. It sounds like he had fun on his hike but ended up going farther than they originally anticipated (they had one enthusiastic companion). My party was fun with about 5 other girls from the Microsoft 20 CF bible study and 1 friend from Notre Dame who moved out to Seattle for a year of post-grad service. We found out that Sarah (the ND friend) lives downtown only a few blocks from the school where I'll probably be tutoring. We might also give Kayle's ND football ticket to her, since he's not too "fired up" about cheering for the Irish and it'll be much more fun with a fellow Notre Dame fan. She might be going to the tv game watches with me as well...I'm pretty pleased to have someone from my dorm at school living so close! Overall, the party was really fun with fresh-baked "Hinkle cookies" (not quite as good as the originals, but we're working on it!), some scrapbooking madness, and plenty of conversation. Mostly, it was just good to get to know some other girls on a deeper level.

On Sunday, we went to Mars Hill and I had my interview for the youth/children's ministry. It sounds like the youth group for middle school/high school (called "Proxy") is sort of like Peace Youth Group as far as general order of the night (except it meets on Wednesdays, not Sundays), although Proxy takes 1 week each month for a shared meal together instead of the regular youth group game, lesson, worship, and small groups. I'm anxious to start contributing to my church, but I have to complete the membership process before getting more involved with youth. Only 9 more sermons to go...

On Labor Day, we were originally planning to go to the zoo or aquarium, since it only costs $5 each with the Microsoft discount and I was really excited to check them out. However, I was sick all day with a bad cold and pretty much stayed in bed. :( Coughing up a lung, headache, weak voice, and bellyache = no fun on Labor Day. Kayle ran to the store and got me 3 kinds of cough drops and cough syrup, and today I feel much better (though not quite back to normal). Blah...

Today was a big day for me and I woke up nervous. I had an interview scheduled at Meany Middle School at 10 am in Seattle near Capitol Hill. The major obstacle: 2 Seattle buses. Having never ridden the bus before, I took down extensive notes from the online trip planner but still felt quite nervous. We ended up leaving in a rush, afraid I was going to fail the very first test by missing the first bus into the city. But, thankfully, I made it with about 5 minutes to spare (Kayle dropped me off on the way to work). Phew! So now, I'm anxiously looking for the Montlake Blvd stop and since the driver was mumbling all the names after the bus already stopped, I could barely understand where we were let alone know if my stop was next. But again, I got off at the right stop, and with some help, found the stop to wait at next. On the next bus, the driver didn't even say the stop names at all and skipped all the ones that no one pulled the cord for. Eek! I hoped I would see a street sign BEFORE we zoomed by, and I did. Glad to be off the bus and miraculously about 1/2 hour early, I looked around and realized I could see no school. So I picked a direction and walked and, soon after, saw what appeared to be a school. God must've been with me today, because I was a lost cause (literally lost!) without some serious help! The weird event of the day was seeing a deranged squirrel that was flopping around in the street, about a 1.5 feet in the air. I guessed its head was probably run over or something, but it was pretty scary and I just hoped it didn't flop anywhere near my sidewalk (or I'd have been running fast the other way). Making it to the school, I had an interview and learned that the position is specifically to improve the literacy of the students through tutoring and I would be working closely with a literacy coach (who administers school-wide assessments to discern which students need the most help, trains teachers in literacy-improving techniques, and puts on events/special projects) and an Americorps VISTA student in charge of recruiting volunteers. Meany has an after-school program, so it should be easy to get my 1700 hours in (they said the person last year just worked 8-4 every day). They also mentioned that they encourage me to be creative, and, if I come up with a good school-wide project or event, they will try to get the funding and donations to make it happen. I guess the guy last year made a book of poems and stories written by the middle-schoolers and gave out copies to the students (who apparently were quite proud of their contributions). There's 500 students in the school overall with 85% black students and 65% on reduced/free lunch. But the school is nice and clean and the houses surrounding it are in good repair (overall, it looked like a nice surrounding neighborhood with nice houses and cars). The staff, as was told to me by the Americorps program head, all seemed very nice and supportive. Overall, it seemed like a great place to work, so I hope they call to officially offer me the position soon. For all those thinking: Oh no...now she has to make it HOME on the bus, I'll cut a long story short. I got on and off all three buses on the way home, arriving shortly after noon and spending a grand total of $2.50 for the day!

At home, I ate a quick lunch of leftovers and took a long nap (still not over that cold!). I also made an appointment with the chiropractor, since my back has been bothering me for a while and Kayle insists that one of my legs is longer than the other. (!!) The appointment is tomorrow. Overall, we're doing pretty well. I am especially thankful to be settling in here and establishing some semblance of a routine.

We miss you all!
Angie and Kayle

Yay! Job for Angie!

That's really the only news: that I accepted a job with the Americorps program that tutors middle-schoolers. This will mean bright and early mornings, a long bus ride, and, hopefully, a chance to be a good role model and teacher to some kids who need it. I don't make much money, but it sure beats being home all day!

Kayle and I also decided to become members of Mars Hill. We have friends there, the preaching is challenging and Scriptural, the worship is diverse, and they try really hard to get everyone plugged into community groups and service. We found out that a community group meets right in our neighborhood, but it temporarily meeting one town over. It's for young singles and marrieds, so we hope to visit and fit right in. Angie is also applying to work in the youth ministry (about 6 nights/month) and children's ministry (every other Sunday morning). The membership process is long (13 hour long sermons to listen to!) but I think it will be beneficial. There's hardly been a sermon yet where I didn't learn something new or think about something in a new way. The first sermon was on the Trinity- very good. I recommend listening to the Mars Hill sermons online.

