New Job!

Wow!! I guess I've been busier than I thought the past few weeks, so I'll try to catch you up on our lives. Kayle said everyone was anxious for an update, and my family's been giving me a hard time as well! (I've got Google Calendar open, so I don't forget anything.)

Well, first of all, my actual birthday went really well. At school, some of my co-workers decorated my desk and two of my students made me a card. I also brought brownies for all the kids I tutor, so that, of course, was much appreciated. After school, I had an interview with Mathnasium, a math tutoring place in Redmond. The guy who interviewed me was really nice and the location couldn't be more convenient. He said I was at the top of his list of people to hire for the part-time position (only 16 hours/week), but he didn't know if he could until his current staff gave their summer plans and he had a better idea of summer enrollment.

The following Saturday (5/23), our social life kicked it up a notch with not one but two one-year-old birthday parties in the same day. One was for Cole, the son of the couple that hosts our current community group (robot theme, first cake, BBQ...too cute!). The other was for Clara, the daughter of a couple in our previous CG- this one was at a park with friends and relatives. Both were fun (we knew a lot of people) though we thought it was funny how different our friends are now from those in college. Well, different life stage anyway...

On 6/25 (Monday night), we had a dessert potluck at Brenda's house with all-you-can-eat of every sweet thing you can imagine. We made dirt cake for the second time in two weeks and enjoyed playing Pictionary on a white board with two teams. I should just say Kayle was hilarious with his drawing, since he seemed to have a limited number of shapes that all greatly resembled each other. He had everyone laughing so hard we couldn't even guess anymore.

The big news for youth group lately is that we're changing up the entire program. Instead of weekly meetings with games, teaching, hang out time, and small groups, we're switching to a community group model where teams will meet with each other once/week (still on Wednesday nights) in homes. There are many good reasons for this change but, mostly, it will enhance our ability to go deeper into Scripture and build better relationships for discipleship. Also, many of the kids come from pretty far away, and we can better use that time if they can stay in their communities and better invite friends from school. I guess a bunch of recent studies have shown that the old 90s youth group model is just not continuing to be effective, so we're changing it up to, hopefully, better minister to our youth. The new groups should be up and running sometime this summer, so I'll let you know how they go. We're still meeting 1/month with our family-style 4th week feeds as well. Overall, I think the change will be beneficial.

Last Saturday, Kayle and I babysat for the Martinez family from our CG, a family with 4 wonderful kids and a great marriage. They have two girls who are in about 4th and 6th grade (not quite sure) and a boy who's about 3 or 4 and another boy who's a toddler. We did everything including making paper airplanes from a book (very popular), helping the oldest with a story for school, teach round-offs to the younger daughter in the backyard, read stories, watch a movie, and play "Spiderman" with stuffed animals. It was so fun, and I'm glad that we could give Dawn and Frank a date night. We told them we're happy to babysit again in the future but we're also glad to bond with a solid older couple to go to for advice as well.

Last weekend, I also worked super hard on a book we're publishing, full of student poems, stories, and essays from their classes this year. Last year, the book was extremely successful, so we're happy to produce our own version featuring the work of about 75 students. Allison and Casey spent their week tracking down teachers and students for pieces to include and typing what they found. My job was to lay out the whole book with different fonts and designs. It seemed to turn out well, and the book is now at the printer as we await a proof before getting 500 copies made! The school is paying for everyone to get a copy and the PTSA gave us money for food for our Book Release Party and Summer Activities Fair that we're hosting on Thursday. The books should all be printed by then and it'll be our last, big fling. We only have 2 weeks left of school with the final week including field day, an 8th grade field trip and graduation, and a 6th grade movie among other celebration activities. We're in the final stretch, and it's kind of sad to think about saying goodbye soon to all my students...

On Tuesday, we had "ethnic heritage" as our potluck theme for CG. Kayle really wanted to make banket with the almond paste I ordered online, but we settled for the easier almond bars. They were a big hit and the entire pan was eaten by the end of the night. It's one of the first times we haven't come home with anything left over!

Also on Tuesday, I got a call from a women from Science Adventure Camps. She asked me some questions over the phone after school and wanted to do an interview on Friday. Long story short, the interview yesterday went really well and I was impressed by the program, which has been around for over 30 years. So, I attended an 8 hour paid training today, which made me even more excited about the summer. I'll be working with students in grades 1-6, teaching science concepts and doing about 20 science-related activities each week that pertain to 4 week-long rotating themes. At the very least, I won't be bored! At the training, we did just 10 of the activities and they were a lot of fun. I made a fizz tablet rocket, a really cool six-legged Knex bug robot, an electromagnet, a rubber-band-powered wooden race car, several polymer "goops," an experiment for testing helmet materials, and a hydraulic robot figure using plastic tubes and plastic syringes. Though the details aren't quite finalized, I should have a full-time position as an instructor and possibly a lead instructor (site supervisor). Tomorrow, I have a 7-hour lead instructor and CPR/First Aid training. I got hired right before all the trainings started, so I got suddenly busy this weekend. Poor Kayle...I've been gone all weekend! Since the camp will start the week after school ends, I have my last 8 hour training in two weeks. Even better, the site I'll be at most weeks is just 5-7 minutes away from home!

Finally, yesterday I went to a baby shower for two women in our CG. We all pitched in for keepsake boxes and wrote notes to both. We also shared desserts together, and I really enjoyed the time to just talk and get to know the other women better. I posted some pictures on Picasa from the shower that someone else posted online. Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/Angie.Hinkle/JenniAndEmilySBabyShower Kayle and I have another baby shower next weekend that we're going to together- it's for Cameron and Tim, the couple that now leads our CG.

I also wanted to post some updates from church. We're adding two new campuses this year, one in the Seattle area and one in Albuquerque, NM. We also launched Mars Hill Global to continue to plant churches around the world. Someone offered to match the first $1 million and they hope to raise $4 million in one year. A new theological missions training center will open this fall and they are launching a music distributor called Re:Sound in about 1 week. It's pretty thrilling to see God work in so many various ways and mostly in our own hearts as we grow in community and through the sermons. One of the most recent sermons is really good- mostly a passionate description of the gospel through explaining justification and regeneration. Highly, highly recommended. You can find it here: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial/faith-in-your-new-birth

On a more personal ministry note, Kayle and I also recently wrote a letter to each of the kids we sponsor in India (a task I've been meaning to do for a while). We have already received initial letters from 3 of the kids, and I look forward to getting their replies! The youth group library has also become quite a project- I've been getting packages filled with books every day for about a week, I bought a $10 bookshelf, and I received donations of books and DVDs from both Discovery Institute and Reasons to Believe. I should be setting up everything at our next YG meeting.

Well, I think that's all for these past few weeks. We miss you all a lot. Thanks for being patient as you waited for an update. I really try hard not to miss a week, but sometimes the weekends get away from me!

Much love,
Angie and Kayle

Happy Birthday to Me!

Okay, so my birthday isn't today or anything, but it sure feels like it! I got my presents, we made birthday cake, and I even sang "Happy Birthday" to myself a few times... Monday will be pretty anti-climactic!

This week seemed busy to me, especially toward the end of the week! Luckily, most of my students were behaving well, and one is even working hard to get all A's and B's for my birthday present (she's worked really hard this quarter and is getting close!). Even my more squirrelly kiddos toned it down this week, and I had a great talk with one of my stubborn ones.

On Tuesday, we went to community group and, once again, enjoyed sharing each others lives and talking about the sermon. It is still one of the highlights of our week. On Wednesday, I went to youth group. We had small groups to talk about how to be so radically loving that people take notice and "know you are Christian by your love". My small group was small: one girl! But we had a great conversation, so I'm glad.

On Thursday, Kayle came to school after work and attended the 2nd annual Jaguar Arts Festival. The parents and students transformed the school into an art museum with black paper all along the walls, decorated with student paintings, drawings, and even science diagrams. In one corner of the school, the orchestra played. In another hallway, the jazz band gave a performance. Throughout the night, there was also a talent show and fashion show in the auditorium. With free food, a photobooth, and a silent auction, it was quite a fun showcase of Meany talent. It also made for a long day for me: about 12 hours! On Thursday, we also decided to take on a new project for Washington Reading Corps. We're going to put together a booklet of student poetry, short stories, and art to commemorate the year. And we have one month to do it... Crazy? I hope not!

On Friday, I made dinner for Breanna's family, and we went to a Terminator movie night. It was supposed to be a double-header of T-2 and T-3, but we couldn't stay awake for a second movie and had to leave early. It had been kind of a rough day for both of us, and we needed the extra sleep!

Today, Saturday, we picked up my birthday present from Kayle: a tandem bike that he found on Craigslist. I am SO EXCITED! What a great and romantic idea that reminds me of our honeymoon on Mackinac Island! The bike was new and still in the box (never even opened), so we took it home to assemble it. Five hours later and Kayle is still tweaking the brakes and shifter! We rode it around the neighborhood for a while, but we still don't have it switching to all the gears smoothly yet. It should be ready soon for a full test drive. Today we also made dirt cake and I got my package from mom and dad, so it basically seems like my birthday came early this year! Of course, I'm still planning to bring brownies to school on Monday and use my birthday to its full tutoring advantage...

I'm writing a day or two earlier this week because tomorrow looks like it's going to be a very busy day! We're waking up early to do children's ministry and run video at the early service before attending the 11:15 service. Then, in the afternoon, I want to go to a ballet that one of my students is performing in. At night, I have a meeting for youth group that Dustin (our leader) says is "very important." I'm excited for tomorrow!~

Hopefully, we'll be able to send some pics of our living room and tandem bike soon! We keep intending to take some but then forget to charge the batteries. We love you and miss you!!

Angie and Kayle

Movie Nights!

This past week seemed really busy, especially since we had a social engagement every day of the weekend!

Work was fine for both of us. I'm still striving to keep the kids motivated to boost their grades in the final quarter of the year. We also had an after-school field trip to the local African American museum with the kids from Jaguar tutoring. It was fun, but a little hectic to keep track of 13 kids on a crowded Metro bus! I was mostly worried that we'd leave someone on the bus and they'd end up who knows where! Kayle's been busy at his job too and enjoying the debugging work. He said he's been pretty productive lately...

On Tuesday, we both felt tired and sick, so we missed community group. Kayle ended up with a sore throat for most of the week but I felt better the next day. On Wednesday, we had a 4th week feed with parents and siblings coming to join us for pizza and discussion about worship. I started a new mini-project to set up a small library for our youth group to give them greater access to solid Christian books. I posted a note on Facebook and now have a list of over 100 book recommendations from friends. Hmm...gonna have to narrow that down a bit, I think!

On Friday, I made another meal for Breanna and her family (who had a baby a few weeks ago). I also started applying for summer jobs, mostly in community centers and tutoring places right near our home. I also applied for United Way, which has an office in Bellevue (where Kayle works). We wanted to have me work closer for the summer, so I wouldn't spend so much time riding the bus in nice weather! It would be nice to get one of the positions in Redmond- then I could easily bike to work everyday... After finishing a spreadsheet for work (compiling fund-raising information for all the schools), my day off flew by pretty quickly for a change!

At night, Joe and his roommates were hosting a Pixar movie night. We didn't realize what a big deal it was! Kayle and I arrived early and helped cook an eggplant roll appetizer and more meat than I've ever seen at one house. Apparently, over 35 people responded that they were coming! The boys even took two couches and arranged them on cinder blocks to create stadium seating in their living room. I'm not sure any of them are truly out of "college mode" yet! It was fun to see so many people and even some young kids, and we enjoyed watching "The Incredibles". The idea for a Pixar night started when one of their roommates from Africa (Fabini) said, "cartoons are for kids." I guess they wanted to prove how funny and clever Pixar "cartoons" can be! Pictures to come?

On Saturday, we were invited to another movie night at Jeff and Paula Irwin's house. This one was a smaller affair, watching Terminator 1 in preparation for the upcoming release of the new Terminator movie in a few weeks. Jeff and Paula love hosting parties on the few weeks leading up to an anticipated movie release to watch all the movies in the series leading up to the new one. Next week will be Terminator 2 with, perhaps, some of the Sarah Conner Chronicle episodes...

On Sunday, we went to the earlier service. It was our campus pastor's last Sunday preaching before he plants his new church in California. It was sad for a lot of people who know Pastor Jesse better than we do, but, since he grew up in Cali, is well suited for church planting (this would be his 3rd), and loves surfing, everyone agrees that his family will be happy and effective in ministry there. The new pastor is also well-known and recommended by both Pastor Jesse and Pastor Mark (the primary preaching pastor at Mars Hill). The new pastor and his family seem nice, and next week will be his first week preaching...no pressure!

After the service, we ran home to eat lunch before Kayle dropped me off for Brenda's b-day outing with the girls. Nine of us went to a garden show/botanical garden festival, enjoyed an authentic Korean dinner, and finished off with ice cream from Dairy Queen. Here is a link to some pictures:

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

Anyway, today was another typical day at school, except each grade got to participate in an hour-long drum circle assembly with some local Brazilian drummers. It was fun but LOUD! You try controlling middle school kids with drums! I tutored all day like usual and came home early, because I wasn't needed after school. Then, Kayle and I biked to the grocery store and library to pick up some things and exercise a bit. Hopefully, tonight will be a relaxing night before another pretty busy week!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and grandmas!

We love you and miss you all!!
Angie and Kayle

P.S. Our couch and loveseat also arrived this week on Thursday! With the floor lamps we bought last week, our living room finally feels complete. I'm sure we'll post pictures of the couches soon and hopefully be inviting people over soon...

Bring on the Pig Flu!

So, maybe I shouldn't have titled my last post "Easy Week #2"... This past week was a tough one at school! It seems like tons of kids are suspended or in detention and a few were even expelled. Bummer for them and for all the staff trying to keep behavior under control! I gave out my first in-school suspensions this week...now you know I had to be beyond annoyed to resort to that!