Finally, we have internet at home now, so we'll be able to reply to e-mails much quicker. We're all signed up for our medical, dental, life insurance, and 401 (K) through Microsoft. Now, we just need to find a doctor, dentist, and car insurance. Phew....moving is hard work!

We really miss you all...I was already looking for plane tickets today for Christmas. Can't wait to see you!
Angie and Kayle

Lots of Interviews!

So, Kayle is now finishing up his 3rd week at Microsoft. He's now fully contributing to his group's work of de-bugging a bunch of code. That's about all I understand about his job, so you'll have to ask him if you want more details. So far, he likes his boss, his office mate, and the few other guys that he goes to lunch with. It sounds like he's settling in well there...

Meanwhile, I have been searching hard for a job. I applied but didn't get the positions at the Gates Foundation and have subsequently been looking at Americorps (think: domestic Peace Corps). I have attended 5 interviews this week alone (phew!), 3 of which were broad program interviews while 2 were at the actual site I would be working. The two programs I am most interested in are the Hopelink and Solid Ground. Hopelink is a broad non-profit conveniently located in Bellevue. I would be teaching ESL and GED classes there to mostly adults. Solid Ground has a tutoring program for kids at their respective schools in Seattle during the school day. The school sites are all about 10 miles away with one being an elementary school, one a middle school, and one both. All the Americorps programs offer extensive training during the 10-11 month commitment with "team meeting days" 2-4 times/month (depending on the program). It sounds like I would be challenged and learn a lot! However, I'm still looking at other programs/sites... Pray for the decision I'll have to make in the next few weeks!

Kayle and I have been enjoying the people we've met along the way too. On Tuesday, after my second interview that day, I visited a friend up in Marysville that we met at bible study. It was a nice visit and a long 2 hour chat. This Wednesday, Kayle and I joined Brenda and Joe to go see the new Batman movie on IMAX in Seattle (Microsoft's discount makes IMAX tickets only $3 each...cool!). On Thursdays, we've been going to 20 CF (Christian Fellowship) which is a 20-something bible study through Microsoft. On Sundays, we still enjoy weekly lunches with some friends after chuch. Tomorrow, we hope to meet a new married couple also from Michigan. We're going out for lunch or dinner with them and maybe to a church youth group event. Kayle knows Steve from classes at U of M, and they both now work for Microsoft. Overall, it's been a nice place to meet people. Seattle is such a growing area that it seems most of the people our age have been here for 4 years or less. So, basically, everyone is eager for new friends.

We love hearing from you all! We just got a new cell phone number that we're sharing between the two of us: 425-999-2229 (how easy!). I'm still carrying my old cell too for a while. Feel free to call anytime!

Angie and Kayle

P.S. We MISS you!

I'm Singing in the Rain!

Wow! It's been a while since my last post. Kayle has now been at Microsoft for 1.5 weeks and seems to be enjoying it immensely. We took a bike ride to Kayle's work on Sunday, and I was surprised to see that they have a pool table (to let off some steam during the work day) and free beverages all day (pretty much anything you could ever want!). Since then, Kayle has been riding his bike to work everyday and I have been able to have the car and run errands. It's only about 3 miles to his building, and there's sidewalks and bike trails the whole way. In fact, I think you can get almost ANYWHERE in Redmond on a bike trail or sidewalk. Apparently they live up to their title: "Bicycle Capital of the World." Kayle really likes his co-workers and now has his work computer all set up. The whole team is de-bugging before an upcoming deadline, and Kayle says he feels like he understands the overall project a lot better now. I can see why Kayle likes work so much: so many perks! Sometimes I wonder how much work he gets done at work. Yesterday, Coldstone came in and gave all the guys free ice cream. Today, half the day is cancelled for a development division BBQ and tomorrow we have an open house (also during work) to sign up for our medical/dental/etc benefits. Hmm...I think this week is unusual, but still!

Meanwhile, Angie has been running all over town. On Tuesday, I went to Kohl's, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Great Clips (got a shoulder-length haircut), the mechanic, Kinko's, the post office, and the grocery store. Yesterday, I spent 2.5 hours at the mechanic. He's so nice, though. Since I had to bring it back for the same problem (the check-engine light came back on), he repaired everything and re-checked it several times without charging me for labor at all. I only had to pay $36 (for the part he special-ordered), and they worked on it for about 2 hours! He was apologetic for my "inconvenience" but I am very grateful to have such an honest mechanic. (And he explains in detail exactly what is wrong with your car every time...drawing pictures and everything!) :)

Yesterday was also fun because Brenda (a new friend) came over in the morning to hang out with me. We grabbed smoothies and headed to Kirkland's beach on Lake Washington. To our surprise, Wednesday is concert day in that park, and they had a singing cowboy (who sort of sounded like Elvis) and tons of moms with their young kids (and their free popsicles). It was a happy crowd, to say the least. Then, we walked around downtown Kirkland, browsing the boutiques and chatting. It was a great morning! Brenda told me they had a movie in the park right near our house at night, so Kayle and I went to an outdoor set-up with our pillows and blankets to see "Singing in the Rain". What a wonderful event! They had the local dance troop tap-dancing while we waited for it to get dark enough and an ice cream truck was there. We had fun and went to bed tired. The parks here are so central to community life and so fun!

Well, I think that's all for this past week. I've been working on a scrapbook of our trip out West and Em J showed me a really easy and cool program to take digital photos and make a book on your computer: http://mypublisher.com/. Check it out! She's going to use it to make my wedding photo album too.

We miss you all!
Angie and Kayle