On Thursday, the Seattle Public Schools announced the week-long closure of a nearby middle school for a suspected swine flu case. The next day, two more local schools were shut down for a week as well. Unfortunately, this means the kids at my school, many of whom have siblings/friends at the other schools, were FREAKING OUT all day Friday about getting sick. The school nurse was swamped with worried kids and had to send an e-mail about being discerning about student requests to go to the nurse. Also, one sixth-grader was going around school purposely sneezing on people and declaring he had swine flu- not helping!! Since none of the three possible flu cases were confirmed and the flu turned out to be milder than expected, the school system decided to reopen the 3 schools earlier than originally planned. And just like that, the temporary craziness/panic subsided...

Outside of school, most of the week went as usual with CG on Tuesday night (yum- breakfast dinner!) and youth group on Wednesday night. On Friday, we met some other Microsofties for frisbee in the sun. As more people showed up, the nice throw-it-to-each-other-in-a-circle turned into an intense ultimate frisbee match, so I sat out for that part and played with a baby instead. Kayle got his exercise though! At night, we watch "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" together. I bought it from a garage sale thinking I had seen it and liked it- turns out it was a strange musical that we enjoyed watching together for Kayle's second time and my first.

On Saturday, I went to a "recipe exchange" at a friend's house. It was at 10am, so most people brought breakfast foods/recipes. It was still fun to get some "girl talk" in and exchange funny stories about how we met our husbands among other things. I brought Belgian waffles to the brunch but had homemade chili cooking at home (our first try- Betty Crocker recipe). Both turned out well, but I discovered that Kayle really doesn't like chili much. Oh well!

On Sunday, both of us worked in the toddler room again. It was fun, except, due to swine flu precautions, we didn't have snack time. That just means we had to stall/play for even longer than usual, waiting for the parents to show up at the end of the 2-hour service. I blew bubbles indoors for a LONG TIME! We also had a BBQ on Sunday to meet the new campus pastor who will lead our church in Bellevue. Our current campus pastor is leaving for southern California to plant a new church in the region where he grew up. We'll miss him, but, at Mars Hill, we've grown pretty used to growth and change for Jesus' sake!

This week is shaping up to be pretty busy too! School has gone decently well so far and I'm deep in "looking for a summer job" mode. Wish me luck!

We miss you and love you!
Angie and Kayle

Easy Week #2

This week was the second WASL week, so I only had school on Monday and Wednesday. I am kind of glad WASL is now over so I can resume my regular tutoring schedule. I have been getting a lot of reading done at school when kids have no homework, though. We're nearing the final stretch as we enter the 4th quarter for grades and have only 2 months left! I hope we can end strong and make progress toward new habits for next year. The school also have some exciting year-end things coming up, particularly the Jaguar Arts Festival, which is a school-wide art and talent exhibition and the year's most well-attended event. The WRC tutors also have a bunch of donated prizes to give away, so I think we'll host one more literacy event for students and families to come to. Since our school is closing, everyone wants to go out with a bang!

On my days off this week, I cooked, cleaned, did laundry, ran errands, and caught up on some TV shows. I also talked to a bunch of people on the phone with my longest conversation topping off at about 4 hours! I tried a new chicken and artichoke recipe from Good Housekeeping that was good and made a meal to bring over to a family in our CG that just had a baby boy named Urijah. After telling her how much I rely on my GPS to get places, I punched in the wrong address on the way to their house and ended up taking an extra half hour to get there! Bummer!

My other major bummer this week was locking my keys in the car at a garage sale while Kayle was at work. I happened to also have locked my phone in the car, so I had to ask the family having the sale to use their phone. Since Kayle said we had a spare key under the car somewhere, I spent about 20 minutes trying to find it (still in front of the house with the garage sale). Finally, when I gave up, Kayle had to borrow a car from someone at work and "save the day" while I sat on the curb and waited for him. This is not the first time I've locked the keys in the car since moving to Seattle, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But it sure is annoying every single time I do it!!

On Friday night, we went to Mike Fischer's house (from UM- Dutch House too) for a movie night. They had seating in their living room for like 15 people, and we played Rock Band with a huge projected image on the wall. We also enjoyed some ice cream left over from the bachelor party last week and saw "Equilibrium," a modern version of Fahrenheit 451 in which all books and art were burned to prevent humans from engaging in any conflict by destroying emotion. It was interesting but violent, and, all in all, I think the puppy in it stole the show. Anyway, Kayle ended the night with a computer conversation while I fell asleep on the couch, so everyone was happy!

This weekend was mostly just relaxing with some garage sales and a bike ride on Saturday. On Sunday (today), we went to church early (8 am) so Kayle could work the video at the morning services while I played with some lil' ones. Kayle had a meeting to start helping with children's ministry too, so we didn't get home until after 2:30. We're feeling pretty tired, so we'll probably watch a movie and go to bed early tonight. How I love the weekends! :)

Anyway, not too much is new with us this week. We're still waiting for our couch and loveseat to be delivered, but it should come in the next week or so. We love you and miss you all!

Angie and Kayle

P.S. For those having trouble viewing the pictures I posted. Try highlighting the whole link and then pressing Ctrl and C together. Then, click in the website box on the top of the screen and press Ctrl and V together. When you hit Enter, you should get to the page with the photos. Let me know if you want more help!

Bike Ride or Shopping Trip?

This week was an unusual one for me, since I only had school on Monday and Tuesday. Even those days were slow, because most teachers don't assign homework (or even much classwork) during WASL. One 6th grade class had a visiting actress who will be working with them to write and put on a play later in the year. Another watched a movie during the time I usually read aloud to the class. Several of my students just didn't have homework when I pulled them out for tutoring so I ended up taking someone else. Even after-school programming was relaxed, with little homework being done and mostly board games and movies. I did get to teach some kids to play a new version of Life with an electronic banking system and credit cards to keep track of each person's balance. It was kind of cool to help them make some virtual financial decisions and watch which strategies (like going to college) help you win the game. This upcoming week should be laid-back too and I anticipate only being at school on Monday and Wednesday. Feel free to call me the other days if you want to chat for a while!

I spent most of the week doing odd jobs and errands that I had been putting off. For example, Kayle and I both went to the dentist and were shocked by how much it costs! Good thing insurance helped with some of it, but I think, in hindsight, we should have picked the other dental option. I guess we're lucky we both brush and floss well, since neither of us had any cavities or problems. They did convince me to buy a (cheap) electric sonic toothbrush though. I also got my wedding gown cleaned (finally), picked up some prescriptions, cleaned the house, did laundry, and sorted some board games for my school. I visited Kayle for lunch at work one day too.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had CG (community group) and Proxy (youth group) respectively. On Thursday, Kayle got to go to a bachelor party for Brian Railing, a guy from the Microsoft bible study we used to go to. Kayle knew a bunch of the other guys as well. They went to a restaurant for a manly steak dinner, to an indoor go-cart track, and to someone's house to play video games. Kayle had a lot of fun, so I was glad to let him enjoy a night out. I stayed home to watch a new Disney movie (Bedtime Stories) that I rented and finish my book. I also made my own cookie dough bites dipped in melted dark chocolate. One of my better culinary ideas!

This weekend, we experienced some beautiful Seattle weather. It was a nice taste of the upcoming summer, we hope... Kayle and I went on a long bike ride on Saturday, stopping at a few furniture stores near Kayle's work. Then, a remarkable thing happened...we actually purchased a sofa and loveseat! It's a nice, comfy microfiber set in a tan color that seems to suit our general laid-back style pretty well. We're looking forward to it being delivered in 1-2 weeks so we can finally invite some friends over and practice our hospitality. I guess we finally got fed up with our procrastination and decided it was time to stop shopping around. Yay for us! At night, we watched the new Will Smith movie called "Seven Pounds." It was decently good but a bit disturbing- kind of along the lines of "Pay It Forward" but more predictable once you figure out what's going on.

Today (Sunday), we went to church early so that Kayle could complete his training to run the video at church solo next week. The sermon was about how to be a good, Christian friend to someone who is suffering. Very practical. We spent the afternoon riding bikes along the river in Redmond and watching some people fly remote control planes in the park. I got a new inhaler from the doctor that seems to be working well and makes exercising much more pleasant. Hopefully, we can keep our resolve to exercise more! There's a lot of nice places around Redmond to ride bikes and we see many, many people walking, riding, roller-blading, skate-boarding, and running when we go out on the paved trails. At night, I had a 2-hour meeting for youth group.

Since it's getting late, I should go to bed. School tomorrow! We love and miss you!

Angie and Kayle

P.S. Don't forget to look at the pictures I posted earlier this week!

Pictures from Junior High Retreat

I just created a new album on Picasa for the junior high retreat. Most of these pictures are from the rodeo that we had on Saturday in which the kids got to do all sorts of silly relays. One of my middle-schoolers in youth group gave me a CD of pictures, so I thought I'd share them with you as well.

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

There is also one picture (the only one we took) from when Dani was visiting us. It's from Pike Place Market in front of where they throw the fish. Apparently, they used to have a pig run through the city, which is why there's a pig statue there!

Enjoy!
Angie

Snowshoeing Pictures Now Online!

I mentioned that Kayle went snowshoeing about 2 weeks ago. James Marshall, one of the guys on the trip, posted these pictures online. So, I thought I'd put the best ones in an album of my own and share them with you!

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

Wow! What a Happy Easter!!

Can I just say that the God we serve is amazing? Today was a most wonderful Easter as I celebrated all day, singing at four services with the choir. I also witnessed over 50 baptisms and anticipate hearing about many more tomorrow as I read about what happened at the other Mars Hill campuses. I saw several kids from youth group being baptized today and professing their faith in Jesus Christ to save them from their sins by his death and resurrection. I'm not sure I've ever sung so joyfully in my life! My cheeks hurt from smiling so much and I had to fight back tears during some of the more touching moments. Wow! Happy Easter!!

We also got to eat over at Caleb and Laura Bell's house for an Easter lunch/dinner. Caleb was baptized today and invited us over after the morning services. We celebrated Thanksgiving at their house as well last year. It was a nice time to talk and rest up before singing in the final service at night. Kayle came to the first two services of the day and baked bread during the 11:30 service (so we'd have something to bring to the Bells'). He stayed home for the 5:00 service, but we watched the main campus' (Ballard) live 7:30 service after I got home. Just couldn't get enough of those baptisms. Some were planned but many were spontaneous as people felt convicted by the gospel and professed faith for the first time! God is certainly moving here in Seattle...

Overall, this was a really good week at school for me. My kids made a lot of progress, and I received a donation of board games for our next literacy event. For the next two weeks, the whole middle is taking the WASL standardized test in the mornings. So, I'll have a few extra days off (since the daily schedule is changed a lot) and a few days that I can come in later than usual.

At Proxy on Wednesday, we had our "4th week feed," a youth group meal that has recently evolved to include parents and siblings as well. We shared a meal of pizza and cookies and discussed prayer at our tables. Honestly, it was pretty cool to hear a variety of ages, from young kids to parents, speaking about their prayer lives and what prayer is and why we pray. The idea is that by having meals in youth group with the whole family and modeling some dinnertime Bible discussion, we can get more families comfortable about talking about God at home on a regular basis.

On Thursday, I had a 4-hour-long choir and technical practice for the Good Friday service. Then, on Friday, our choir sang two awesome songs in Latin at each of the two services at night. The whole evening focused on reading an account of Jesus' last supper, betrayal, trial, crucifixion, death, and burial compiled from the four Gospels. It was a raw, heart-breaking, and powerful time of remembering all that Jesus did in our place so our sins could be forgiven. The question of the night was "who killed God?" The answer: "God killed God". "Why? So that I don't have to take the penalty for my own sins!" Jesus took the wrath of God upon Himself, in all its somber brutality, so that I can be reconciled to a holy, just God. Wow...

On Saturday, I had another 4 hour practice for Easter. We were supposed to sing two songs, one in Latin and another a gospel piece. However, the Latin one was nixed (didn't really fit in with the flow of the service) and 5 more praise songs were added! We ended up being recruited to sing with the praise band for the whole service. Alleluia! I get to sing literally ALL DAY on Easter...does it get any better?

I should be able to post some cool pictures soon from Kayle's snowshoeing last weekend. I saw them online at Joe's house but have to hunt them down at home still. We love you and miss you!

Angie and Kayle

P.S. Comment every once in a while to say "hi". I'm sad I don't get any comments any more... I changed the settings so you shouldn't have to sign in to be able to post.

P.P.S. I woke up this morning (Monday) to see a new blog post that Pastor Mark had written last night about Easter: http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2009/04/12/enjoying-god%E2%80%99s-easter-grace/

Finally Spring...AFTER Spring Break!

This week was a relaxing one for me, since I had no school. Mostly I ran errands, visited some friends, and finished some chores at home. Kayle had a good, productive week at work, but I sure did miss him for the 8 hours he was gone every day!

On Tuesday, I visited Lexi and Josh Clayton from our community group, because they just had their baby. Selah Grace was so cute and little! Also, since I left my cell phone during the first visit, I got to visit them again on Wednesday. The second time, it was raining really hard on the drive over. So, instead of going south, I missed my connection to the other highway and went west into Seattle, south near the airport and back east to their house. Somewhere in there, the rain switched to snow. I was a bit frustrated, but I saw a bald eagle again (I always see them when I'm upset and crossing the 520 bridge). Community group and youth group both went well this week too.

On Friday, I made pasties while Kayle was at work. Not only am I messier when I cook by myself, but Kayle and I have discovered a knack for exploding things in the kitchen. Pasta sauce boils and pops all over and the frozen pot roast once sent hot oil flying. Then, there was the dishwasher incident and the time the sink head came off, leaving water squirting all over. But I think I've outdone myself this time! While cutting up the potatoes, rutabaga, and onions for the pasties, I put the peels and skins in the sink. Then, I flushed them down the garbage disposal, as I have done several times before. This time, I was surprised to see the cupboard under the sink fly open before I was sprayed with water and vegetable pieces. It took a few seconds for the shock to wear off and, by the time I thought to turn off the water and disposal, half the kitchen was littered with puddles and peels. Even worse, the whole inside of the cupboard under the sink was covered with partly shredded gunk. Apparently, the pipe coming out from the disposal became disconnected from the pressure of being clogged. So, what did I do? I called Kayle at work and said, "we have a problem." He told me I could "wait until he came home (in several hours) to clean it up." I informed him that that probably wasn't an option! It took me about an hour to clean up the mess and then I still had to finish the pasties. Definitely one of my more time-consuming meals... Kayle was thankful to have his favorite meal, so maybe it was all worth it!

On Saturday, Kayle went snowshoeing on Mt. Rainier with a couple friends. We learned that anyone can rent snowshoes at the local sporting goods store for only $20. We woke up bright and early to meet the guys at 6am and Kayle left with Joe (from the Dutch House), Joe's dad, Mike, James, and Jordan. Since it seemed like a "male-bonding" event and since I really don't like any form of hiking, I told Kayle to "have fun" and went to the church's spring cleaning event. I had fun talking to Brenda, cleaning the hinges of several doors, and going out to lunch. When Kayle returned in the afternoon, we were both very tired from a long day. He had fun snowshoeing about 3-4 miles until they got above the tree line and the wind blasted them continually. Since Kayle and Joe forgot sunglasses, they both were sunburned pretty badly on one side of their face from the added reflection on the snow. I guess they both wore sunscreen but underestimated the sun when it feels cold outside!

Kayle's one eye was all swollen the next day, so he could barely open it at church. He kind of looked like he caught a punch in a fight or something. I guess it was a good thing he was planning to serve in the tech booth- he said "hi" to a few friends and hid away for the rest of the two morning services. I worked in the toddler room as well and was amazed to have 23 kids in our room (with about 6 adults)! Our church is a young church and we certainly have a LOT of babies around... After church, I had choir practice for 2.5 hours. Both of us were tired and anticipating work the next day, so we retired early and slept soundly.

Today (Monday), I went back to school and was relieved that my students seemed generally well rested and happy after Spring Break. My tutoring sessions went pretty well all day. Next week and the following, our school is taking the WASL (the WA equivalent of the MEAP). While my students are dreading it, the WASL is kind of good for me. On test days, I am not needed until after 10 am and there may be some days I even have completely off! It's kind of nice to not need to keep track of my volunteer hours anymore! Today was also brilliantly sunny and warm, a welcome 70 degrees! I was reminded anew how beautiful Seattle can be in nice weather, especially since all the mountains were out and all the people were happier. I think the whole city feels a bit down with all the clouds and dreariness of winter, and today definitely felt more upbeat on the buses. People were talking and smiling more, and the parks were incredibly crowded when we passed by. We're all looking forward to summer, I guess!

Anyway, Kayle and I are both happy and looking forward to Easter weekend. I have a busy week with two 4 hour practices in addition to singing in two Good Friday and four Easter services. We're still not sure about who we'll spend Easter dinner with but we might try to work something out with friends. We also decided to put off our Spring Break plans until summertime. We found some fun websites about the San Juan islands (northwest corner of WA, near Canada) and think we might try to visit there for our 1st anniversary.

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

1st Annual Hinkle Puzzle Hunt

Hello everyone!

This week was a tiring but good week. Since this was the last week before Spring Break, I was extra busy during the school day but had no after school activities. Being done at 2:15 instead of 4:30 was nice, especially since I was pretty worn out by Thursday. It was also helpful to have the extra time to make last-minute preparations for the scholarship party on Wednesday.

School this week had its ups and downs. I am pretty proud that over 80 students are now signed up for the college scholarship I have been promoting for a month now. About 3/4 of them came to the half hour "party" during advisory class and we gave away a whole box of free books, a bunch of college materials, many boxes of doughnuts/cookies, 4 jugs of juice, and tons of little bags of chips. All of it was donated (our school has done pretty well with getting plenty of donations)! Every kid that came also got a newsletter from College Bound about preparing for college now and using career websites. I feel pretty good too, because the principal and school counselor personally congratulated me on my efforts. Since the scholarship is not actually due until the end of the school year, I'll probably have another, shorter push in May. But, for now, I get to rest from this project and move on to something new.

Some of the downs this week are that several of my students have been misbehaving more lately. Now that the big 5 paragraph essay is in and with SB coming up, some of my sixth graders chose this week to be rowdy and defiant. They got pretty mad when I started handing out lunch detentions and having stern talks in the hallway! I also have another student who, for unknown reasons, decided they no longer wanted to be tutored anymore despite the great progress that's been made so far. Despite my best investigative efforts (talking to other teachers), I still have no solid idea of what might have brought about this change of heart. After Spring Break, we'll have to figure something out... It isn't just my students who have been having a hard time focusing lately. The whole school is stressed, it seems, with the looming school closure, since teachers and students will all need to adjust to a new school next year. The principal called off all after-school meetings for the two weeks after Spring Break (to give the teachers a rest) and canceled the in-school dance on Friday due to unruly hallway behavior. Hopefully, Spring Break will do a lot of good for everyone!

In other news...on Tuesday, we went to community group and had a lovely breakfast dinner together. I got my wish to be able to contribute to the meal! Kayle and I brought Belgian waffles, whipped cream, and strawberries (our favorites!). We also had a new family join our group who has 1 son already and another baby coming in about 2 weeks. Two more women also announced pregnancies this week, bringing our total up to 7 (well, 6...see below)! There was talk of having a big baby shower for the 5 women whose babies are due in the fall. Sounds fun to me! Also, Lexi, whose husband leads our CG, had her baby on Saturday: an 8 lbs, 3 oz girl named Selah Grace Clayton. Kayle and I will probably visit sometime this week to hang out with Lexi, see the baby, and bring dinner for their family.

On Wednesday, I went to Proxy and hung out with some more kids. For the "game," we analyzed a popular song to identify what messages the song was portraying and see which of them were compatible with Christianity. I think it was a valuable exercise, since the various forms of media bombard us with all sorts of ideas and we need to be able to evaluate which are true and good and guard against (and understand) those that aren't. The junior high split off from the high school this week, and we had small groups about the feeding of the 5000 and what it means to be "lost sheep" and to "have compassion." The girls in the junior high group are so sweet (the small groups are usually divided by gender, so I know the girls much better)- two of them always find me in church and give me a big hug!

When I was home on Friday, I ran some quick errands after dropping Kayle off at work and before spending the whole day preparing a puzzle hunt for Kayle. This was a random endeavor modeled after an annual event put on by Microsoft that has teams solving difficult puzzles involving everything from Braille and Morse code to ciphers and logic grids. Kayle found the website with the old puzzles in an archive and he/we sometimes solve them for fun. Since I had an all-day choir retreat on Saturday, I wanted to leave something fun and loving for Kayle to do while I was gone. My makeshift puzzle hunt basically had envelopes hidden around the house and, when he solved one puzzle, the answer led him to the next puzzle. After preparing my surprise all day, it was really hard for me to wait until the next morning to tell Kayle. I managed to hold my tongue until we were in the car and driving to the choir retreat. When I got out of the car, I handed him the first envelope...

The choir retreat was essentially a 7.5 hour practice! We have 4 songs total for Good Friday and Easter, 3 of which are in Latin and 1 is a gospel choir piece (that I know from high school and REALLY like). We made a lot of progress during the day, and our choir director is very skilled at improving our sound and catering to our varied skill levels. Unfortunately, after today's (Sunday) practice, we only have one more rehearsal left! I think we'll be ready, but it will probably require some at-home practice listening to YouTube recordings online... After the Saturday singing marathon, Kayle and I went on a nice, romantic dinner date to Applebee's.

Today, we went to the 11:00 service at church, and I had my 2.5 hour choir rehearsal. The sermon was really good (again)- it spoke about how God can use suffering in our lives to improve our fellowship, to aid us in understanding the depth of God's love, and to demonstrate the gospel if we suffer well (like Christ) with hope in God. This week, Pastor Mark was also on Nightline for a full episode, since our church hosted a debate over the existence of Satan. The full debate and episode videos are on the Nightline website. It's really exciting to be a part of a church that is growing so much and yet so determined to glorify God in everything! Just recently, the services have been packed and they just decided to do 5 Easter services instead of 4 to be able to accommodate all the members and visitors. Sounds like we'll have a full house for our choir debut! I am happy that so many people are hearing the gospel and embracing it in a city that is one of the "least churched" in America.

Wow...what a whirlwind week! It will be nice to have a week to rest over Spring Break, but I am hoping to make myself useful to Lexi Clayton and maybe some others in my CG. I get so bored at home alone after a day or two! Kayle and I will probably go spend a day/night at one of the beautiful islands northwest of here. Plans are still in the works! We'll hopefully, finally, buy a couch this week too...

Finally, when we went to the grocery store this week, I was distracted by a book title as we were checking out. In the car, I asked Kayle how much the bill was. At first, he jokingly said, "$20," but I knew that was wrong. I pressed him further, and, when he didn't tell me right away, I said, "was it more or less than $80?" He smiled and said, "neither." I was annoyed, because I thought he was still messing with me to be funny. Then, he pulled the receipt out of his pocket and handed it to me. To my great surprise, it read $80.00 exactly!! I felt a bit sheepish after that...

Since I'm not at school all week, feel free to call me anytime. We both miss you and love you all!

Take care,
Angie and Kayle

Husbands and Wives

This week was another typical week for us. Not too much new is going on, but here goes:

At school, my two co-tutors were away at Serves training for 3 days, so my schedule was especially hectic Tuesday-Thursday. All week I had to stay after school for Jaguar tutoring and I barely got a break all day. I used my one planning period to prepare for the party, make some donation calls, and run copies. My 6th graders also had their big 5 paragraph essay due this week, so I was busy trying to keep everyone on task while I edited paper after paper. Amazingly, most of my kids got their paper in ON TIME!! Usually, we have multiple kids who lost different parts of their paper or even had to start over in the last few days before the due date. This time, I had a few students finish a day early!! The teacher remarked of one boy that this might be the first major assignment he's EVER turned in on time. It's pretty sad to rejoice over what seems like such a meager victory but there are many challenges with being a low income school. For example, most of the other middle schools in Seattle have school planners for their students, but our school can't afford them and thus a lot of students don't learn that organizational skill or have a systematic way of keeping track of homework assignments. A lot of students also come to school saying their backpack or binder was stolen. Whether it was really lost or stolen (and it may vary by case), this causes them to have to start over on assignments and lose their notes from class. How frustrating! But, overall, I'm happy with the work we've been doing so far, and it is especially rewarding to see the exceptional progress of a few students. We have one more week before Spring Break and then one more week before the big WASL (state) standardized tests. The WASL is highly stressful for many of our students, so tension is high as teachers strive to prepare them for it.

On Tuesday, we had our community group and talked about the role of a wife. We also ate a dinner of chili, salad, chips, and root beer floats (yum!). We eat dinner together every week with a different menu. Everyone brings a dish or topping. Our first contribution was...an onion and a bag of Tostitos. Lame! Everything else was also spoken for by the time we signed up!! Maybe I'll get a chance to share my culinary skills sometime soon...

On Wednesday, I went to Proxy youth group at night. One of the other leaders spoke about Barnabas and I learned a lot (along with the students) about this lesser known person in the New Testament. We prayed about which areas we need encouragement and who around us we can encourage, since Barnabas means "Son of Encouragement".

On Thursday, we made a highly successful pizza with homemade pizza dough courtesy of Kayle and our new cast iron pan. We were both surprised it turned out well the first time and we anticipate making another one soon! Yay for bacon and pineapple pizza! Now, we just need to find a good recipe for pizza sauce...

On Friday, Angie ran errands while Kayle was at work. You may have heard us rave about how much we love our mechanic, Don, at Harvey's Auto (like, I consider baking him cookies every time I go in). Now, I've found, by recommendation from the same couple, the Harvey's of eye doctors. I had my first appointment for an eye exam and to order contacts and he was just wonderful. He explained every eye test at length, provided ample encouragement of my consistency when deciding which lens was better, and talked and joked a lot. It was strange to actually enjoy an eye exam (except the air poof part- nobody likes that!). At night, we rented "Horton Hears a Who" and spent a nice romantic evening together at home.

On Saturday, we started our taxes and...got stuck somewhere in the middle. We called both sets of parents for missing numbers and still have to call Notre Dame for some tuition figures. Boo for financial forms, one of Angie's LEAST favorite things to do (alongside vacuuming, etc) and pretty low on Kayle's list as well. I like to fill out forms, but ONLY if I know all the answers when I get to them. I also hate to be unable to finish something right away! Oh well! That night, we went on a nice dinner date to a new Italian restaurant named Spazzo. I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce it, but the name reminds me of my late lovebird named Zazu (who had a similar nickname). The food was really good (fried artichoke hearts, salmon, and chicken picatta), so we added this to our growing list of favorite restaurants (most of which also feature a Microsoft discount).

Today, we went to the early service at church where the sermon was about the role and responsibilities of a husband. The sermon this week (and last week about wives) were excellent and seem to come from years of learning how to handle thoroughly a rather touchy subject in our culture. You can find them both here: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial Both Kayle and I served in the toddler room during the second service this week and played with babies for two hours. Then, we caught a quick lunch at Subway before I stayed for long choir practice to prepare for Good Friday and Easter. We're singing some BEAUTIFUL pieces, two in Latin so far. We have an all-day choir retreat coming up on Saturday, so we should finally have all the music by then.

I guess the latest edition of Time magazine named "New Calvinism" number 3 in its list of top ten ideas that are changing the world right now. This new resurgence of Reformed thinking aims to be solid in Biblical theology while reaching out to contemporary culture and is led by John Piper, our pastor, and many others affiliated with them (like J.I. Packer, Don Carson, etc...). Our pastor will also be on Nightline again soon for a recent debate held at our church on the reality of Satan.

Anyway, we were thinking that summertime is the best season to come visit us if anyone is itching to see us and Seattle at its sunniest. It's in the 70s and sunny here every day in the summer. Just let us know if you have any dates in mind... So far, we're only planning to be gone the first week or so of August.

We love you and miss you all!
Angie

A Peek at "Real Life"

This week, school went well. I worked on contacting Washington public colleges for admissions brochures to give to the kids at the scholarship party next week. One box arrived so far with fun stickers, lanyards, and other small goodies. I think the middle schoolers will like that, though Univ. of Washington stuff will be a hot commodity! Every kid in school (pretty much) talks about going there for college- and it's only about 15 min. up the road from our middle school. Hopefully, some of the "party-goers" will be interested in looking through the information about colleges so they can plan ahead how to use their scholarship and get the grades they need now.

On Tuesday, our CG was canceled due to sickness and other factors. Kayle and I went through the questions on our own this weekend. Our leader, Josh, comes up with good, challenging questions to go along with the sermon and the Scripture passage of the week.

On Wednesday night, I helped out at youth group. We're practicing bible study skills in small groups and then sharing out our answers to the larger group. It's fun to be a leader of a small group, since that's my preferred setting to talk and teach. I like that the CG that Kayle and I are in is also a small group bible study setting.

Fridays are now my errand and chore days. I scheduled some dentist/eye doctor appointments, called a few college admissions offices, filled out paperwork, and did many loads of laundry. At night, Kayle and I went to the movies to see "Slumdog Millionaire." We really liked it, and that's coming from people who go out to see less than 5 movies/year. It was a touching story, and it was heartbreaking to think that some of the kids we sponsor in India might live in similar conditions.

On Saturday, Kayle and I volunteered in the morning at a YMCA event near my school. They were putting on a "Real Life Fair" in which the kids (mostly high schoolers) went around to booths with a pre-determined income and family size. At each booth, they had to make choices about housing, food, transportation, childcare, education, entertainment, and health care coverage and keep track of their money on a checkbook ledger. Each table also had "chance cards" in which a one-time expense or prize had to be accounted for as well. Kayle and I were "tour guides," leading our group of kids to the tables and helping them with their ledgers and choices. It was a valuable event for thinking ahead about budgeting and financial decisions. We enjoyed being able to help out too. Afterwards, we came home for a nice Saturday nap and enjoyed hanging out at nighth with a bowl of ice cream.

Today, we decided to go to the later 5pm service at church, since I have choir practice at 3 and a meeting for youth group at 7. That way, we'll save a few trips and Kayle can get in some reading time during my meeting.

We're "enjoying" the weather this week in Seattle. We had a few 50 degree sunny days, a few gray and rainy days, and two hour-long snowfalls. It makes me feel just like Michigan where you only have to wait about 5 minutes for the weather to change. Personally, I'm looking forward to warm and sunny...it makes the bus stops and short walks far more pleasant!

Finally, Kayle decided he really wanted to get serious about making homemade pizza. We started with Jiffy crust and canned pineapple. Now that we have a mixer, we began making homemade pizza dough and even cutting up a fresh pineapple sometimes. So, last week, Kayle wanted to get a pizza stone or cast iron pan to further improve his favorite dish. We ended up ordering a 17" cast-iron skillet on Amazon (it is just barely smaller than our oven's size). We also got two cast-iron bread pans for homemade bread and a pizza peel to get the pizza in the hot oven. Kayle has been anxiously waiting for the packages to arrive, and I'm sure we'll be making pizza that very night. According to my mom, homemade pizza might be our "specialty" dish for when people come visit. Hopefully, we'll get some practice in so it can live up to all the "hype". :)

That's all for this week! Happy Anniversary (Angie's) Mom and Dad! Hope to see you all soon- Christmas seems a long time ago now!

Much love,
Angie and Kayle

Some BUSY Weekends!!

As many of you know, the last few weeks (particularly weekends) have been busy for us, which is why it took me a while to post an update. Here goes, in what is hopefully a more Cliffnotes version than usual:

Two weekends ago, I had my junior high youth group retreat at Miracle Ranch. It was a blast! There were two sweet middle school girls in my cabin that I co-led with Cameron. The small cabin size made it a good atmosphere for conversation and bonding. Five boys from our youth group also came and stayed in another cabin. The retreat featured many fun activities including high ropes (one where you had to jump off a platform 100 feet in the air and grab a trapeze...scary!), horseback riding, paintball, flashlight tag at night and some funny skits. Perhaps the funniest activity was a rodeo in which kids herded chickens, were rolled in barrels, tied ribbons on goat tails, and danced to "Cotton-Eye Joe". The whole camp has a Western theme and has full-time leaders which run all the games and events so the youth group leaders can use the time to hang out with the kids instead of plan everything. Dustin, our youth group director preached about the gospel in 5 short messages to all the campers (about 50-60), who arrived from 4 different churches total. The food was also the most amazing camp food I've ever had, so, overall, I'd say it was an excellent experience.

While I was gone from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, Kayle read a book and hung out with some guys at Joe's house for a game night. He learned a new game called "Wits and Wagers" in which you answer random questions with a number (like, "How much does the average African elephant weigh?") and then bet on which answer comes the closest. It was a fun game for a larger group of people.

Last weekend, Dani was here from Michigan!! We had a GREAT TIME hanging out with her and showing off our new city. On Saturday, we went to Pike's Place Market and shopped around the booths, saw the fish being thrown, visited the first Starbucks, and sampled some seafood at a local cafe. We also shopped in a few stores in downtown Seattle. At night, we went out for a nice dinner at one of our new favorite restaurants, went shopping "just the girls" at Kohl's, and came home to watch "Enchanted" with pillows and blankets in the living room.

On Sunday, we went to the early service at church, came home for a nap, and packed up to go night skiing at Snoqualmie Pass. Unfortunately, after an hour or so drive, we arrived to find out that there is no night skiing on Sundays. So we saw some nice looking slopes and stopped by Snoqualmie waterfall on the way home to vindicate the trip. We decided to go out to dinner at another of our favorite restaurants (both with the "Microsoft discount," of course...). After a wonderful dinner of ribs, chicken, and calamari, we shared a huge mountain of "mud pie" for dessert (and ate it ALL!!). Then, we came home and played a full game of dominoes.

On Monday, Dani came with me to my school for 3 hours after talking over coffee and stopping by the grocery store while Kayle was at work. Kayle left work early so we could try going skiing again. This time, we prevailed! None of us had been skiing for about 5 years and, let's just say, the blue squares were steeper than any black diamond in Michigan. It was kind of embarrassing to see little kids smoking us all on the slopes, but we had fun and gradually grew more comfortable on skis. After several hours, a few epic falls, and a couple good bruises, we climbed back in the car utterly exhausted and sore but satisfied. We slept well that night!

On Tuesday, Dani and I took the Metro buses south to the airport. Then, I rode the buses back north to get to school for another half day. It was sad to see her go, but we got to see and do almost everything we hoped for (including seeing mountains, which usually hide this time of year). We'd love to have more people visit, and we have a nice guest room for whoever is passing through Seattle or wants to hang out for a few days...

This past week was also a busy one at school with many kids out sick with colds and many still out of "school mode" from having mid-winter break. I forgot to say that I caught the cold of one of my campers and was chewing Cold-Eeze and recovering for almost a full two weeks. Luckily I didn't catch something else too from one of my students! I'm planning a party for the kids who turn in their scholarship form by the end of the month, so that's my major side project at the moment.

Kayle had his mid-year evaluation meeting with his boss this week. It went well and his boss seemed happy with his work overall. I'm so proud of him!

On Tuesday, Kayle and I took our turn to watch the kids at our CG. We had a new family joining us with four older kids (6-10 years old) in addition to the 3-4 little ones toddling around. It was fun to babysit again! Literally everyone in one of our last meetings was pregnant, planning to be pregnant soon, or has small kids at home. So, we're the only hold-outs as far as starting a family. Not time yet for us!

On Friday, we helped out at Josh and Lexi's house, the couple leading our CG. They are having a baby SOON and needed extra hands to paint three bedrooms upstairs. We had fun painting and hanging out for 4 hours, ending the night with some fresh-baked apple crisp (yum!).

Finally, yesterday, Kayle and I attended a game night at Joe's house. It was so fun! About 15 people were there, and we played Wits and Wagers, Cranium, Blockus, and Mario Galaxy (on Wii). It was nice to see Brenda and her roommates again as well as meet some new people from Henry's group at Microsoft. Kayle and I decided we REALLY like board game parties!

Today, I helped out in the toddler room at church while Kayle ran the video for the morning service. In the afternoon, I had my first choir practice, a soprano sectional, for the Good Friday/Easter choir. I am so excited to be in a choir again, and the music we're singing is beautiful. Afterward, we both went to the 5pm service at church (since I missed the sermon in the morning). Pastor Mark preached a great message about just/unjust suffering and what we can learn from Jesus' suffering. It was a somber yet powerful reminder of just how amazingly loving Jesus is to have endured so much pain and anguish on our behalf. When we follow Jesus, we can expect to face some unjust suffering of our own. But nothing we go through is nearly as agonizing or completely scandalous as the cross of Christ. I am thankful to serve a God who can understand all depths of human suffering...

Well, I guess that's all for this week's update! I will sincerely try to continue posting weekly. We love and miss you all!

Angie (and Kayle)

Valentines' Day Pasties!

Hello everyone!

This was a really good week for both of us. On Tuesday, we were delighted to find a new CG (community group) that we want to commit to. They have a wonderful mix of ages, several married couples with kids and some without, and a great leader for the discussion of the sermons. Hopefully, this will be another great CG for deepening friendships and supporting each other. To our surprise, we already knew a few people in the group when we arrived. Cameron and her husband, Tim, were in the group- Cameron leads junior high youth group with me and is the one having a baby (I wrote something about that last week). Also, we went to a work party last year at the Brinton's home to help out with chores while Sara was on extended bed rest in the hospital. Sara and Mark along with their 3 kids (Micah, Asher, and tiny Zephan) are also regulars. I, especially, mourned the loss of our old CG, and it means a lot to me to have found a new community to invest in.

At school, I've been getting quite a few scholarship applications turned in. It seems that the promise of a party is more motivation than getting college paid for! Oh middle schoolers! (I get asked MANY times a day when the party is going to be!) One of my kids was all excited this week, because I let him borrow my Lion King movie after he finished the book in our tutoring sessions. His eyes were so wide as he recounted the details of the movie to me for about 10 minutes! He even told me stories of when he lived in Africa and a hyena got in the house and was sleeping under the bed or he had to tiptoe past a sleeping lion alone at night to get back to his home. He's such a cute kid and many of his teachers have told me they are seeing improvement. He only had about 3 years of schooling in Africa and is now placed in 7th grade because of his age- poor kid!

Two of my other kids won a pizza party with me this week. I worked with both of them last semester for social studies and still tutor one this semester for writing class. These 8th graders have a particularly tough time in school and needed a little extra motivation. They are also the type to brag endlessly about getting something that others didn't get, so I told them I would never buy pizza again if any other student asked me why they didn't get pizza too. As we were walking down the hallway with the leftovers in a box, a student asked, "Hey, how come you got pizza?" Mine lied, "Oh...that's Angie's pizza. She was helping us with extra credit during lunch." Then, as we parted ways, he yelled, "Thanks Angie, for helping me with my homework" just to make sure he kept his end of the bargain. Not exactly what I meant...too funny! It's even more amusing if you know the two kids.

Finally, I went to help out at another Americorps school's math night. Three of my team members work full-time at this elementary school and asked for some more volunteers. Carnival-themed, the math night featured a dinner and tons of booths with math games to win prizes. I worked at the kindergarten table playing "racing bears" and giving out pencils and rulers right and left. There was also a face painting table that painted math symbols on the kids' faces- it's so cute to see pi on little cheeks running around and multiplication signs on foreheads and noses!

At my team meeting, we had a great training on classroom management skills, some of which I hope to be able to apply right away for my tutoring sessions. We also watched a PBS special on housing discrimination that explains a large portion of the current gap in net worth between white and colored families (8:1!!). Since it was the day before Valentines' Day, we received a valentine from our randomly selected "secret Valentine". I got a really sweet hand-painted card and list of 10 things Autumn likes about me. It was very touching. My Valentine liked the paper heart chain I made too.

On Friday, all the offices in Kayle's building were shuffled around. Since people are hired into various teams gradually, the offices used to be pretty scattered, even for people working on the same project. Now, Kayle's entire Visual Basic team has been relocated to the 6th floor, which is really nice. Since the town of Redmond requires buildings to be no more than 6 stories, Kayle's building is the tallest around and he has a great view over the treetops of the mountains. Meanwhile, during the move, Kayle's team enjoyed a morale afternoon of playing board games together. Apparently, he also got to come home that morning and sleep in after dropping me off. I guess he used some of that morning time to write my valentine too...

For Valentines' day, I got some amazing dark chocolate that I picked out during our grocery trip last week (and Kayle hid somewhere so I wouldn't eat it early). I also received a sweet letter written during the before-mentioned morning off. Kayle received a valentine that I made with markers and construction paper at school as well as a letter. His special request was that we make pasties for dinner. So I made pasties with little heart-shaped holes in the top. We might go out for dinner today or tomorrow, but, since we had a really nice dinner out last week (prime rib and halibut), we didn't feel we needed to go out again so soon.

Yesterday, we also went to Home Depot. Kayle was doing dishes on Thursday when he went to grab the handle of the kitchen faucet to spray off some plates. To his great surprise, the handle came right off in his hand with the detached hose left squirting all over the place. Kayle got pretty wet and scrambled to turn off the water. Then, when I came into the kitchen, he turned it on again and got me pretty wet as well. It was highly annoying to do dishes with one hand constantly on the snake-like hose, so I insisted we fix it ASAP. Only $20 later, I am happy and our kitchen is clean again!

This upcoming week, I have no school (mid-winter break) so I need to attend a week of team meetings downtown instead. I have been assigned to do a presentation on the history of race relations in my home state/community. I'll be working on that all day tomorrow (President's Day) if you want to call with any input. Apparently, we are also doing yoga and dance lessons for an hour or so every day. I'll let you know how THAT goes! This upcoming weekend is also the junior high retreat.

Finally, I am excited that Kayle showed me something called a feed reader that allows me to keep track of new posts on the blogs and sites I try to follow. You can get Google Reader yourself (it has a simple instructional video on the site) by going to Google and clicking on the "more" tab at the top. Yay! Now I don't have to try to check so many websites! All the new stuff is in one place...

We love you all so much and can't wait to see you again...
Angie and Kayle

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. :)